Reporter gets probation

09:13 AM EST on Friday, December 10, 2004

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- After a dramatic, daylong hearing, a federal judge yesterday sentenced Channel 10 reporter Jim Taricani to six months of probation, on home confinement, for defying a court order to reveal who illegally gave him a secret FBI videotape that showed a Providence official taking a bribe.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres told Taricani, 55, that he definitely would have sent him to prison for criminal contempt had it not been for his fragile medical condition.

"I'm reasonably confident that the Bureau of Prisons could provide appropriate care" for Taricani, the judge said, "but I'm not sure enough that I'd want to put [his life in danger] and apparently the special prosecutor agrees."

Taricani had a heart transplant in 1996 and a pacemaker installed in 2001, and has myriad other health problems, caused in part by medicine he takes to suppress his immune system so that his body will not reject his transplanted organ.

Torres said that the conditions of Taricani's home confinement -- which he ordered to begin immediately -- will be "very strict" and "designed to mirror as close as possible" prison conditions. He told Taricani that if he violated any of the conditions -- which require that he not leave his house except for doctors' appointments -- "you could, and I assure you, you will be incarcerated."

Torres imposed the sentence after an extraordinary hearing that lasted almost five hours and featured testimony from both Taricani and his "confidential" source, defense lawyer Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr. Bevilacqua admitted under oath on Nov. 24, after previously denying in testimony given to special prosecutor Marc DeSisto, that he had given Taricani the tape.

But that was six days after Taricani was convicted of criminal contempt for refusing to divulge his source.

Journal photo /Ruben W. Perez

Channel 10 reporter Jim Taricani and his wife, Laurie White, leave U.S. District Court yesterday after Taricani was sentenced for criminal contempt. Taricani, who has a transplanted heart and a pacemaker, was spared prison because of his medical condition.

"There are no heroes in this soap opera," Torres said after listening to the two men testify. Before imposing the sentence, the judge excoriated both men, saying he did not believe that either had been entirely candid. Some of their accounts "just didn't make sense," the judge said.

Bevilacqua is expected to face criminal charges for leaking the tape, in violation of a court order issued in August 2000 -- before the main Plunder Dome trial.

On the stand yesterday, he also admitted committing perjury when he denied being Taricani's source in a February 2002 deposition. U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, who attended yesterday's hearing, said afterward that he expects his office will prosecute Bevilacqua.

Taricani spoke before he was sentenced, telling the judge, "I want you to know I do not consider myself above the law." He said he has spent much of his 30-year career "reporting on people who have no respect for the law."

The reporter said he understood "that there are consequences for disobeying" the court's order to disclose his source. He asked Torres to understand why he had persisted in trying to keep a promise to shield Bevilacqua's identity -- something he insisted was based on First Amendment principles.

Taricani also said that based on his medical condition, he was "very concerned what will happen to me if you send me to prison."

TARICANI'S CASE has attracted national attention. More than 100 spectators, including members of the national media, began queuing up at 8 a.m., two hours before the hearing. The small, second-floor courtroom -- the same one where former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and his codefendants were tried -- quickly filled. Most spectators had to watch the proceedings downstairs on a closed-circuit television monitor set up in a jury assembly room.

The hearing was a he said/he said affair -- with Bevilacqua and Taricani offering vastly different versions of the circumstances and conditions under which Taricani obtained the videotape, the promise of confidentiality and the travel of the case.

Taricani reiterated his claim that Bevilacqua had insisted, since giving him the videotape in late 2000, that he keep his identity secret -- something Bevilacqua denied.

DeSisto called Taricani first, saying he wanted to cross-examine the reporter to show that Taricani -- who had vowed he would never reveal his source -- had actually done things to blow his cover after he faced contempt proceedings and $1,000-a-day fines.

Under questioning by the special prosecutor, Taricani conceded that he began dropping "clues" to DeSisto and the U.S. Attorney's office that could lead to identifying Bevilacqua as the source of the tape.

The tape, which Channel 10 aired on Feb. 1, 2001, shows Frank E. Corrente, a top aide to Cianci, accepting a $1,000 bribe. When Taricani got the tape, there was a court order banning dissemination of the FBI tapes by members of the prosecution and defense teams in the Plunder Dome case. The protective order was issued by Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux in August 2000 to ensure fair trials for Corrente, Cianci and their codefendants, who were later tried and convicted by a jury.

Bevilacqua received the videotapes because he had represented Joseph A. Pannone, a former tax official who pleaded guilty to corruption charges and was given a five-year prison sentence.

Taricani testified that he began dropping the clues to DeSisto as to his source's identity two to three months ago, after a viewer called him to say that Bevilacqua had bragged at a summer dinner party that he was the person who had leaked the Corrente videotape to Taricani.

Taricani said he was "incensed," "insulted," "angry" and "disappointed" because "to me it was a violation of our agreement."

"If he was telling people who he was . . . I would have confirmed his identity to you," Taricani told DeSisto.

He said he gave the special prosecutor "a list of names" to help him narrow the search. Asked why he didn't just give up Bevilacqua, Taricani said, "I wasn't certain he had disclosed himself. I wanted you to see if he might have done that."

But Taricani said he eventually did confront Bevilacqua about the dinner party bragging and Bevilacqua "emphatically denied" it and insisted on keeping his identity secret. He said Bevilacqua told him he thought Torres would "kill me" if he found out he was the source of the leaked tape.

