"CHARGE HIM!"

James W. Ryan scribbled the words in his notebook. It was May 4, 1993, and the state prosecutors had had it with Rodney Brusini.

Ryan, chief of the Rhode Island attorney general's criminal division, sat in a meeting of top prosecutors that had been called to discuss the fate of the man who had once been Edward D. DiPrete's closest ally. Rodney M. Brusini had agreed to talk to them about alleged corruption in the ex-governor's administration -- but he wanted immunity from prosecution for his own actions.

Brusini had been talking to the prosecutors for more than a year. They believed that as DiPrete's former chief fundraiser he was a critical witness: someone who claimed to have personally handed over bribes to the governor.

But Brusini was still holding back. Six months earlier, the state had cut off the discussions and threatened to indict him.

Now, the new attorney general, Jeffrey B. Pine, and his top prosecutors had gathered to decide what to do.

Ryan argued that Brusini should be indicted.

"B jerking us around,'' Ryan wrote in his notes. "Go with perjury?''

Ryan's concern was twofold: first, that Brusini wasn't revealing all that he knew, and second, that he might have committed perjury.

The prosecutors believed that DiPrete's lawyers would surely attack Brusini's credibility. Ryan wanted Brusini indicted and convicted, so that his crimes would be out in the open before he testified against DiPrete.

The day before the prosecutors met, Brusini had delivered an ultimatum to prosecutor J. Richard Ratcliffe: Brusini would stop cooperating unless the state helped him out of a looming financial crisis.

Brusini wanted the attorney general to help rescue his investment in the Jesse Metcalf Building, the downtown property that was part of the criminal investigation into the DiPrete administration. Brusini had earlier told investigators that he had paid bribes to Governor DiPrete to get the state to rent the building.

But as a result of the criminal investigation, the state was trying to cancel or at least renegotiate its lease -- sending Brusini into a frenzy. Money was tight. He was going through a divorce and banks were foreclosing on other properties in which he'd invested during the flush DiPrete years.

Brusini wanted the attorney general's office to intervene to keep the state as a Metcalf Building tenant, at the original rent. On May 3, Brusini pressed Ratcliffe for answers.

It was a daring gambit for someone in Brusini's position, given the evidence that he had committed perjury, filed false documents, and extorted kickbacks.

The prosecutors would refuse Brusini's demands. At the May 4 meeting, there was a growing sentiment to indict him.

FOR DiPRETE and Brusini, 1985 had been the best of times.

On a rainy New Year's Day, Edward Daniel DiPrete was sworn in as Rhode Island's 85th governor.

DiPrete placed one hand on his wife's 110-year-old family Bible and swore to uphold the law. He vowed to put an end to business as usual in Rhode Island. Ethics would be a cornerstone of the new administration.

Rodney Brusini and his wife, Janice, helped put on an inaugural party, in Providence's new Fleet Center Galleria. The rose-colored granite and soaring glass atrium glowed from hundreds of tiny lights, which twinkled in the champagne glasses of the assembled politicians, judges, clergy, academics, business executives, bankers, and lawyers.

Brusini proclaimed that campaign contributors should not expect business from the state. Whenever anyone even hints at that, the governor's chief fundraiser said, "I make it very clear that's not the way this organization operates.''

But behind the scenes, according to his later testimony, Brusini was passing the word to contractors interested in state work: It's time to "pay the freight.''

After DiPrete's election, Cranston engineer Frank N. Zaino had come to Brusini asking for the big job renovating the Providence courthouse. Zaino not only promised to pay, Brusini later told investigators; he also promised to "deliver'' other engineers and architects.

According to both men's grand-jury testimony, Zaino and Brusini were discussing the courthouse project when Brusini said, "What's in it for us?,'' meaning the DiPrete campaign. Zaino told Brusini that in the past, contractors had been expected to pay 5 to 6 percent of the value of a state contract -- "cash kickbacks,'' Brusini described it to the grand jury.

