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7.13.2001 00:05
Official
lied to
FBI about
club, says
prosecutor
• A federal prosecutor says the city's chief building inspector lied when he denied that Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. had pressured him to block renovations at the University Club.
BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVDIENCE
-- The city's chief building inspector lied to the FBI about Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.'s efforts to block renovations at the University Club, a federal prosecutor said yesterday.
The prosecutor said that Ramzi J. Loqa, director of the city's Department of Inspection and Standards, lied when he denied that Cianci had pressured him regarding the club's applications for construction variances.
Loqa subsequently received immunity from prosecution and testified to a federal grand jury about Cianci, the prosecutor revealed. Loqa has been identified as a government witness in Cianci's racketeering and corruption case.
Among the charges that Cianci faces are allegations that he extorted a free lifetime membership from the club in exchange for the city's dropping its opposition to the club's renovations in 1998. The extortion came, the government alleges, years after the exclusive East Side club had blocked Cianci's efforts to become a member.
The indictment charges that Cianci contacted Loqa in the summer of 1998 and at least two members of the city's Building Board of Review and demanded rejection of the University Club's application.
Subsequently, the mayor allegedly threatened to fire any city employee who helped the University Club, vowed to turn the club into a BYOB ("Bring Your Own Bottle") establishment and threatened to tie up the club for months in court to keep it from reopening.
Asst. U.S. Atty. Terrence P. Donnelly made the disclosures regarding Loqa in federal court at a hearing into whether a lawyer for another Operation Plunder Dome defendant, Frank E. Corrente, had a conflict of interest in representing Corrente.
The potential conflict involved Corrente lawyer C. Leonard O'Brien's previous representation of Loqa in the Plunder Dome investigation of the University Club matter.
Corrente, who was Cianci's administration director and campaign treasurer, is not named as a defendant in the charges involving the University Club. But Donnelly said that Corrente did have discussions with Loqa regarding the club's troubles securing building permits, including a meeting with Loqa and Cianci in the mayor's office.
That raised the question of whether O'Brien could aggressively cross-examine Loqa in a trial.
Donnelly conceded that any potential conflict is minimized by the fact that Loqa has received immunity, and therefore faces no criminal liability.
Loqa and Corrente also have submitted waivers to the court saying they would have no problem with O'Brien continuing to represent Corrente.
Given those circumstances, Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres ruled that O'Brien can continue to represent Corrente -- provided that Loqa submits an additional affidavit that he would have no problem with O'Brien aggressively representing Corrente, without regard to Loqa's interest.
IN THE SUMMER
of 1999, in the months after the federal corruption probe of Providence City Hall had become public, the FBI questioned Loqa about the University Club.
Loqa "lied on several material aspects" of the matter, Donnelly said. Later, when confronted with those lies, Loqa hired O'Brien, Donnelly said.
O'Brien negotiated a standard proffer agreement prior to Loqa's second interview with the FBI, to protect Loqa from self-incrimination. At that meeting, Donnelly said, Loqa acknowledged that he had lied when he denied that Cianci pressured him about the University Club, as well as "other aspects about his contacts and communication" with Cianci regarding the matter.
Subsequently, Donnelly said, Loqa received immunity and testified to the grand jury.
Further details of Loqa's testimony remain under seal. While Loqa still works for Cianci, the mayor is under a court order, following his April 2 indictment, to have no discussions with the building inspector about the University Club.
Cianci is charged with a wide range of offenses involving bribery for city actions, including the University Club affair.
The indictment charges that Cianci directed his then-assistant city solicitor, Patricia McLaughlin, to serve notice that the city would go to court to block the club from reopening after the state Building Board of Review had reversed the city's rejection of the club's variances.
Shortly thereafter, the indictment says, a University Club member asked Cianci to speak at the unveiling of a Korean War Memorial and also at a follow-up luncheon at the University Club. The mayor advised the member that he should find another place for the luncheon because the club would not be opening, the indictment charges.
Two days later, Cianci received word that he had been made an honorary member. After the mayor was presented with his membership card, the indictment says, the city dropped its opposition and the club was allowed to reopen.
The government raised two other potential conflicts involving O'Brien.
One was that O'Brien is the lawyer for Paul Calenda, a mob associate and businessman whose then wife, Gail-Ann Calenda, paid a $5,000 bribe to secure property-tax reductions on land that they owned.
O'Brien said that he has never represented Gail-Ann Calenda, a potential witness in Corrente's trial. Donnelly said that Paul Calenda would not be called to testify.
The other potential conflict involved O'Brien's representation of Frank Corrente last fall in a civil suit filed against him and the city by Christopher Ise, a city planner who was fired from his job after a Providence Journal story revealed that Ise had paid a $5,000 bribe to get hired.
The suit was subsequently settled with Ise's rehiring. The alleged Ise bribe is part of the current criminal case against Cianci and Corrente.
Torres was satisifed that there was no conflict after O'Brien assured him that he had represented Corrente in his personal capacity, not as a city official.
Finally, Torres asked Corrente whether he was comfortable with O'Brien as his laywer.
"Mr. O'Brien will defend me to the utmost," Corrente replied. " . . . He's interested in my interest, and I like that."
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