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5.25.2001 00:05
Some secrecy
in Plunder Dome
might be lifted
• Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres indicates that too much of the court file is under seal.
BY TRACEY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- The federal judge overseeing the corruption case against Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and his five co-defendants has issued an order that might lead to more information about the case being made public.
But lawyers representing the defendants are still filing motions to keep material sealed in the case -- including the mayor's arguments objecting to a motion that has been filed by the U.S. Attorney's office to disqualify Boston lawyer Richard M. Egbert from representing him.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres, in an order filed late Wednesday in the Operation Plunder Dome corruption case, set up a mechanism that he said should "greatly diminish the number of documents filed under seal" in the case, and might also pave the way for historically private memoranda of law to be put in the public court file.
Since last month, when Torres was named to preside over the case, defense and prosecution lawyers have been engaged in a flurry of secret filings, leaving the public in the dark about most of the latest developments.
And last week, Torres issued a sweeping gag order that prohibits the mayor and his co-defendants, their lawyers, prosecutors, witnesses, potential witnesses, law-enforcement officials involved in the investigation and court personnel from releasing information outside of that already in the public record. It also restricts comment on the case.
But Torres, in Wednesday's order, seemed to signal that too much in the case is being kept private now.
"It has been the long-standing practice in this District that memoranda filed by counsel in support of motions or objections to motions are not . . . put in the court file but instead, are transmitted to the judge to whom the case is assigned," Torres wrote.
However, he said, because "numerous requests for access to such memoranda have been made in this case, and since there does not appear to be any good reason for not permitting such access," he will now forward such memos to the public court file, after reviewing them to make sure they did do not contain secret material relating to grand jury matters or other material that the court has ordered be kept secret.
The judge said he would not redact or edit any memorandafiled with the court, , so if there is anything in the memos that relates to grand jury material or other material governed by a non-disclosure order previously issued by the court, they will remain sealed.
Torres also instructed lawyers not to refer to such secret material in any motions or objections unless it is absolutely necessary.
But he told the lawyers they should still seal documents that pertain to grand jury matters and those affected by his gag order and that he would review each to determine whether they should remain sealed.
Torres's gag order has made the lawyers in the case reluctant to talk about the case and has led them to continue to file almost everything under seal.
Earlier this week, Egbert, on behalf of Cianci, filed a motion to seal his response to the government's request to disqualify him as Cianci's lawyer -- a matter that Torres has scheduled for a public hearing on June 26. The U.S. Attorney's office claims Egbert should be barred from representing the mayor because of as yet unspecified "possible conflicts of interest."
Egbert, at Cianci's recommendation, was hired by the city last year to represent it in a yet-to-be-filed civil rights/wrongful death suit by the estate of slain Providence police officer Cornel Young Jr.
More recently, the city paid Egbert $31,328 to defend Cianci in a now-settled civil racketeering and whistleblower's suit filed by Christopher J. Ise, a city planner who said he paid a $5,000 bribe to get hired. That allegation is now part of the criminal case against Cianci.
Cianci, in court papers filed this week, indicates that despite the government's objection, he wants Egbert to remain his criminal defense attorney.
Also this week, C. Leonard O'Brien, the lawyer representing the mayor's former top aide, Frank E. Corrente, filed a motion to seal his objection to the unsealing of certain pleadings and his memorandum in support of his motion to keep these things secret.
But in line with his new order, Torres yesterday unsealed a legal memorandum filed last week by lawyer Mark L. Smith, the lawyer for Cianci's campaign organization. Smith is asking that a restraining order freezing the campaign's assets be vacated or modified so it can pay its creditors.
Smith's memorandum and attached papers show that following a pattern, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets, Friends of Cianci has been slow to pay some of its bills.
The campaign owes $6,382 to Smith for services rendered as far back as August, when, after a Providence Sunday Journal story, the state Board of Elections and the Rhode Island attorney general's Office started investigating some of the campaign's expenditures.
Smith's bill shows that "Vincent Cianci" paid him $2,000 on April 9 -- one week after his indictment, and six days after Torres froze the three bank and brokerage accounts of the Friends of Cianci. But Smith is still owed $6,382.
Last May, The Journal reported that Cianci had spent thousands of dollars in campaign money on personal expenses in recent years, including Christmas parties, personal holiday gifts and birthday parties for his two grandchildren. A statewide grand jury has been investigating the campaign expenditures for several months.
Smith's court filing also shows that the campaign owes $11,304.65 to American Express, $1,366.94 to Cingular Wireless, $1,611.51 to Finest Car Wash, $224.98 to Haxton's Liquors, $511.41 to Ross Simon's and almost $1,350 to the Rhode Island Division of Taxation. The outstanding bills total $33,161.23.
Smith also says that checks totaling $36,058.48 are likely to bounce because Torres ordered frozen the assets of the Cianci campaign.
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