Brusini testified that he spoke to DiPrete about what Zaino had said.

"DiPrete's comment,'' Brusini told the grand jury, "was "Well, is that all; it's five to six percent?' ''

Brusini testified that he explained to DiPrete that, as he understood it, "that's five to six percent in cash. That's over and above any contributions'' that would be made to the campaign by way of checks -- which, Brusini said he told DiPrete, sounded "reasonable.''

"So [DiPrete] said, 'That's fine -- you can tell Zaino that that's fine, that's the way we will set it up,' '' testified Brusini.

After these conversations, Frank Zaino and other contractors started bringing Rodney Brusini their "wish lists'' for state projects. Brusini would keep track of the requests on index cards, he testified, and review them with the governor. Brusini said that as the two went through the cards, DiPrete would ask, "Has he been supportive?''

Later, Zaino would deliver his "collections'' from other contractors. In practice, Brusini testified, the 5-to-6-percent formula was never followed exactly.

As the money flowed in, it would be divided arbitrarily into two piles, according to court records. One pile, consisting of cash and checks, would go to the campaign, Brusini told the prosecutors. The other, consisting of unreported cash, Brusini would deliver to the governor.

AS THE NEW GOVERNOR'S chief fundraiser, Rodney Brusini was besieged by favor seekers.

"I became a target," he testified, "for anybody who was looking for anything, whether it would be license plates, or work, or contracts, or jobs, or whatever.''

And he asked for money in return.

One morning, an architect later told the grand jury, he and Brusini were passing each other on golf carts at the Quidnesset Country Club, in North Kingstown.

Brusini stopped his cart.

The architect stopped his cart.

Brusini mentioned that two engineers who were working with the architect on a state job had not been contributing to the DiPrete campaign. It might be in their own interest, he quietly advised, to do so.

The architect testified that he got the message. And the engineers bought tickets to the next DiPrete fundraiser.

EVERY WEEK OR SO, Rodney Brusini told the grand jury, he would take a bundle of cash to the governor's office and give it to DiPrete. Brusini said that he would review with the governor the names of the people who had sent the money. He dealt generally in 100-dollar bills, he told the grand jury, which he would count out and hand over to DiPrete.

After one delivery, Brusini teased DiPrete about all the cash the governor was accumulating: "You leave it lying around,'' Brusini recalled saying, "you know your wife is going to, um -- you know they're going to find your body someday.''

The governor responded, Brusini recalled, that he was having a safe installed in the basement of his house.

Another time, Brusini told the grand jury, DiPrete "got very panicky'' when he heard that the federal government might recall 100-dollar bills and change their color, to combat money laundering and drug dealing. Brusini testified that on two occasions DiPrete gave him a couple of thousand dollars in 100-dollar bills and sent him to the bank to change them into 10's, 20's, and 50's. Brusini went to the bank a few times, then balked. He testified:

"I said, 'Hey look, if you want to do that you do it. I'm not, you know -- I don't mind helping out, but I'm not going to be running around doing this kind of nonsense.' ''

BRUSINI TOLD the grand jury that DiPrete would not deal directly with people he didn't know well; he'd send Brusini.

DiPrete didn't want "to put himself in that position,'' Brusini testified. "People he didn't know, he didn't want to extend himself. If he knew someone, yes -- he dealt with a number of people directly.''

One such person, Brusini testified, was lawyer James Taft, the former Cranston mayor who was one of Edward DiPrete's political mentors. According to a prosecution memo, bond underwriters that did business in Rhode Island were told to hire Taft's law firm as local bond counsel -- Brusini contends that James Taft told him he had to give the governor $10,000 for each bond matter on which he worked.

Once, Brusini testified, DiPrete expressed dissatisfaction at not receiving enough money from Taft and asked Brusini to speak to him. When Brusini saw Taft, Brusini told the grand jury, Taft said that he had given DiPrete $10,000 in cash.

