The TV reporter is told to be prepared "for any eventuality" at his sentencing next month.

04:17 PM EST on Friday, November 19, 2004

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Jim Taricani, an investigative reporter for Channel 10, was found guilty of criminal contempt yesterday for refusing to reveal the source of an undercover videotape that showed a City Hall official accepting a cash bribe.

After a trial that lasted less than an hour and that was based entirely on arguments made by lawyers, Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres said "the evidence is clear and overwhelming and undisputed" that Taricani had willfully violated the law for refusing to obey a court order to disclose the source of the leaked FBI videotape, even if he felt he had good reasons for doing so.

Taricani now faces up to six months in prison as punishment for his refusal to reveal his confidential source. The judge set sentencing for Dec. 9 and told the reporter, "You ought to be prepared for any eventuality at the time of sentencing."

It is anticipated that Taricani's legal team will submit additional medical reports to bolster its argument that Taricani should not be sentenced to prison because of his health. The 55-year-old veteran reporter had a heart transplant in 1996 and a pacemaker installed three years ago and has to take medication every 12 hours to control his immune system.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

On the steps of the federal courthouse in Providence, Channel 10 reporter Jim Taricani assails his conviction yesterday as "an assault on journalistic freedom."

In scheduling sentencing, Torres acknowledged Taricani's medical situation but also noted that Taricani, despite his condition, "has continued to live a very active life" and that the Bureau of Prisons "has first-rate medical facilities" and is "fully capable" of dealing with heart-transplant patients.

Outside the courthouse on Kennedy Plaza after his 45-minute trial, Taricani, standing beside his wife, Laurie White, called his conviction "an assault on journalistic freedom." But he said he has "no regrets" about not disclosing the identity of his source.

"When I became a reporter 30 years ago, I never imagined that I would be put on trial and face the prospect of going to jail for simply doing my job. Today I was tried and convicted for refusing to identify the confidential source who gave me a videotape showing corruption in City Hall. On December 9, I will be sentenced, possibly going to jail.

"The government," said Taricani, "has used its resources and power and the threat of jail to try to coerce me to identify a confidential source. This assault on journalistic freedom exacts a high price by stifling the flow of newsworthy information to reporters and to the public. I wish all of my sources could be on the record, but when people are afraid, a promise of confidentiality may be the only way to get the information to the public, and in some cases, to protect the well-being of the source.

"I made a promise to my source, which I intend to keep," the reporter said. "Although I am willing to go to jail, I think it is wrong that journalists should face this type of threat simply for doing their jobs."

Taricani said that the last several months -- since Torres found him in civil contempt for refusing to reveal his source to special prosecutor Marc DeSisto -- "have been very trying." He spent several minutes thanking NBC, Channel 10 and the management of his station, especially his general manager, Lisa Churchville, who he said went to bat for him to get permission to air the secret videotape after he received it from his source.

Taricani said he also has been touched by "the outpouring of support from the community. I am most appreciative of the public's understanding and acceptance of my position as a reporter trying to do his job," he said.

Channel 10 issued a statement after the trial saying it stands by Taricani and supports his decision not to reveal his source. "No reporter should have to pay such a terribly high price for honestly and legally reporting the news," the television station said.

Working with confidential sources "has been critical to Jim's career," his employer said, adding that the many stories Taricani has broken about the mob, crime and public corruption in Rhode Island "might not have seen the light of day if Jim did not have confidential sources who were willing to risk their reputations, their jobs, even their lives to come forward and provide him with important information that the public had a right to know."

TARICANI'S BRIEF trial was held in the same courtroom as that of former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.; Frank E. Corrente, Cianci's top aide, who was shown taking a $1,000 bribe in 1998 on the videotape that Channel 10 aired; and two other defendants in 2002.

Multimedia

View Jack White's report from the scene

The small courtroom was jammed with spectators and was filled to capacity by 9:30 a.m., a half-hour before the trial was scheduled to begin. Those who came to watch the proceedings and who could not get into the second-floor courtroom were directed to a jury assembly room off the lobby of the courthouse where they were able to watch the trial on a television screen.

No witnesses testified at the trial. Judge Torres rendered his verdict after listening to legal arguments made by Taricani's Boston lawyer, Martin F. Murphy, and the court-appointed special prosecutor, DeSisto, who also read into the record a recitation of facts that both sides had agreed on.

Among the things DeSisto read into the record were the questions he had posed to Taricani last February during a deposition at which he tried to get the reporter to disclose, under oath, the source of the leaked videotape that had been given to him in violation of a court order barring its dissemination.

In refusing to answer each of the special prosecutor's questions, Taricani reiterated his belief that he had a right not to disclose his confidential source based on "the First Amendment of the Constitution and also the journalistic privilege recognized under common law and the reporter's privilege."

Yesterday, as Taricani's legal team has argued in the past, Murphy challenged DeSisto's authority to prosecute the contempt case against Taricani. He asserted that only the U.S. Attorney's office has jurisdiction to prosecute such cases.

Murphy also argued that Taricani could not be held in criminal contempt because the reporter had based his refusal to disclose his source on a good-faith belief that he had a right to do so based on his rights as a journalist.

But Torres rejected those arguments, saying that they had been made and rejected before, both by him and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied Taricani's appeal of his civil-contempt finding, as well as the $1,000-a-day fine that Torres imposed on him earlier this year for refusing to disclose his source.

