05/02/2002

By DAVID McPHERSON
projo.com staff writer

PROVIDENCE / Updated 5:35 p.m. -- Tapes of two telephone conversations between Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and a member of the Providence Building Board of Review discussing a University Club vote were played this afternoon in federal court.

The calls were secretly recorded by then-building board member Steven Antonson, who made the motion to deny the club's requests for variances for a $1-million renovation project and who voted against them at a July 30, 1998, meeting.

Cianci is charged with extorting a free lifetime honorary membership at the exclusive club by holding up the permits for the renovation. The 29-count indictment against him and three co-defendants also includes two counts against Cianci of witness tampering for allegedly telling Antonson what to tell the FBI and the grand jury investigating the University Club affair after the matter had become public.

On the tapes, Cianci contradicts earlier witnesses, who have testified the mayor -- angry over not being admitted to the club in 1975 -- put pressure on the board to deliver a 5-0 vote against the variances and scuttle the project.

Before the tapes were played, Antonson testified he spoke twice with Cianci before the meeting at which three University Club variances were denied. In both calls, Cianci said he wanted all of the variances denied, Antonson said.

Journal photo / Mary Murphy STEVEN ANTONSON, a former member of the Providence Building Board of Review, before heading to court today, where tapes of phone calls between him and Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. were played.

Antonson testified today he taped the calls at the request W. Dennis Aiken, the FBI special agent on the Operation Plunder Dome probe into corruption at City Hall.

On Aug. 25, 1999, Antonson testified, he received a message that the mayor's office wanted him to call the mayor. Before he did so, he said, he contacted Aiken, who asked him to record the conversation.

The tape of the ensuing call between Cianci and Antonson captures Cianci repeatedly denying that he ever called Antonson before the July vote on the University Club requests.

"I never spoke to you before that meeting, you know the truth, " Cianci said, adding, "I never spoke to anybody on that board."

At one point in the call, Antonson brings up then-building inspector Ramzi Loqa's name. Antonson said Loqa, who had already been interviewed by the FBI, kept his mouth shut.

Cianci said, "What do you mean, kept his mouth shut? There's nothing to keep his mouth shut about it."

Yesterday, Loqa testified he lied when the FBI started asking him questions about Cianci's part in holding up renovations at the club.

Cianci continued on the tape, "Don't let them intimidate you ... It's them trying to find an extortion for a club membership I didn't even want."

The next day, Antonson called Cianci again, to tell him he had since been subpoenaed and interviewed by the FBI.

In a more contentious conversation, Cianci's stance changes.

This time, Cianci is heard acknowledging he called Antonson before the building board's meeting on the University Club requests. But he insists he did not urge him to vote in any particular way.

Cianci says, "I called you and asked you if it was on the agenda" of the building board.

An agitated Antonson calls Cianci's involvement a "vendetta," adding, "You used Steve Antonson's honesty to do it."

He continues: "I can't do what you're asking me to do ... I can't lie... I had to tell them the truth because that's what it is."

Cianci replies, "I'm not asking you to lie. I don't remember asking you to vote any particular way."

Before the two taped calls, Antonson said, he also spoke to the mayor at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, then the Providence Civic Center, shortly after the FBI investigation of City Hall became public with the arrests of tax board members David C. Ead and Joseph Pannone.

In that conversation, Antonson testified, Cianci said, "That if anyone asked anything he never asked anything, and we never spoke."

Antonson also testified today that he is a resident of East Greenwich and had been at the time he served on the Providence board, which he said Cianci knew. A master electrician, he also testified he had done extensive electrical work on Cianci's home and boat, for free.

During cross-examination, Cianci's lawyer, Richard Egbert, questioned Antonson about a sexual harassment allegation that led Antonson to leave his job as chief electrician for the city-owned Dunkin' Donuts Center.

Antonson denied the allegation by a woman working as a subcontractor at the arena. The woman alleged Antonson made unwanted physical contact with her.

In his testimony, Antonson said he left his job during a leave of absence, not answering directly when Egbert asked if he had been fired.

But in remarks before the trial began, Antonson's lawyer said his client had been "improperly terminated" and threatened to sue the Providence Civic Center Authority, which runs the arena. The authority has denied firing Antonson in retaliation for cooperating with the FBI in the Operation Plunder Dome investigation.

A rare occurrence

In testimony this morning, a University Club official said that Cianci was just the second person in the 99-year history in the exclusive University Club to be offered a free, lifetime honorary membership.

The club's board of governors voted on Sept. 9, 1998, to give Cianci the honorary membership because it was the only type of club membership that did not involve a waiting period, testified Alan Gelfuso, club vice president.

The club was incorporated in 1899, making it now 103 years old.

Gelfuso returned to the witness stand for a second day to testify on the charge against Cianci that he extorted the membership from the club by blocking its renovation project. Yesterday, Gelfuso said the club was in danger of going under if delays in getting the necessary city approval for the renovations continued.

Gelfuso testified today that, before the University Club's board voted to offer Cianci the membership, one member who was opposed was asked not to take part in the vote. "I suggested that being the case he absent himself from the meeting the following day," Gelfuso said.

To offer such a the membership, the vote had to be unanimous. At least a couple of other members were absent for the vote, but today's testimony did not make it clear why they did not attend.

Although Cianci defense lawyer Richard M. Egbert has said Cianci did not want or intend the club membership, documents presented today by the prosecution showed that Cianci did in fact make use of the club after receiving his free membership.

In March 1999, for example, Cianci had lunch once at the club and dinner twice, according to club billing records that assessed a $179.23 charge for the month.

Gelfuso also testified that the health and safety issues raised by the requested variances for the renovations were "worked out."

During cross-examination, Egbert tried to undercut Gelfuso's credibility on several fronts.

Gelfuso had said the value of the club's Benefit Street building on the historic East Side was about $3 million. Egbert asked him today to explain what the figure was based on.

"It was a number I pulled out of the air, Mr. Egbert," Gelfuso said.

"Did you mean just to pull it out of the air?" Egbert asked.

Gelfuso said, "Yes."

Egbert followed this line of questioning as he tried to suggest that the University Club had misled the city over the extent of its renovations.

Gelfuso also conceded during cross-examination that he knew Cianci's feelings were hurt by the club's rejection of his earlier membership application in 1975 and a 1996 Christmas party skit that lampooned the fact the mayor was not a member of the club.

In 1979, Cianci wrote to the club inquiring about the status of his membership application, but never received a response. Egbert presented a club record that stated: "Removed Vincent A. Cianci's application from the file and note that a letter was not sent to his proposer."

Cianci's proposer -- or sponsor -- was the late U.S. Sen. John Chafee, who was the former governor of the state in 1975.

Asked by Egbert if the club had rejected Cianci's 1975 application, Gelfuso said it was not rejected. He testified that as far he knew, Cianci's membership application had been withdrawn in 1979 by the club's membership committee.

When Gelfuso met with Cianci in 1978, the mayor indicated he did not want a membership, just an apology from the club and an explanation of why he never received a response to his application.

Cianci, former top aide Frank E. Corrente and businessmen Richard E. Autiello and Edward E. Voccola are being tried in U.S. District Court on a 29-count indictment charging them with racketeering, extortion, bribery, money laundering, mail fraud and witness tampering.

Cianci has denied all charges.