"I guess he had just done a bond-underwriting issue and suggested that everything was fine now, because he had apparently gotten up to speed with DiPrete with that contribution," Brusini testified.

Taft told The Providence Journal that he never gave DiPrete $10,000 in cash. "Every contribution ever contributed by me was a legal contribution," he said.

According to court records, the prosecutors came across an instance in which another member of the governor's inner circle, besides Brusini, described having given unreported cash contributions to DiPrete.

A prosecution memo says that Alan P. Gelfuso, a Cranston lawyer who served on DiPrete's campaign-advisory committee, testified that he had twice given cash to DiPrete from the businessman Robert Melocarro, whose family owned the Garden City shopping center, in Cranston. Melocarro died in 1993.

The memo says that Melocarro confirmed this, testifying that he gave Gelfuso $1,000 in cash in 1984 and another $1,000 in 1986. Melocarro said that he gave cash because he wanted to remain anonymous.

A review of campaign records, says the memo, turned up only a $300 Melocarro contribution in 1986; the rest of the money was not reported. State election law prohibits anonymous contributions.

Gelfuso has told The Providence Journal that Melocarro wanted to keep the contributions "off the books'' not for any sinister reason, but because Melocarro was "a very private man.''

"I turned [the money] in and told [DiPrete] that [Melocarro] preferred that it not be reported,'' said Gelfuso. "I didn't tell him not to report it.''

ONE OF THE MANY people who sought Rodney Brusini's "direction'' was Joseph Pezza, Governor DiPrete's choice to oversee the state's Department of Transportation, with its multimillion-dollar budget.

The new DOT boss had been public-works director in Cranston when DiPrete was mayor. A gruff engineer, Pezza was one of the cadre of "Cranston cronies'' who had followed DiPrete to the State House.

DiPrete's advisers said that Pezza was unqualified to run the state agency. The governor's legal counsel called Pezza a little slow; career DOT officials called him "Joe the Dope.''

But DiPrete insisted on appointing Pezza, who possessed a quality the new governor said he valued most: loyalty. To help Pezza in his new post, DiPrete recruited Duncan H. Doolittle, a cousin of Sen. John Chafee's who was an experienced businessman.

Doolittle had wanted to be the DOT director himself, but he settled for the newly created post of executive director, under Pezza.

Pezza made his agenda clear at his first staff meeting. According to grand-jury testimony from Patrick J. Quinlan, who was the DOT's chief legal counsel at the time, Pezza stunned the assembled DOT officials: "You guys have been running this place for quite a while. Now it's our turn.''

Asked about this statement in a recent interview, Pezza responded: "I never remember that. Definitely not.''

As the head of the transportation department, Pezza sidestepped the formal contract-selection process, telling his subordinates to hire the contractors whom he designated. The officials objected. Doolittle confronted Pezza, shouting, "You're going to go to jail,'' according to Quinlan's testimony.

But Pezza overruled them, and the governor's office backed him up.

For Joseph Pezza, it was just like Cranston City Hall. In Cranston, Pezza later testified, he had taken his orders from Mayor DiPrete and solicited campaign contributions from city vendors.

As the new DOT chief, according to Quinlan's testimony, Pezza in March 1985 approached the partners of the New York firm that had just won the multimillion-dollar contract to construct the Jamestown-Verrazzano Bridge.

After the contract-signing ceremony, in the governor's office, the two New York contractors and the top DOT officials adjourned to a private room at Camille's Roman Garden, on Federal Hill, for a celebratory luncheon.

Afterwards, as the men were walking down the stairs of the elegant restaurant, Pezza asked the contractors for campaign contributions. The contractors expressed surprise.

Quinlan, the DOT legal counsel, testified that shortly after the luncheon he received a phone call from the contractors' lawyer, in New York. The lawyer told Quinlan that the contractors didn't want to start out on the wrong foot, but that they felt uncomfortable about Pezza's request.