The judge also said he felt the U.S. Attorney's office had a conflict of interest because someone in that department could have been Taricani's source.

In convicting Taricani, Torres made it clear that the reporter was not being punished for airing the videotape, which was broadcast by Channel 10 on Feb. 1, 2001, after Corrente had been indicted but before Cianci was charged.

"That argument might play well in the media . . . but it's a complete distortion of the issue," the judge said. "Mr. Taricani is not being punished for airing the tape. If he'd answered the special prosecutor's questions, he wouldn't be here even though he aired the tape."

Taricani, he said, had no right to refuse to reveal his source to DeSisto, based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes. In that case, the nation's highest court rejected the argument that reporters have a First Amendment right to refuse to answer "relevant questions put to them in the course of a grand jury investigation or criminal trial."

Torres has said that Taricani's refusal to disclose his source has stalled the investigation, perhaps forever, into who leaked the videotape to the reporter in violation of a court order.

The videotape Taricani aired was later played for jurors at the trial of Cianci and Corrente, who are now serving prison sentences, and two other defendants.

Taricani is one of several reporters around the country who, in recent months, have been held in contempt over their refusals to identify confidential sources -- though the others currently in court have not yet faced criminal charges.

Five reporters were held in civil contempt and fined $500 per day in Washington, D.C., in August for refusing to reveal their confidential sources for reporting on the 1999 FBI investigation of former Los Alamos atomic scientist Wen Ho Lee. Lee has brought a civil suit against the government over alleged leaks to the media of private information that he says was disseminated without his consent. The reporters are appealing the judge's findings and fines.

And in another case in Washington, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine have been found in contempt and ordered jailed for as long as 18 months for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury investigating who leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, to syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak. It is a felony to divulge the identity of a federal agent. Both reporters are free pending their appeals.

THE TARICANI CASE

June 29, 2000 Frank E. Corrente, the top aide and chief fundraiser for then-Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., is indicted on corruption charges -- 11 months after three Providence tax officials were indicted in the case that the federal government dubbed Operation Plunder Dome.

Aug. 8, 2000 Senior U.S. Judge Ronald R. Lagueux enters a protective order prohibiting anyone from the prosecution or defense camps from disseminating any of the secret videotapes that had been made by the FBI as part of its investigation. Lagueux entered the order because a grand jury was still considering whether to bring further charges in the case and to ensure the defendants' right to a fair trial.

Feb. 1, 2001 Channel 10 airs a secret FBI videotape, which reporter Jim Taricani had obtained from a confidential source, showing Corrente taking a $1,000 bribe from informant Antonio Freitas, a Providence businessman who wanted to lease property he owned to the city.

April 2, 2001 A superseding indictment is handed up in the Corrente case, adding Cianci and three others as defendants.

May 31, 2001 Ernest C. Torres, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Providence, appoints Marc DeSisto as a special prosecutor to investigate who leaked the videotape to Taricani. The judge said the release of the tape "may constitute criminal contempt" because it violated Lagueux's protective order.

June 26, 2001 Torres fines and suspends for 30 days Richard W. Rose, the lead prosecutor in the Plunder Dome case, for showing a secret FBI surveillance tape of Corrente taking a cash bribe from Freitas.

April 17, 2002 The trial of Cianci, Corrente and two codefendants begins before Torres and a jury in U.S. District Court in Providence.

May 24, 2002 The government plays for jurors the videotape that Taricani aired showing Corrente accepting the $1,000 cash bribe from Freitas.

June 24, 2002 Jurors convict Cianci, Corrente and Richard E. Autiello on corruption charges.

Sept. 6, 2002 Cianci, Corrente and Autiello are all sentenced to prison.

Oct. 2, 2003 Judge Torres orders Taricani to reveal his source to DeSisto.

March 16, 2004 Torres finds Taricani in civil contempt and tells him he will have to pay a fine of $1,000 a day until he reveals his source for the Corrente videotape. The contempt finding and fines are stayed pending Taricani's appeal.

June 21, 2004 A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston rejects every argument made by Taricani's lawyers, upholding the civil contempt finding and the $1,000-a-day fine. They cite the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case of Branzburg v. Hayes, which rejected the contention that reporters have a First Amendment right to refuse to answer "relevant questions put to them in the course of a grand jury investigation or criminal trial."

Aug. 12, 2004 Taricani begins paying the $1,000-a-day fine, which his employer reimburses him for.

Sept. 29, 2004 DeSisto files papers with Torres asking him to increase the sanctions against Taricani, saying the reporter's $1,000-a-day fine hasn't been coercive enough.

Nov. 4, 2004 Torres tells Taricani that he is turning his civil contempt case into one of criminal contempt and warns him that unless he reveals his source within the next two weeks, he will go on trial and, if convicted, will face up to six months in prison. The judge suspends the $1,000-a-day fine Taricani has been paying, saying it is clear that the fine alone won't induce Taricani to give up his source.

Nov. 18, 2004 After a one-hour trial, Torres finds Taricani guilty of criminal contempt and schedules sentencing for Dec. 9.

DIGITAL EXTRA: Do you think Channel 10 investigative reporter Jim Taricani should have revealed his source? Share your thoughts on why or why not, at:

http://projo.com/cgi-bin/bi/surveys/tSurvey.cgi?survey=1935