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4.12.2001 00:13
R.I.'s top federal judge will take Plunder Dome cases
 Ernest C. Torres confirms the assignment after two other jurists had recused themselves earlier this week.
BY W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres knows the glare of the media spotlight.
In the past decade, he presided over the cases of former Pawtucket Mayor Brian J. Sarault and members of his administration who were convicted of corruption charges and sent to prison. He is the only federal judge in New England and one of just a handful in the nation to sentence a criminal to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Now, through default, Torres is assigned to what promises to be one of the biggest cases in state history: The United States versus Vincent A. Cianci Jr.
"One of the biggest challenges is to ensure that the case is conducted in a way that is fair and dignified," Torres said yesterday. "The last thing I want to see happen is to see this thing turn into a circus-type atmosphere."
That has never happened with Torres. With his evenhanded style and reserved temperament, he projects an aura of formality that creates a controlled atmosphere in his courtroom.
Lawyers Kevin J. Bristow and Michael J. Lepizzera, both of Providence, said that Cianci and the five others indicted with him last week can expect Torres to be well-prepared and impartial.
"He'll give them a very fair trial," Bristow said. "That's the honest-to-God truth."
Added Lepizzera: "I think he's going to do his job. He's going to do justice. I don't think the media's going to have any effect on his role."
Bristow and Lepizzera said that Torres has a reputation as a hard worker and he expects nothing less from the lawyers who appear before him.
U.S. District Judges Ronald R. Lagueux and Mary M. Lisi recused themselves from the case this week without explanation. Torres, who is responsible for administrative oversight of the court, said the judges did not explain their decisions to him, nor did he ask them their reasons.
Meanwhile yesterday, C. Leonard O'Brien, the Providence lawyer defending Frank E. Corrente, Cianci's former top aide, who is also under indictment, said that he plans to ask the court to take action against the lead prosecutor in the Operation Plunder Dome investigation.
O'Brien hired a private investigator who discovered that Asst. U.S. Attorney Richard W. Rose played a secret undercover videotape from the probe for his sister and two friends.
Also, The Journal filed a motion yesterday asking the court to unseal a 94-page affidavit that details alleged corruption in City Hall. Investigators drafted the sworn document to obtain warrants for the searches of City Hall and other Providence city offices on April 28, 1999, the day Operation Plunder Dome became public.
In July 1999, Lagueux ordered the affidavit sealed, saying that its contents could derail a grand jury investigation by identifying possible targets. Now that Cianci and five others have been indicted, the Journal believes the document should be made public.
There's no question that the cases against Cianci and his co-defendants will keep Torres, who said he has no intention of recusing himself, busy for months.
Torres, who is trim with dark hair, and looks considerably younger than his 59 years, doesn't shy away from hard work.
He was raised in New Bedford, Mass., the son of a firefighter and homemaker. He attended public schools in the seaport city and worked summers as a janitor, carpenter and garbage man.
Torres, the first in his family to attend college, earned an academic scholarship to Dartmouth College, where he majored in government and played football and baseball.
He taught chemistry for two years at preparatory schools in Connecticut before he enrolled at Duke University Law School.
Torres worked as an associate at Hinckley, Allen, Salisbury & Parsons in Providence, and was later a partner at the Providence firm of Tillinghast, Collins & Graham.
In 1980, he was appointed a Superior Court judge, but resigned five years later so he could make more money to send his three children to college. He worked as assistant vice president in charge of national staff counsel at Aetna Life Insurance Co., in Hartford, Conn.
In 1988, on the nomination of Sen. John H. Chafee, President Reagan appointed Torres to the federal bench.
Three years later, Torres was presiding over the criminal cases of Sarault, members of his corrupt administration and contractors who bribed city officials to get city work.
At sentencing, Torres, who once served as a Republican state legislator, had little sympathy for the greedy public officials. In fact, Torres deviated from the federal sentencing guidelines and gave Sarault 51/2 years in prison, nine months more than the recommended maximum.
He called Sarault's actions "a breach of the public trust on a massive scale," that left many victims in its wake. "The court cannot make all those victims whole," he said. "But it can send a message that abuse of public trust will be dealt with severely."
In 1995, Torres presided over the trial of mobsters Gerard T. Ouimette and Bobby DeLuca. He calmly oversaw the case as felons, strippers and underworld figures took the stand or stopped by the packed courtroom.
In the end, the jury returned guilty verdicts against both men. Torres sentenced Ouimette to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He was only the fourth judge in the nation to sentence a criminal under the "three-strikes-and-you're out" provision of the 1994 federal anticrime bill, which mandates the sentence for criminals convicted of three or more violent crimes.
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