12:40 PM EST on Thursday, November 18, 2004

BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Mary Murphy

Channel 10 investigative reporter Jim Taricani, who faces a charge of contempt of court today, talks yesterday about his career. He may face up to six months in prison for refusing to reveal the source who gave him a Plunder Dome tape.

Jim Taricani learned about journalism on the streets of Providence in the 1970s -- in the bars and mob joints, the police haunts and courthouses, riding around in beat-up cars on stakeouts in his dungarees and moccasins and modishly long hair.

He learned some of his most enduring lessons at Hope's, a long-defunct downtown dive of a bar, where Providence Journal reporters gathered after putting the paper to bed, joined by off-duty cops, pols, winos and the occasional prostitute.

There, Taricani drank beer, played pinball and listened to Jack White and Randall Richard, role models and investigative reporters at The Journal, discuss their latest muckraking in the fertile fields of Rhode Island politics and the Patriarca crime family.

"Night after night, we would sit at the bar, and they would give me tips and advice, showing me the ropes," Taricani recalled. "One of the things they talked about was protecting sources -- the importance of developing trust and keeping your word."

As Taricani's career progressed -- from young radio journalist to veteran television investigative reporter at Channel 10 (WJAR) -- those truths persisted. Today, Taricani will walk into federal court in Providence expecting to be convicted of contempt of court and to face a prison sentence of up to six months, for refusing to identify a source.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres has ordered Taricani to disclose who leaked him a secret FBI videotape showing Frank E. Corrente, the top aide to former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., taking a $1,000 bribe in Operation Plunder Dome, the federal corruption probe of Providence City Hall.

The three-year legal struggle -- pitting the First Amendment rights of a free press against the sanctity of the criminal-justice system -- has put Taricani in the vanguard of a wave of journalists around the country who face imprisonment for refusing to reveal their sources. The growing national attention has placed Taricani uncomfortably on the other side of the reporter's notebook.

"I'm proud to be a part of this effort with other reporters who are facing this same thing," he said in an interview yesterday. "It's an effort to be able to do our job and use the tools available to us -- in this case, anonymous sources -- to bring out the truth."

Taricani has tacked up newspaper articles about his case on the wall beside his desk, to remind himself that he is part of a broader struggle. There is also a quotation from Thomas Jefferson that Taricani said he wants to read in court when he is sentenced: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

"I'm glad to have the opportunity to fight the good fight," said Taricani. "But on the other hand, it's a nightmare. It's like something you'd read about in the old Soviet Union. A reporter writes something the government doesn't like, and they throw him in prison. But here I am, in the United States of America, going to jail for doing my job."

AS A REPORTER, Taricani has felt the chill of going behind bars to interview convicts.

"Every time I would go into a prison, I would think what a horrible place it was -- the blank stares of the inmates, like something out of a horror movie. The bars. The guards. The controlled life, long days, boring routine. It would freak me out. I used to consciously think that I would do everything to avoid winding up in there."

Taricani, 55, worries about his health if he is sent to prison. As the recipient of a heart transplant eight years ago, he has a compromised immune system. He takes anti-rejection drugs every 12 hours -- eight pills in the morning, six in the evening -- and must remain vigilant about germs and infections. He worries about being able to control his environment in prison, about shared bathrooms and group showers. When his wife has a cold, he sleeps in another room.

"In prison, what happens if my bunkmate has a cold?" he wonders. "A cold for me can quickly turn into pneumonia and become lethal.

"I feel like I'm on a roller coaster, from hour to hour," he added. "One minute I tell myself that I'm going to tough this out. The next, I'm depressed and worried about my health."

IN 1996, Taricani brought a Channel 10 camera into Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, to chronicle his 33-day wait for a heart donor. There are moments when he breaks down as he contemplates death and describes his emotions: fear, confusion, anger and wondering, "Why me?" Just before he is wheeled into the operating room, he embraces his wife, Laurie White, then lies back in his hospital gown and squeezes his eyes shut.

