His clients have included mob associates, and his father was impeached as chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

09:24 AM EST on Friday, December 3, 2004

BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer

In a profession where reputations are made by the company you keep, Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr. has lived on the edge.

He was fishing buddies with Charles "The Ghost" Kennedy, a mob-connected drug trafficker. He was best man at the wedding of Wayne David Collins Jr., a felon-turned-bail bondsman. He once turned up with a relative, porn king Kenneth F. Guarino, at the International Jumping Derby in Portsmouth.

And his father was Joseph A. Bevilacqua, who was impeached as chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court for his ties to organized crime.

But it is Bevilacqua's association with a less-notorious figure, TV reporter Jim Taricani, that has placed him in perhaps the greatest peril of his law career.

Unmasked publicly this week as the source who gave Taricani a confidential government videotape in Operation Plunder Dome, Bevilacqua faces the prospect of prosecution, imprisonment and the loss of his license to practice law.

At the age of 55, with brushed-back silvery-black hair and a taste for fine suits and Mercedes convertibles, Bevilacqua has been a prominent criminal defense lawyer for years.

"Nobody's ever considered him for a coronation," says longtime friend and associate John F. Cicilline. "The people we represent are charged with murder and serious drug offenses."

One relationship that used to draw the attention of law enforcement, said Cicilline, was Bevilacqua's friendship with Kennedy, a longtime associate of organized crime who is serving 15 years in prison for running a nationwide drug-trafficking ring out of his house in East Greenwich.

Kennedy, who earned the nickname "The Ghost" for eluding capture for many years, also kept a stocked trout pond on his property that was popular with Bevilacqua, an avid fisherman.

"They got along, they were friends, they went fishing and went out together," said Cicilline. "There'd be a lot of talk among law enforcement that 'Joe is close to The Ghost.' The assumption was that because Kennedy is a drug dealer, Joe is a drug dealer. Joe would hear that and panic and tell me, 'They're following me.' I'd tell him, 'No, they're watching Kennedy.' "

Kennedy, who is incarcerated at Allenwood federal prison in White Deer, Pa., said in a telephone interview yesterday that he was friends with Bevilacqua and that they liked to fish and socialize.

"We were friends for years," said Kennedy, adding that they had a bitter falling out after his arrest in 1996 -- for reasons that he declined to discuss.

Kennedy said that he met Bevilacqua in the late 1970s at St. Rocco's Social Club in Cranston, a mob haunt of the Ouimette brothers. A couple of police officers came in, doing routine surveillance, and Bevilacqua impressed Kennedy, he said, by standing up to the officers and accusing them of harassment.

"He was a helluva lawyer," said Kennedy. "He had good stage presence. He was a good-looking guy. Juries liked him. Women fell in love with him. Even cops liked him. He was sociable. And he had no fear of butting heads. He was fresh out of law school, looking to make a name for himself. Of course, it helps when your old man is the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court."

Bevilacqua graduated from Suffolk University Law School and was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in October 1975. He joined a thriving Federal Hill practice run by his father and Cicilline. He remained behind with his brother, John Bevilacqua, a future Rhode Island Senate majority leader, after his father left to become chief justice and Cicilline moved on.

Bevilacqua was close to his father, and took it hard when the chief justice resigned in 1986 amid impeachment hearings into his friendships with organized-crime figures. One of those mob associates, Robert A. Barbato, later turned up as a client of Joe Bevilacqua Jr. during State House hearings into the 1991 banking crisis.

When Barbato and his brother were called before the commission to explain how they had spent credit-union loan proceeds on a $194,000 Rolls Royce and Boston Red Sox luxury boxes, Bevilacqua denounced the commission. The chairman, Jeffrey Teitz, had also led the impeachment inquiry into Bevilacqua's father.

