|
|
11.27.2001 00:05
Talk-show host, Plunder Dome suspect spar
• Lawyers for WHJJ's John DePetro and Artin H. Coloian, chief of staff to Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., have stepped in after the two apparently had words in a Providence restaurant.
BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- A Friday night barroom encounter between the mayor's chief of staff and a radio talk-show host has escalated into accusations of threats, harassment and publicity stunts.
Two Fridays ago, at the elegant Raphael's Bar Risto in Union Station downtown, WHJJ talk-show host John DePetro was at the bar with friends while Artin H. Coloian, chief of staff to Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., was having dinner with friends.
A short time later, Coloian, who is under indictment on corruption charges in Operation Plunder Dome, and DePetro, who is under subpoena in a related inquiry into a videotape leaked to the media, encountered one another in the men's room.
What happened next has become a point of contention.
DePetro says that Coloian demanded to know what DePetro was doing at Raphael's and began cursing his radio show, which has been strongly critical of Cianci, Coloian and City Hall corruption.
Coloian counters that DePetro is a publicity seeker and that he taunted Coloian by telling him that the FBI was going to nail him on corruption charges. Coloian says that he told DePetro to leave him alone, and that they briefly exchanged unpleasantries.
A short time later, DePetro and Coloian agree, the confrontation continued at the bar.
Bobby Lauro, a retired Providence police detective who knows both men, came into Raphael's and saw DePetro, who told him what had happened in the men's room.
Lauro later stopped by Coloian's table, and in the course of their conversation urged Coloian to bury the hatchet with DePetro. At that point, Coloian says, he walked from the dining room to the bar to see DePetro.
"If he was sending me a message, there was no reason to deliver it through a third party," Coloian says.
According to Coloian, DePetro repeated his remark from the men's room, that "Dennis is going to get you." Coloian says he took that as a reference to W. Dennis Aiken, the lead FBI agent in Operation Plunder Dome, whose investigation led to Coloian's indictment last spring on charges that he accepted a $5,000 bribe on Cianci's behalf.
"DePetro was speaking with two or three women," Coloian says. "He seemed to be putting on a show. I told him, 'Aren't you ashamed of making a living the way you do?' "
The conversation was calm, Coloian says, and then he walked away and left Raphael's.
DePetro disputes that. He says that Coloian came "charging" into the bar, tapped him on the shoulder to indicate he wanted to talk to him, then got within a few inches of DePetro's face and demanded to know why he was at Raphael's.
"It was like he was waiting for me to bump him so he could start a fight," DePetro says. "If I moved to my right, he moved with me. If I moved to my left, he moved with me."
DePetro says that Coloian told him, "you're not welcome in this city."
John Mancini, a friend of DePetro's, says that he was standing a few feet away and saw Coloian confront DePetro.
"He got in John's face and was talking to him in a very aggressive tone," Mancini says. "I heard him saying things like, 'What are you doing in my city?' and 'You're not welcome here.' It was obvious that he was confronting John."
Tom Gammino, who was having dinner with Coloian, says that he did not hear Coloian say anything derogatory to DePetro.
Gammino also backed up Coloian's account of what transpired in the men's room, saying that he was there. DePetro disputes that, saying that he and Coloian were alone.
Lauro -- who was reluctant to be drawn into the middle of a disagreement he calls "not that big a thing" -- says that he saw Coloian and DePetro arguing and stepped in to break it up.
"I said to Art, 'Let's go outside,' " Lauro says. "It wasn't good for him to be arguing in public like that."
DePetro and his friend Mancini say that Lauro and Gammino escorted Coloian from the restaurant.
Coloian and Gammino, however, dispute that, saying that Coloian walked away voluntarily.
Outside, Lauro says, Coloian talked about going back inside to apologize to DePetro, but Lauro urged him to just leave.
"Art was upset at things that John said on the radio about Plunder Dome," Lauro says. "Art takes it personally."
Coloian disputes that, saying that he had nothing to apologize for.
But he agreed with Lauro that he's not a big fan of DePetro, the self-styled "Independent Man."
"DePetro uses falsehoods and twists things to get ratings," Coloian says. "It's known as a very low-level program."
Three days after the encounter at Raphael's, DePetro's lawyer, Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., wrote Coloian's lawyer, saying that DePetro had been "harassed and threatened" by Coloian.
"Without provocation, Mr. Coloian acted irrationally," Cavanagh wrote. "It was upsetting and embarrassing for Mr. DePetro to be involved with an unnecessary public incident of this nature."
If it happens again, Cavanagh warned, DePetro will "take appropriate steps."
Meanwhile, DePetro is awaiting a federal court hearing on whether he will have to testify for a special counsel investigating the leak of a Plunder Dome videotape to Channel 10 (WJAR-TV). It is not clear what the counsel wants to ask DePetro, but the counsel did visit convicted tax official Joseph Pannone in prison to ask him about his contacts with DePetro.
The day after receiving Cavanagh's letter regarding the Raphael's incident, Coloian's lawyer, John A. Tarantino, wrote back. He disputed DePetro's account of what was "plainly an unfortunate incident, regardless of whose version of the facts one were to accept."
Consequently, Tarantino has advised Coloian to avoid any contact with DePetro. And he expressed his hope that, likewise, DePetro will stay away from Coloian.
|
|
|
