PROVIDENCE – U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee returned to the scene of the crime yesterday to accuse Sheldon Whitehouse of being soft on crime – specifically, political corruption and the Operation Plunder Dome investigation of former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci.

Standing outside the business of Antonio R. Freitas, who secretly taped city officials taking bribes inside his JKL Engineering company eight years ago, Chafee cited Freitas’ mistrust of Whitehouse as evidence that his Democratic challenger is unfit to be a senator.

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee holds up a photograph from June 2002 that shows Vincent A. Cianci, then the mayor of Providence, with Sheldon Whitehouse. Whitehouse later rebuts the charge that he was reluctant to prosecute Cianci.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

Later, Freitas told reporters that he distrusted Whitehouse, who was U.S. Attorney at the time, and only agreed to work undercover for the FBI in 1998 if his identity was kept a secret from Whitehouse to avoid leaks to Cianci.

But Freitas’ news conference veered off into his domestic-abuse convictions in 2000, including unsubstantiated allegations that his subsequent imprisonment was the result of a political deal between Whitehouse and Cianci.

Whitehouse called Freitas’ accusations “utter nonsense.”

He said they were inspired by bitterness at Whitehouse for prosecuting Freitas for domestic assault on his then-wife. He then slammed Chafee for making the “most shocking statement of this campaign.”

Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse later rebuts charges that he was reluctant to prosecute Cianci.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

When asked about Freitas’ domestic-abuse record, Chafee said: “Nobody’s perfect and he made some mistakes and paid the price. But I think the citizens of Rhode Island and Providence have to at least give him credit for the courage to do what he did…. He wanted to bid on some work. He wanted to be treated fairly. He did not want to pay bribes to get that work.”

After the Democratic Party operative filming the news conference alerted the Whitehouse camp to what was said, Whitehouse held his own hastily called news conference to defend his record, and assail Chafee for having “shrugged off” the behavior of a repeat-batterer.

“This man’s record of violence against women is truly atrocious,” Whitehouse said. “For Senator Chafee to minimize this man’s criminal record … is a measure of how desperate Senator Chafee has become and how low he and his campaign will stoop to execute the Republican smear strategy that we are seeing across the country.”

And so it went in the heated U.S. Senate race, with Democrat Whitehouse leading in the latest Rasmussen automated poll, 50-to-42 percent and Republican Chafee acknowledging Rhode Islanders’ anger at “the Bush agenda” has hurt him “a lot.”

It was a surreal day, with Chafee shadowed by a man in a George W. Bush mask; Freitas holding court in the entryway of a Westminster Street office building with a “Not Sheldon” banner out front; and Whitehouse blasting Chafee from a sidewalk outside the Warwick offices of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence while touting a newly received endorsement from the National Organization for Women political action committee.

While Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee held a news conference outside JKL Engineering in Providence, owned by the informant in the Plunder Dome case that sent the mayor of Providence to prison, a man in a George Bush mask appeared.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

Asked about the unidentified man in the Bush mask, Chafee quipped: “Don’t know the man. Didn’t vote for him.”

The day began with Chafee brandishing a June 27, 2002, newspaper photo of Whitehouse and Cianci sharing a shoulder-to-shoulder laugh at a Providence event, two days after Cianci was convicted by Whitehouse’s successor in the U.S. Attorney’s office for running a criminal enterprise from City Hall.

Whitehouse, running for governor at the time, is holding a Cianci-for-Governor button from 1980 next to his own button.

“Top law enforcement official in Rhode Island hobnobbing with a convicted public official,” said Chafee. “This is an outrage. This is why people don’t come here to do business in Rhode Island.”

After Chafee departed, Freitas held a news conference in the lobby of JKL Engineering, where he first unveiled himself to the press seven years ago as the government’s confidential informant.

He reminisced about his first meeting with FBI Special Agent W. Dennis Aiken, the day before his 49th birthday, on Jan. 27, 1998. Aiken stopped by that day because Freitas had lost out on a city lease to Edward Voccola, who was under investigation for paying bribes at City Hall.