Seeing that his clients planned to invoke their constitutional rights to remain silent, Bevilacqua said, "I can only view their compelled attendance before your commission as outright harassment, a deliberate attempt on your behalf to create a circus atmosphere to have my clients viewed by the TV audience as individuals who have broken the law. Your commission . . . will have a hit-and-run effect upon their constitutional rights."

Journal file photo

Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., left, leaves U.S. District Court, Providence, with his Plunder Dome client Jospeh Pannone, in September 1999.

During the impeachment process, Kennedy said, he was aware that the younger Bevilacqua would talk to Taricani, a reporter for Channel 10.

Over the years, according to Bevilacqua's recent deposition to the special prosecutor, the lawyer had become friendly with Taricani. Occasionally, the reporter would stop by his law office early in the morning to chat.

During the 1990s, Bevilacqua moved his law practice around. One of his employees was Wayne David Collins, a twice-convicted felon who had managed to erase his criminal record and obtain a gun permit and a bail bondsman's license with help from friends in law enforcement.

Collins, who credited the Bevilacquas with helping him to change his troubled ways, worked for Bevilacqua drumming up business and "hustling cases," said Cicilline. In 1993, when Collins was married, Joe Bevilacqua Jr. was his best man.

Bevilacqua and Cicilline resumed practicing together in the late 1990s, then opened a second office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they handled drug cases in federal court. Bevilacqua would travel back and forth, Cicilline said.

During this period, Operation Plunder Dome -- the federal corruption investigation of longtime Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. -- unfolded. After the FBI raided City Hall and arrested two corrupt tax officials in 1999, Bevilacqua wound up representing one of them, Joseph A. Pannone.

Pannone pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in exchange for leniency. But federal prosecutors revoked the deal after the elderly tax-board chairman contradicted himself and stumbled over answers to the FBI's questions during a series of debriefings.

According to Pannone's daughter, Deborah Pannone, the family was unhappy with Bevilacqua, especially for his absence at a pivotal meeting between Pannone and the FBI.

"I didn't like the way he handled my father's case," she said yesterday. "We were pleading guilty, and my father was supposed to receive a lighter sentence, but everything he told us would happen didn't."

Cicilline recalls "mountains" of evidence being delivered to their law offices on Dorrance Street in downtown Providence from the Plunder Dome case -- including the incriminating videotapes made by a businessman working undercover for the FBI.

"At some point, Joe seemed to back away from the case," said Cicilline. "He wasn't going through the boxes."

Another lawyer took over the case, but by this point, Pannone had begun a five-year prison term.

In recent years, there were other troubles, in the office and at home.

In June, an interpreter and investigator who worked for Bevilacqua, Cicilline and other local defense lawyers was arrested at Logan International Airport in Boston on cocaine-trafficking charges. Federal drug agents stopped Juan A. Giraldo as he, his girlfriend and two companions were about to board a flight for Colombia with more than $40,000.

Last year, Bevilacqua was charged with domestic disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, after he allegedly assaulted his wife at their East Greenwich home. According to the police report, Donna R. Bevilacqua accused her husband of throwing chairs and a plant at her during an argument that started when she complained about his visits to "gentlemen's clubs," and "now the dancers are calling the house."

The East Greenwich police officers arrived to find Joseph Bevilacqua sitting at the kitchen table. "Please, officer," he said, according to the report, "just take me away." Later, he said, "I don't want to say anything just arrest me," the report said.

The case was later dismissed. Cicilline said that the couple were estranged for a while, but are back together.

"I guess he's had some screwups lately," said Cicilline, referring to the domestic charge last year and the current Taricani imbroglio. "But I think they're things he can overcome."

Bevilacqua has not responded to repeated requests for comment over the past few days. Cicilline said that he is in Florida, where he went last week after confessing to the special prosecutor that he had been Taricani's source.

