|
|
5.3.2001 00:05
Voccola released to home confinement
• Lifelong family friends post bail for the Plunder Dome defendant.
BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Edward E. Voccola, accused with Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. of racketeering in the Operation Plunder Dome corruption case, was released on bail yesterday to await trial on home confinement.
Lifelong family friends of Voccola agreed to post a house in the Glen Hills section of Cranston to secure his release on $100,000 surety bail.
The house, at 23 Alder Brook Drive, is owned by Alder Brook Builders, whose president and treasurer is lawyer Emili Vaziri -- the same lawyer who originally represented Voccola in the federal racketeeering case he is awaiting trial on.
Vaziri's grandfather, Frank Gaglione, 88, lives in the house and formerly owned it, Gaglione said. Cranston tax officials said in papers filed with the court that the house is worth $247,000 and is owned free and clear of any mortgages.
Gaglione, who has been active for decades in Cranston Democratic politics and who twice ran unsuccessfully in the 1970s for a seat in the state House of Representatives, described himself as a close friend of Edward Voccola and his family. Vaziri, who said she lives up the street from her grandfather at 10 Alder Brook Drive, says she is also close to the Voccola family and went to school with the defendant's children.
Asked why he would post his residence for Voccola, 72, a convicted felon whose arrest record spans three decades, Gaglione said: "What are friends for? You don't walk away from friends. You don't question what they do."
Gaglione said that his family and Voccola's family immigrated here from Italy and that "90 years ago, the families met on Federal Hill."
Under the terms of Voccola's release set by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Lovegreen last month, Voccola will be on home confinement at his house at 165 Glen Hills Drive, Cranston. Voccola's lawyer, William T. Murphy, said that Voccola will wear an electronic monitoring bracelet pending his trial with the four other defendants in the case. The case is not expected to be tried until next March at the earliest.
Voccola had been held since April 3 at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. He, Cianci 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.
Upon his release at 4:30 p.m., Voccola walked out of the John O. Pastore Federal Building and got into a van with Vaziri and Gaglione for the ride home to Cranston.
|
|
|
|
Printer-Friendly Version