Aiken had heard that Freitas might have also been paying bribes. Freitas denied it, then offered to work undercover. Fearful of leaks, Freitas said that he insisted that his identity be kept secret from Whitehouse. “From the beginning, I never trusted Sheldon,” said Freitas.

In April 1998, Freitas began taping his meetings with city officials. Whitehouse, he said, “was dying to find out” the identity of the confidential informant, but Aiken didn’t tell him.

Freitas also said that Whitehouse was resistant to providing any financial support for the investigation, telling Aiken, “You’re never going to get Buddy.”

It is impossible to corroborate Freitas’ story, because Aiken and federal prosecutors who worked on Operation Plunder Dome declined comment. Tom Connell, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente – a Chafee appointee – said it would be “inappropriate” for the office to “inject” itself into a political campaign.

Freitas hadn’t been undercover for long when Whitehouse resigned as U.S. Attorney in the spring of 1998 to run for Rhode Island attorney general. Whitehouse, said Freitas, needed Cianci’s support to win votes in Providence. During his undercover work, Freitas said, he attended a Cianci fundraiser at which Whitehouse was present.

Former U.S. Attorney Margaret Curran, who succeeded Whitehouse, was in charge when Cianci was indicted in 2001. Freitas also accused Whitehouse yesterday of cutting a deal with Cianci early in 2001 that led to Freitas’ imprisonment for four months following a domestic-violence conviction.

The previous year, Freitas had pleaded no contest to domestic assault, after being charged with punching his wife, and served 10 days in prison. His 10-year marriage had fallen apart during Plunder Dome, partly from the strain of his undercover work, his ex-wife later said.

By early 2001, Freitas had been arrested again, this time charged with assaulting a girlfriend — a black-belt in karate whom he says actually attacked him because he wanted to break up. The arrest violated his probation, and he was sentenced to four months in prison.

Around the same time, Whitehouse, then the attorney general, was pushing Cianci to appoint Richard Sullivan as chief of police, after successfully lobbying for the departure of the embattled Urbano Prignano Jr.

Freitas said yesterday that he learned from an “informant” in the mayor’s office that Cianci didn’t want to appoint Sullivan, but agreed to do so after Cianci demanded that Whitehouse “screw” Freitas by pushing to have him sent to prison.

Freitas declined to identify the informant, whom he said was not willing to come forward. He also insisted yesterday that “I never touched my wife,” that the charges had been pushed by those loyal to Cianci, and that Freitas didn’t realize when he pleaded no contest that he was actually pleading guilty.

Next up was Whitehouse, who took credit for launching the Plunder Dome investigation.

He said that shortly after his appointment as U.S. Attorney in 1994, he “sought and obtained permission to open an undercover investigation into municipal corruption in the city of Providence, targeting among others, Mayor Cianci.”

“By the time Mr. Freitas came to the FBI and offered himself as a cooperating witness,” he said, the investigation was well under way.

Of Freitas’ stated fear that Whitehouse would leak his identity, Whitehouse said: “I am not surprised that’s his story, but it’s not true…Obviously he is no friend of mine. Obviously he bears a grudge. Twice I put him in prison for hitting and battering women.”

Whitehouse said he was never told of Freitas’ identity, but that was not unusual. “In these sorts of investigations, [the FBI] go forward on a need-to-know basis,” he said.

He labeled “idiotic” the notion that he would make a deal with Cianci to put Freitas in jail. Of his smiling photo with Cianci, he said: “I briefly bumped into Cianci, who was then the mayor of Providence, at an event that we were at together. I did not use Buddy Cianci to prop up a campaign of mine. I did not associate myself with Buddy Cianci. I prosecuted Buddy Cianci.”

Prosecuted? “I mean led the investigation,” he said.

After leaving Whitehouse’s news conference, Beth Sundstrom, a vice president in the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women, fired off a public letter voicing disappointment at Chafee’s “casually dismissive” nobody-is-perfect remark.

Chafee’s campaign manager Ian Lang said Whitehouse and his backers took the comment out of context, and Chafee has a strong record on women’s issues.