Quinlan testified that he told the lawyer that it was a common practice in Rhode Island, but that the New York firm had won the contract and shouldn't feel obligated.

Nevertheless, the contractors ultimately gave to the DiPrete campaign.

WHENEVER THE Department of Transportation needed to hire a road builder or other contractor, Joseph Pezza turned not to the departmental experts but to DiPrete's top fundraiser, Rodney Brusini.

Brusini would later tell investigators that he considered only their political contributions, not their professional qualifications. Pezza, said Brusini, "knew the drill'' from their Cranston days.

In a practice carried over from Cranston City Hall, Pezza would stop by Brusini's office at the DiPrete insurance agency, on Reservoir Avenue. Both men later testified that Pezza would give Brusini a list of contractors who had bid on upcoming state road projects; Pezza would say he was "looking for some direction.''

Brusini took the list of bidders to the State House, where, he testified, he would brief DiPrete on how much money each contractor had given. DiPrete would go down the list, making check marks beside certain names, said Brusini. Then Brusini would deliver the list with the governor's choices back to Pezza.

DiPrete was a deliberate, hands-on governor, who insisted on approving all state contracts, according to what other aides told investigators. No contract was too small. A few months into DiPrete's first term, a top aide, Michael M. Doyle, asked if he should stop sending the governor the smaller contracts -- those under $20,000. According to court records, Doyle told the investigators that DiPrete's answer was no, "I still want everything to come up to me.''

Doyle told the investigators that Brusini met regularly with the governor to update him on campaign contributors, and then DiPrete would tell his aides whom to choose for a project. The governor's favorite expression when designating his choices, as recalled by Doyle and several other aides, was "all things being equal.''

Doyle told the investigators that he considered DiPrete's selections to be "good policy and good politics.'' The governor felt strongly, Doyle explained to The Providence Journal, that because he was the man chosen by the voters, he should be the one making the decisions. DiPrete had a pet phrase, said Doyle: "You can delegate duties, but not responsibility.''

But with Pezza's lack of finesse -- in court records Duncan Doolittle called him "the most incompetent man I've ever met, and stupid as well'' -- the Department of Transportation became a political liability.

Pezza's stewardship was marked by a series of scandals involving his management and his hiring of contractors. Doolittle, who had publicly criticized Pezza, was consigned to a basement office in the State House, and then resigned. Pezza resigned eight months after he had begun.

Some DOT staffers had T-shirts made up, proclaiming, "I Survived 'Joe the Dope.' ''

Pezza recently reflected on his tenure at the DOT: "I thought I was doing a good job for the state of Rhode Island, for the people of Rhode Island. But I got shafted instead.''

The public viewed the DOT scandals as an aberration in the DiPrete administration. Even after a state investigation publicly concluded that there had been political favoritism in awarding DOT contracts, Edward DiPrete's popularity remained high.

When investigators for the attorney general interviewed Rodney Brusini at the time, he acknowledged having recommended contractors to Pezza. But he said that he had merely been trying to "open up the process''; before DiPrete had become governor, Brusini said, many capable contractors had been shut out.

There was no quid pro quo, Brusini assured the investigators -- virtually all contractors made political contributions. In fact, said Brusini, he couldn't think of a single contractor he had recommended who had not given to DiPrete.

WHILE THE GOVERNOR survived the investigation of the Department of Transportation, his chief fundraiser did not. The publicity over Brusini's picking contractors proved too embarrassing.

The Pezza debacle signaled the beginning of a falling out between Edward DiPrete and Rodney Brusini.

Publicly, the governor expressed dismay and questioned the propriety of Brusini's having communicated with Joseph Pezza.

Meanwhile, according to court records, Brusini said he had been told by another DiPrete adviser that it was Brusini's job to "take the heat'' for the governor.

After DiPrete's 1986 reelection, Brusini resigned as campaign-finance chairman, saying he was burned out. He later told investigators that Governor DiPrete had hung him "out to dry.''

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