DeSISTO PROBED into Taricani's decision to air the Corrente tape in violation of the protective order. Taricani said he knew of the order but did not think it pertained to him airing the tape and that Bevilacqua had told him he did not think it applied to him anymore since Pannone was in prison and he was no longer representing him.

Taricani said he originally did not plan to air the tape until it was shown at Corrente's trial because he was "concerned about poisoning the jury." But after Corrente's trial was postponed in January 2001, he said, he and his news director, after consulting with NBC lawyers, decided to air it. "We felt the tapes would not be released to the public" even after it was played in court, he said, and the public needed to see the tape because it was a prime example of corruption in City Hall.

Taricani also conceded, under questioning by the special prosecutor, that the reason Channel 10 aired the tape on Feb. 1, 2001, was because "news management" wanted to run it on the first day of a major ratings period.

(Taricani has said that he never told anyone who his source was until after Bevilacqua came forward on Nov. 24.)

Bevilacqua -- who was ordered to leave the room while Taricani was questioned by DeSisto -- testified that he did not think the protective order applied to him once the Pannone case was over and that he gave Taricani some of the secret FBI tapes to view out of "friendship" after the reporter asked him several times to see them.

Bevilacqua said that he never asked Taricani to keep his identity secret but that Taricani told him he wouldn't reveal his source because of the newsman's privilege. He said the only promise he asked of Taricani was that he wait until after the jurors had seen the tapes "because I was still mindful of a fair trial or a mistrial."

Contrary to Taricani's testimony, he said that the reporter never called him the night before the tape aired to tell him it would be on, and that when he found out it aired before Corrente's trial, he was shocked and upset.

He also denied ever telling Taricani, as the reporter says, that he was forced to sign a waiver of confidentiality.

In retrospect, Bevilacqua said, it was "poor judgment" on his part and an "embarrassment" to have given the tapes to Taricani.

He testified that Taricani wanted to be the first to show the Corrente tape to enhance his career. "This will make me look good, so to speak," he said the reporter told him. He also told Torres that Taricani called and was angry with him after getting the tip about the dinner party.

Bevilacqua, who said the tip was untrue, said Taricani told him, "You let the cat out of the bag" and accused him of ruining the chance to boost his career through scheduled appearances on national television, including Hardball.

Taricani denied this accusation in later testimony.

Bevilacqua testified that he never told anyone he had given Taricani the tapes -- not even his wife -- until the reporter told him he had inadvertently identified him in a conversation with an FBI agent just before Taricani's Nov. 18 criminal contempt trial began.

Bevilacqua said he became upset and felt betrayed because he did not believe that the leak was inadvertent. He said he told Taricani: "You knew I wanted to come forward" and that the plan was for the two of them to come forward together.

Bevilacqua also testified that shortly before Taricani's trial, NBC offered to pay his attorney's fees and sanctions if he came forward, but then reneged. Taricani testifed that NBC did offer him legal help but never agreed to pay any sanctions.

IN EVALUATING the testimony, Torres said he believed that Bevilacqua wanted to keep his identity secret, at least for a time, or else he would have come forward before Taricani's trial on Nov. 18.

But he also said he did not believe that Taricani "was particularly interested" in finding for quite awhile whether Bevilacqua would come forward. "I guess this was because he wanted to be a champion of the newsman's privilege," Torres said. But he also said he does not believe that Taricani spurned any offers from Bevilacqua to come forward.

The judge said he was troubled by the fact that Taricani, an experienced newsman, knew that by providing the Corrente tape, Bevilacqua was violating the law but nevertheless accepted it and aired it. "I don't know whether counsel for NBC knows anything about aiding and abetting," the judge said, but he said he thought the real reason Channel 10 delayed airing the tape was to determine whether it had any "legal liability" if it were to broadcast it before the Plunder Dome trial.

He said that sentencing Taricani, a reporter he has respected for many years, was "a very unpleasant task," but "what's at stake here is a rule of law and the constitutional right of people to a fair trial. No one's above the law -- not presidents, not reporters. Like all citizens, a reporter must abide by what laws say, not what they think they should say."

He said Taricani made conscious decisions to violate the law by defying a valid court order to reveal his source, knowing he might go to prison.

Torres did not order Taricani to pay for the special prosecutor's investigation or for the contempt proceedings.

The judge also told Taricani that if he was diligent about adhering to the conditions of confinement to his home in North Kingstown, which will include electronic monitoring, he could petition the court for "early termination" of his sentence after four months.

Martin Murphy, one of Taricani's lawyers who had asked for 30 days of home confinement, said he did not know whether Taricani would appeal.

After his sentencing, Taricani left the Kennedy Plaza courthouse with his wife, Laurie White, and legal team, without comment. As a condition of his probation, Torres forbade him to give interviews, and Clare Eckert, spokeswoman for Channel 10, said outside the courthouse that Taricani did not want to risk violating the terms of his sentence.

NBC issued a statement last night saying, "We are relieved that [Taricani] has been spared a potentially life-threatening prison sentence. Nonetheless, it is a sad day for journalism. The facts here do not justify punishing a journalist who did nothing illegal in receiving and airing a videotape."

DIGITAL EXTRA: Post your reaction to Taricani's sentencing, and see what others have said, at:

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