With staff reports from Tracy Breton and W. Zachary Malinowski. Mike Stanton can be reached at 277-7724, or mstanton [at] projo.com

Bevilacqua got tapes in late '99, Taricani got them in late '00

Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., a lawyer who represented Joseph A. Pannone, one of the Operation Plunder Dome defendants, has admitted under oath that he was the source of a secret FBI videotape given to Jim Taricani. Taricani, a veteran investigative reporter for Channel 10, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for criminal contempt and faces up to six months in federal prison for defying a court order to divulge his source to a special prosecutor.

These are the circustances surrounding how Taricani came to obtain the tape from Bevilacqua and what led to Bevilacqua's coming forward to identify himself as the reporter's source, according to Bevilacqua's testimony and court papers filed by special prosecutor Marc DeSisto:

Nov. 11, 1999: Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., as a lawyer for Pannone, receives audio and video tapes made by the FBI as part of its investigation of Providence City Hall corruption, including the videotape that Taricani would later air that shows a top City Hall official, Frank E. Corrente, accepting a cash bribe.

Aug. 7, 2000: Bevilacqua gets more audio and video tapes from prosecutors, including another copy of the Corrente videotape.

Aug. 8, 2000: Bevilacqua agrees to a "protective order" issued by Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux that barred members of the prosecution and defense teams from disseminating any of the secret FBI tapes. Lagueux entered the order to ensure that all defendants in the Operation Plunder Dome case receive a fair trial.

Sept. 29, 2000: Pannone, after pleading guilty, begins serving a five-year federal prison term; in the ensuing months, Bevilacqua withdraws as Pannone's lawyer. A Bevilacqua associate becomes Pannone's lawyer and handles the case after Pannone is charged in a new indictment with more corruption-related offenses.

Nov. 2000 to Dec. 2000: Taricani comes by Bevilacqua's law office, and noting that Bevilacqua is no longer involved in representing Pannone, asks for a copy of the videotapes that were the subject of Lagueux's order. Bevilacqua gives Taricani several of the secret FBI tapes and says he does not ask for anonymity but that Taricani promised to keep his identity secret.

Feb. 1, 2001: Taricani broadcasts the tape of Corrente taking a $1,000 cash bribe from undercover informant Antonio Freitas, who is posing as a corrupt businessman.

May 31, 2001: Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres appoints Marc DeSisto as a special prosecutor to find out who illegally leaked the tape to Taricani. The judge says the U.S. Attorney's office cannot conduct the investigation because members of the prosecution team are potential sources of the leak.

Feb. 6, 2002: Bevilacqua denies in a deposition conducted by DeSisto that he is Taricani's source.

March 21, 2002: At DeSisto's request, Bevilacqua signs a waiver of confidentiality that would release a reporter from a pledge of confidentiality.

May 2002 to June 2002: Bevilacqua says he tells Taricani he signed the waiver and that Taricani should come forward and admit that Bevilacqua was his source.

July 15, 2002: Taricani is shown the Bevilacqua waiver at a deposition conducted by DeSisto but refuses to answer the special prosecutor's questions regarding who leaked him the tape.

Nov. 18, 2004: Taricani tells FBI Agent W. Dennis Aiken about his source's waiver, who passes the information on to U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente. Corrente immediately notifies DeSisto of the conversation between Aiken and Taricani. DeSisto, just before Taricani's criminal contempt trial begins, confronts Taricani and asks him to confirm that Bevilacqua was his source. Taricani, after consulting with his lawyers, persists in his refusal to identify his source. Taricani says his source wants to remain secret and may have been coerced into signing the waiver. Bevilacqua says he again tells Taricani to come forward and identify him. Judge Torres convicts Taricani of criminal contempt in a trial that lasts less than one hour.

Nov. 24, 2004: Bevilacqua testifies that he provided the Corrente videotape to Taricani. He tells DeSisto that the reason he had previously denied being the source was because he had given his word to Taricani that he would not identify himself.

Nov. 30, 2004: Taricani, through his lawyers, confirms Bevilacqua is the source and says he will submit an affidavit attesting to that.

TRACY BRETON