• The former Providence tax official faces heavy fines and 85 additional years in prison, but his sentencing will follow the trials of Mayor Cianci and others.
BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Joseph A. Pannone, the 80-year-old former chairman of the city's tax board, yesterday admitted to participating in a racketeering enterprise that the prosecutor said was "led by" Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and his former top aide, Frank E. Corrente.
Journal illustration / Frank Gerardi GUILTY PLEA: Former Providence tax official Joseph A. Pannone, center,
pleads guilty to charges of racketeering and extortion Friday, March 15, before
U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres. Pannone’s lawyer, David Levy, is at
left.
Pannone, who is already serving a five-year term in a federal correctional medical center in Ayer, Mass., now faces up to 85 additional years in prison and fines of up to $1.25 million.
As part of a plea agreement worked out last month with prosecutors in the City Hall corruption case that federal officials have dubbed Operation Plunder Dome, Pannone yesterday pleaded guilty to six racketeering and extortion related charges, and the government agreed to recommend a lesser sentence than called for under federal sentencing guidelines.
"They're all true," Pannone said about the charges when questioned by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ernest C. Torres.
Pannone won't be sentenced until after the trials of Cianci and Corrente and the other defendants in the case -- Artin H. Coloian, the mayor's chief of staff; tow operator Richard E. Autiello; and Edward E. Voccola, a felon who got a lucrative lease with the city's School Department.
Torres set July 17 as the date for Pannone's sentencing. The other defendants, except for Coloian, are scheduled to go to trial the week of April 15. Coloian's trial will begin as soon as the other one ends.
Pannone's lawyer, David Levy, said after the court session that he did anticipate Pannone being called as a witness against his co-defendants. There is nothing in his plea agreement which requires him to testify in that way.
In exchange for Pannone's guilty pleas to the six counts of racketeering, racketeering-conspiracy, conspiracy to commit extortion and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office will ask Torres -- at the time of sentencing -- to dismiss the remaining seven charges against the former chairman of the Providence Board of Tax Assessment Review.
Bound by leg shackles and handcuffs, Pannone shuffled into Torres's courtroom wearing starched blue jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt. He had been brought to the courthouse from the hospital section of the federal prison at Fort Devens in Ayer, where he is incarcerated. In December 1999, Pannone pleaded guilty to 14 charges related to taking bribes in exchange for tax favors.
At that time, he had agreed to cooperate with investigators, hoping to earn a more lenient sentence. But six weeks after pleading guilty to those charges, the the government revoked its agreement, saying Pannone had failed to fully cooperate.
In court yesterday, Asst. Atty. Gen. Richard W. Rose told the court that Pannone had participated in a racketeering enterprise led by Mayor Cianci and Corrente and that the enterprise was run "to enrich" Cianci, his campaign organization and others associated with it "through extortion, mail fraud, bribery, money laundering and witness tampering."
The federal prosecutor said Pannone had been videotaped "explaining the scope of the enterprise, its function and leaders and the defendant's specific role."
At the time, Pannone was the chairman of a city board responsible for granting reductions on commercial and residential property values.
Rose said Pannone accepted bribes for himself ranging from $300 to $5,000. One of the conspiracy charges to which Pannone pleaded guilty 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.
Rose said the estate paid $100,000 to settle the case with the city. The prosecutor said the Pannone himself pocketed $5,000 in cash "for ensuring passage of the tax reduction by the tax board."
Pannone also pleaded guilty to taking part in an alleged conspiracy with Corrente to extort money from property owner Antonio Freitas and his company, JKL Engineering, to help Freitas obtain a lease with the city's School Department. Freitas, who went undercover for the FBI and posed as a corrupt businessman, became the government's star witness in the probe of City Hall corruption, recording more than 180 meetings and conversations with city officials.
Rose said yesterday that Pannone told Freitas that if he got the School Department lease, Freitas would have to pay him $500 a month. The deal was never consummated.
Pannone also pleaded guilty to conspiring with Corrente in 1998 to get bribes from Freitas in return for helping to expedite payments on past-due invoices that Freitas's engineering company had submitted for work it had performed for the city. Rose said Pannone received two payments from Freitas for this: one of $300 and a second of $800.
The former tax board chair also admitted conspiring with Corrente to obtain cash for official acts, thereby depriving Providence taxpayers of their honest service.
Pannone, who had open-heart surgery before reporting to prison in the fall of 2000, has been living since last October in the hospital section of Fort Devens, according to Levy. Pannone told Torres yesterday that he was taking a myriad of medicines for his heart condition, blood-pressure problems and dizziness. He also told the court, "My hearing ain't that great, judge" but that he still fully understood everything he was pleading guilty to.
Pannone said he had not read the plea agreement, but that his lawyer had read it to him and "I trust my lawyer."
"You understand this is an irrevocable decision on your part," Torres asked him.
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