• The order would keep from the public information about testimony and documents each side is planning to use in the corruption trial.
BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Under court order, prosecution and defense lawyers yesterday exchanged lists of witnesses and documents they plan to use in the upcoming trial of Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and his codefendants so that each side in the corruption case has a better idea of what the other plans to present to the jury.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lovegreen, in an order issued in the case, has placed the lists under seal, and unless the judge who is presiding over the Operation Plunder Dome case enters another order placing them in the court file, the lists won't be made public before the case is tried.
The trial of Cianci; his former top aide, Frank E. Corrente; Richard E. Autiello, a Providence tow operator and body shop owner; and convicted felon Edward E. Voccola, who received a lucrative lease with the city's School Department -- is now less than a month away. Jury selection is scheduled to begin the week of April 15. The trial is expected to last about eight weeks.
Another defendant in the case, Cianci's chief of staff, Artin H. Coloian, won a court hearing to have his case tried separately from the others. He is to be tried immediately following the other defendants.
A sixth defendant in the case, former tax board chairman Joseph A. Pannone, who is already serving a five-year federal prison term on bribery charges, pleaded guilty last Friday to six racketeering and extortion-related charges. His lawyer says he does not expect Pannone to be called as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of his codefendants even though his sentencing has been put off until July 17. But it is likely that the government will use videotapes on which Pannone appears in presenting its case against the others.
Asst. U.S. Attorney Richard W. Rose said last Friday at Pannone's plea hearing 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."
Rose said the 80-year-old Pannone had been videotaped "explaining the scope of the enterprise, its function and leaders and the defendant's specific role."
Yesterday, in a hearing before Lovegreen, lawyers for Corrente and Autiello complained that the government still hadn't been specific enough about what evidence it intends to use to prove one of the bribery-conspiracy counts the defendants are charged with.
But Asst. U.S. Attorney Terrence Donnelly said the defendants have been given everything to which they are entitled, calling arguments made by the defense "hyperbole." He asserted that the defense was just "seeking a tactical advantage to restrict unduly the government's ability to present its case."
The count at issue at yesterday's hearing alleged that Cianci, Corrente and Autiello conspired to demand about $250,000 in campaign contributions for the Friends of Cianci from tow operators who wanted to keep their positions on the Providence Police Department's tow list.
The alleged offenses occurred between January 1991 and October 1999. The defense lawyers want the prosecution to provide the specific dates of each transaction, who paid the money and how much; exactly what people "are connected to each transaction" and the precise "thing of value of $5,000 or more" that the tow operators received in return for the money they contributed.
"We want the court to grant further particulars in this case to prevent surprise at trial and to assist the defendants in the trial of this case," said Richard Bicki, Autiello's lawyer.
"The indictment" he argued, "makes bare-bones allegations over a period of 10 years" and alleges "a conspiracy that purportedly lasts over 10 years."
Bicki accused the U.S. Attorney's office of engaging in "document dumping" on the defendants. "We submit in this case, too much discovery is not enough," he said.
Bicki said the defendants want to know more about what the government intends to submit to prove the conspiracy allegation. Bicki cited an appellate ruling from New York where a conviction was reversed because the government had dumped 4,000 documents on the defense in a case were 15 burglaries were alleged. The government had not specified what exactly it was relying upon in the 4,000 documents to prove its case.
"We would welcome a 4,000-document case," Bicki told Lovegreen. "We have hundreds of thousands of documents to go through in this case . . . "
He urged Lovegreen to force the government to divulge the specific dates and times of each allegedly illegal payment made by the towing companies; the specific people involved in each payment and who produced the money and "the circumstances of" each payment.
Bicki said it is crucial to know more because the government alleges that there were $360,000-to-$370,000 contributions made by the tow operators over the decade at issue "yet their summary shows $254,000 in contributions made by" the towers.
"We ask this court to provide a gate-keeping function . . . so we have a clean trial . . . that is fair . . . " the defense lawyer argued.
But prosecutor Donnelly objected to Bicki's argument, saying "there's been no document dumping in this case."
He noted that the count at issue is a conspiracy count, "a continuing offense, not "specific transactions."
"Everything's all laid out for them at this point," the prosecutor said. "We've done all we can to try to make this a fair trial."
Donnelly said there are "less than 1,100 exhibits" the government intends to introduce at trial but that 400 of those "are simply checks made out to the Friends of Cianci by various campaign contributors."
C. Leonard O'Brien, Corrente's lawyer, said he wanted to know which of those 400 check transactions "are criminal acts."
Lovegreen said he would issue a decision in the matter at a later date, probably in writing.
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