The transplant proved successful. Taricani later learned, through a police contact, that he had received the heart of a 22-year-old Guatemalan man who was kicked repeatedly in the head while defending a woman in a barroom brawl in Providence. The slaying occurred in a nightclub next door to the business of Antonio Freitas, the government's star witness in Operation Plunder Dome, who taped the encounter with Frank Corrente that Taricani later put on the air.

"My transplant experience has helped me a lot in preparing for this," Taricani said yesterday. "When you're faced with death, hope and faith are what get you through. I've come to grips with the fact that I'm going to prison, and now I'm already focused on the day I get out. I tell myself, like I did in the hospital, that I'm going to walk out of there."

Taricani said his lawyers will ask Torres for home confinement, or to send him to a prison medical facility. The nearest one is in Fort Devens, Mass. -- ironically, the convicted Corrente's current address.

TARICANI GREW up in Newington, Conn., developed an interest in journalism at Central Connecticut State College and gravitated to radio. In 1974, after sending audition tapes all over the country, he took the first job offer he got: WKRI in West Warwick, $90 a week.

His first boss told him to change his name to Jim Roberts; Taricani was too ethnic. Four years later, after taking bigger radio jobs at WICE and WEAN, he moved to television, with Channel 12, and reclaimed the Taricani name. The following summer, he jumped to Channel 10 as an investigative reporter.

Taricani was fascinated by the Mafia, and as a young radio reporter he had a memorable encounter with Raymond L.S. Patriarca, the legendary New England mob boss. Stumbling into Patriarca's vending-machine storefront on Federal Hill one afternoon, he was met by a torrent of expletives from the mob chieftain.

Later, Patriarca agreed to an interview -- but only if Taricani would air it unedited. The reporter did, even though it contained some off-color remarks about the sister of a mob turncoat. In the years that followed, Taricani said, he would periodically call Patriarca for comment on various stories.

When Patriarca died in 1984, Taricani was invited to the mob boss's wake -- a Godfather-like scene with guys in pinstriped suits gawking at the TV newsman as he knelt before the old man's coffin to pay his respects.

"A half-hour after I got back to the office, my phone rings and a [local] FBI agent says, 'All right, [bleep], what did you see?' " recalled Taricani.

Taricani says that he didn't tell, because he'd promised Patriarca's son, Raymond "Junior" Patriarca, that he wouldn't.

OTHER STORIES would place Taricani in situations where the identities of sources he had relied on for many of his scoops came into question.

In the early 1980s, he was sued over a story about mob influence in the Laborers' International Union. The lawyers tried to force him to reveal the identity of a source who had leaked him incriminating documents, but a judge ruled that the plaintiffs had not exhausted other means of finding out.

The source, a union official, subsequently agreed to come forward anyway, then died of a heart attack after being hit by a bus in New Orleans, where he was in the witness-protection program. The suit was dropped on the eve of trial.

Later in the '80s, Taricani said, a Rhode Island trash-hauling firm sued him over a story alleging mob ties -- information he had received from an anonymous source. That source subsequently agreed to testify, and the case was quickly dropped after the trash haulers learned his identity: Col. Walter Stone, longtime head of the Rhode Island State Police.

Given the willingness of other sources to come forward, how does Taricani feel about the source of the Plunder Dome tape remaining silent? At a court hearing two weeks ago, Judge Torres questioned whether Taricani's source was worthy of protection.

"What kind of a person would sit back and remain silent while you face the prospect of being found guilty of criminal contempt?" the judge asked.

In his interview yesterday, Taricani responded.

"It's not about the person, it's about the information," he said. "A lot of people in law enforcement use informants, and some are bottom feeders and lowlifes, but the information they provide is important. In this case, this was a vivid example of public corruption. The information is important, so it doesn't matter what I think of the source."

Taricani said he has talked to his source recently, but declined to elaborate. His source, he said, "expects me to keep my promise."

Mike Stanton can be reached at (401) 277-7724, or mstanton [at] projo.com

DIGITAL EXTRA: Recap recent Journal coverage of the Taricani contempt case, view surveillance video from the Plunder Dome trial and more, at:

http://projo.com/trial/content/