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4.27.2001 00:05
Judge releases
Voccola, orders
home confinement
BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Edward E. Voccola, accused with Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. of racketeering in Operation Plunder Dome, will be going home to Cranston.
But, a federal judge warned yesterday, there will be no animal tongues, no black roses and no threatening letters or phone calls. Otherwise, Voccola -- whom the government argues is a threat to intimidate witnesses -- will be back in prison.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lovegreen ordered Voccola released on $100,000 surety bond, with tight restrictions, including home confinement at his house at 165 Glen Hills Drive, Cranston.
One reason for Lovegreen's decision: The case against Voccola, Cianci and their four codefendants likely would not come to trial until March 2002, given the extensive amount of discovery in the case.
Cianci, Voccola and others are charged with racketeering in a scheme in which Voccola allegedly paid bribes to the mayor in return for a $1.3-million School Department lease.
Lovegreen said that he was reluctant to release Voccola, whom he had ordered held without bail at a hearing April 3, but that he felt the law required him to give Voccola a chance to behave himself.
Voccola, 72, a convicted felon whose arrest record spans three decades, wasn't actually freed yesterday. His family will have to come up with $100,000 in property or other assets first.
But when Voccola is released, Lovegreen admonished him not to violate the strict terms of his freedom, or to have any contact, directly or indirectly, with certain witnesses in Operation Plunder Dome.
"If you do, I'll apply my 'Toothbrush Rule,' " Lovegreen said. "In other words, bring your toothbrush to court, because you're not going home."
Asst. U.S. Atty. Richard W. Rose argued that Voccola should remain behind bars because of a pattern of witness intimidation in past cases, as well as in Operation Plunder Dome.
Rose said that a former Voccola employee expected to testify at Cianci's trial, Roger Cavaca, had been threatened through a letter to his adult daughter.
The letter, Rose said, specifically mentioned Cavaca's cooperation with the government in Operation Plunder Dome. Other details of the letter, including the date, were not disclosed in court yesterday.
However, Voccola's lawyer, William Murphy, said that the FBI questioned Voccola's daughter, Patricia Forte, who was in the courtroom yesterday, about the letter and took handwriting samples from her.
Rose also said that Voccola's efforts at possible intimidation are "sophisticated and subtle." When Voccola was imprisoned in Pennsylvania in 1997 and 1998, Rose said, there are recordings of guarded conversations between him and Patricia Forte regarding what various witnesses are doing and where they are.
"This defendant has a habit of obstructing justice and intimidating witnesses whenever he's in trouble," Rose said. "He's devious, with a record of circumventing court orders."
The restrictions of home confinement, Rose argued, would do nothing to prevent Voccola from using a cell phone, for instance, to orchestrate threats against Cavaca or others.
In 1995, Voccola was convicted on racketeering charges for defrauding 12 insurance companies by staging phony auto accidents. In that case, Rose noted, an insurance investigator received an animal tongue, spray-painted black roses, and telephone calls to her pager with the phone numbers of various funeral homes.
Furthermore, Rose said, when the Rhode Island State Police went to Maine to pick up another witness in that case, they found the witness at the local police station in Maine, in fear because he had been warned not to come to Rhode Island.
Murphy, Voccola's lawyer, argued yesterday that Voccola was never charged in those incidents. He also said that Voccola was willing to forgo certain rights of appeal if he is caught violating any conditions of his release, and be returned immediately to prison.
Lovegreen, noting the massive discovery in the case, said that he would release Voccola in part to afford him a better opportunity to prepare with his lawyer for his defense.
"Personally, I'm still not comfortable, but the law requires me to at least give him an opportunity," Lovegreen said.
Still, he said, Voccola, who lives alone, is only to leave home to go to his lawyer's office, medical appointments, the probation office or church. And he is not to leave Rhode Island. He was also ordered to pay $4.25 per day in costs for his home confinement.
Lovegreen also took note of Voccola's attempts in 1995, prior to going to prison for insurance fraud, to win permission to take a trip to the Holy Land. The request was denied, after prosecutors showed that Voccola had lied about winning the trip.
"There is no reason on earth that Mr. Voccola will be leaving Rhode Island," Lovegreen said. "There are no trips to the Holy Land that you're going to win this time. If I even catch you in Seekonk, shopping, that will be a violation."
Lovegreen, however, did waive one condition that Voccola's lawyer had proposed -- to have Voccola's 22-year-old grandson move in with him in Cranston.
"That," said Lovegreen, "would be putting the grandson at great risk."
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