Cianci ordered to appear in court to discuss lawyer
• A judge will decide whether Richard M. Egbert should continue to represent Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. in his corruption trial.
BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., under indictment on corruption charges, has been ordered to appear Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court to clarify issues that could force his lawyer to bow out of the case or at least bar the lawyer from cross-examining a potential government witness.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres has scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. so he can hear from Cianci and then decide whether Boston lawyer Richard M. Egbert should be allowed to continue as his lawyer.
The mayor is to appear in Torres's court -- Courtroom 3, Room 209 -- in the newly-refurbished courthouse on Kennedy Plaza.
Torres has said that Egbert would face a conflict if testimony is given by one potential rebuttal witness for the prosecution -- former city solicitor Ronald H. Glantz -- because Egbert once represented Glantz, a convicted felon.
Torres told Egbert in court last week that he wants to make sure Cianci understands that, if Glantz testifies, "that would very likely result in your disqualification to question Glantz, and possibly your disqualification in the case."
At a hearing on Jan. 31, Torres disclosed that prosecutors want to introduce testimony from Glantz about "alleged bribes and acts of extortion in which [Cianci] was alleged to have participated between 1976 and 1983" -- long before the time period he is accused of similar offenses in the indictment set to be tried in April.
The judge told the government that such evidence would be inadmissible in the prosecution's main case but that, depending on what testimony Cianci offers, and what character witnesses he presents, the government might have the right to present testimony from Glantz in rebuttal.
It is unclear what position Egbert and the U.S. Attorney's office are taking pertaining to Egbert's continued representation of Cianci. The lawyers have filed memoranda of law with Torres, which gives their positions, but the memos have not been placed in the public record, and a gag order issued by the judge prohibits the lawyers and defendants from talking.
Egbert has said in court that if he were to be disqualified, it would take a new lawyer at least a year to prepare for Cianci's trial.
Yesterday, Torres held another pretrial hearing in the case and denied a motion from Frank E. Corrente, Cianci's former top aide, to dismiss one of the conspiracy counts Corrente is charged with.
Corrente's lawyer, C. Leonard O'Brien, argued that the government had charged Corrente twice for the same offense, violating his right to avoid being placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense.
O'Brien asked the court to dismiss either a conspiracy to commit extortion count or a conspiracy to commit mail fraud charge because both, argued O'Brien, are based on the same allegations. Those allegations accuse Corrente and former tax official Joseph A. Pannone -- who has agreed to plead guilty to several counts of the indictment -- of conspiring to seek money from Antonio R. Freitas, a local businessman and undercover witness for the government, in exchange for facilitating payments on invoices Freitas had submitted to the City Hall for work performed.
The defense lawyer urged Torres to dismiss the conspiracy to commit extortion count because he argued that it is a lesser offense, included in the mail fraud count.
"There is no need to split an alleged criminal agreement into slices not integral to the whole," O'Brien argued.
Prosecutor Richard Rose opposed the defense motion, saying that the object of each alleged conspiracy was different and that both conspiracy counts contain different elements.
The judge agreed with the government's position.
The government, Torres said, alleges in the extortion-conspiracy count that Corrente and Pannone conspired to obtain money from Freitas, the owner of JKL Engineering, in exchange for facilitating the payment of invoices due to JKL from the City of Providence.
The mail fraud conspiracy count also relates to the payment of invoices due to JKL, the judge said, but does not charge the obtaining of money by the defendants. Instead, it charges the defrauding of the City of Providence and its citizens of the right of honest service from its officials and using the mail to execute that scheme.
The judge said that "there are two entirely different victims and kinds of harm" alleged in each conspiracy count.
Torres also said that "a single act or single course of conduct can violate two different statutes," and that each count alleged in the indictment contains elements that the other does not.
Whether the government will be able to prove the elements of each crime is unknown at this point, the judge said, adding that that was not the issue before him now.
"If each statute requires proof of an element the other does not, double-jeopardy does not bar prosecution for both offenses," Torres said.
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