• The former Tax Assessment Review Board chairman, 78, is already serving a five-year federal sentence for earlier charges of City Hall corruption.
BY W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Joseph A. Pannone, former tax-board chairman, has agreed to plead guilty to six rackeetering and extortion-related charges stemming from his role in Operation Plunder Dome, the federal investigation into City Hall corruption.
Pannone, 78, becomes the first of six defendants indicted with Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. in a sweeping 30-count indictment last April to agree to admit that he committed crimes.
Pannone, who is serving a five-year federal prison sentence in Massachusetts on other charges related to City Hall corruption, signed the plea agreement on Feb. 14. It was filed in U.S. District Court yesterday.
No date has been set for his sentencing.
In exchange for the guilty pleas, federal prosecutors have agreed to drop six other federal corruption charges. The agreement makes no mention that Pannone will cooperate with the government.
"This agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties," the plea agreement reads. "No other promises or inducements have been made concerning the plea in this case."
Last April, Pannone, Cianci and four others were indicted and accused of engaging in a broad range of criminal activity that revolved around City Hall.
The others indicted are Frank E. Corrente, former chief of administration; Artin H. Coloian, chief of staff; Richard E. Autiello, who runs a city garage and towing company; and Edward E. Voccola, a felon who had a lucrative lease with the School Department.
They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their trial is scheduled to begin on April 15.
Among the charges that Pannone has agreed to plead guilty are the most serious crimes that allegedly involve Cianci and Corrente.
One of the extortion-conspiracy charges involves an alleged plot in which Cianci, Corrente and Pannone allegedly extorted $15,000 in bribes from the estate of buckle manufacturer Fernando M. Ronci to waive $450,000 in back property taxes in the fall of 1998.
At the time, Pannone was chairman of the Providence Board of Tax Assessment Review, a city agency responsible for granting reductions on commercial and residential property values.
Other charges involve allegations that Pannone went to Corrente on behalf of Antonio Freitas, the FBI's star witness who secretly recorded more than 180 conversations and meetings with city officials.
Freitas posed as a corrupt businessman looking to pay off city officials in exchange for city leases.
The indictment alleges that Pannone tried to enthrone Freitas as the successor to Voccola after the FBI started looking into leases that Voccola held with the School Department.
"Frank," Pannone allegedly said, "the mayor can make for his next campaign at least $25,000 a year" from Freitas as bribes.
The charges that the government has agreed to drop include mail fraud and extortion-related charges involving smaller sums of money -- $1,000, $800 and $300.
The plea agreement marks the second time that Pannone has agreed to plead guilty to crimes arising from Operation Plunder Dome.
On Dec. 6, 1999, he pleaded guilty to 14 charges related to taking bribes in exchange for tax favors. He agreed to cooperate with investigators, hoping to earn a more lenient sentence.
Six weeks later, the deal fell apart. The government revoked its agreement, saying Pannone had failed to fully cooperate.
On July 7, 2000, U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux sentenced Pannone to five years in prison, saying that the former tax official had fallen into a culture of corruption tolerated in Cianci's City Hall.
A few weeks later, Pannone underwent open-heart surgery, which delayed his reporting date to prison. Since the fall of 2000, Pannone has spent his time in federal prisons in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
In a prison interview last year, Pannone said that he doesn't deserve to be locked up with violent criminals.
"They're making a hard-core criminal out of me," he said laughing nervously. "I belong in a camp for the crime I committed. I don't belong with drug dealers, murderers, rapists."
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