by Mike Stanton
It was late afternoon when Egbert finished. Court broke for the day. Upstairs, in an office used by the prosecution, Rose seemed upset with Antonson’s performance. He and Aiken argued about whether to put Antonson back on the stand the next morning, to clear up the confusion in his testimony, as Judge Torres had suggested. Rose snapped for someone to get Antonson out of there. Aiken told Antonson to come back tomorrow.
The next morning, Antonson was waiting in the hallway to retake the stand when Aiken suddenly burst out of the courtroom and said: “It’s over. You can go home.” Antonson went home frustrated. After a year of keeping everything he’d been through bottled up inside, he didn’t understand why he hadn’t been allowed to tell his story. He called Aiken and complained that they had made him look like an idiot. Aiken was apologetic; he said that Rose had fucked up, and caught hell for it.
But Antonson also understood. The night before he testified, he had met with Rose in the U.S. attorney’s office. Rose had said how tired he was. Antonson knew exactly how he felt.
THE SAME DAY that the Antonson tapes were played in court, prosecutors revealed the existence of another explosive tape—one in which Frank Corrente allegedly discussed corruption at City Hall with another former top Cianci aide, Thomas Rossi.
Working with the FBI, Rossi had agreed to wear a wire in the summer of 1999. A few days after Corrente retired in the face of Operation Plunder Dome, prosecutors said that he “reached out” to Rossi to find out what he knew about the investigation. It was surprising that the normally suspicious Corrente would have wanted to talk to Rossi, who was perceived in the mayor’s office as a loose cannon and a disgruntled former aide, someone who had lost out to Corrente in their early 1990s power struggle. But Corrente was angry and discouraged, having just given up a position of power that he craved. He also may have been bitter toward Cianci, feeling that he’d been pushed out of City Hall because of the growing scandal.
Corrente and Rossi met on July 7, 1999, at a Dunkin’ Donuts near Corrente’s house in Cranston. It was a fitting spot for the rendezvous. It seemed as if there was a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner in the state, reinforcing Rhode Island’s position as one of the most obese states in the nation. In the months following his indictment, Cianci had negotiated a million-dollar marketing deal renaming the financially troubled Providence Civic Center the Dunkin’ Donuts Center; at a ceremony featuring a dancing donut, the mayor had raised the donut chain’s ubiquitous orange and fuchsia colors above the building where his cronies were in the process of harassing Steve Antonson.
The Dunkin’ Donuts tape quickly became a cause célèbre in Cianci’s trial. That Thursday morning, before the jury came in and testimony resumed, the lawyers debated whether the jury should hear any of the one-hour tape, which the government had edited down to thirty minutes. Prosecutor Terrence Donnelly argued that the tape was important evidence in showing that Cianci and Corrente ran a criminal enterprise at City Hall. On the tape Corrente said that he and Coloian had loaned Cianci $150,000, and the money—at least Corrente’s share—had never been repaid. The financial relationship could help prosecutors show the mayor’s need for money, as well as help explain Corrente’s role as the mayor’s bagman. Corrente also talked on the tape about how he and Cianci used campaign funds, about the School Department lease with Edward Voccola, and about his control over the Providence Police Department. For example, Corrente said that he could use police officers to check motorists’ license plates, and that he had quashed a police investigation into whether the mayor’s chief of staff, Art Coloian, had assaulted his girlfriend.
The defense lawyers vociferously fought introduction of the tape. Voccola’s lawyer, William Murphy, said that Rossi had been playing “Mickey the Dunce,” trying to get Corrente to say something incriminating. Egbert called it “triple quadruple hearsay”—locker-room talk that even included a discussion of the mayor’s sex life. Corrente’s lawyer, Len O’Brien, complained that the tape was filled with “salacious gossip.” So naturally the public and the press were eager to hear it. But Judge Torres reserved judgment, postponing Rossi’s appearance on the stand.
Beyond the Dunkin’ Donuts tape, Rossi’s anticipated testimony promised to connect Cianci and Corrente to the shakedown of tow-truck operators and bribes from Eddie Voccola. In the early 1990s, shortly after Cianci regained office, Rossi described attending a meeting in which Corrente told a leader of the towing association that members would have to increase their contributions to five thousand dollars a year to remain on the police list. Rossi also said that he had been privy to a meeting between Corrente and Voccola in 1991, and Voccola had agreed to pay “cash kickbacks” to Cianci, through Corrente, if the School Department rented his garage. Later, after the lease was signed, Rossi said that he saw Voccola outside Corrente’s office at City Hall one day with a brown Stop & Shop bag; Voccola said that he had a bag of “scarole” and that he had to see Frank. Privately, Rossi was telling people that Corrente and Cianci had had an arrangement: Cianci would work off his personal debts to Corrente by allowing him to pocket some of the bribe money.
While prosecutors believed the essence of what Rossi was telling them, he had problems. Rossi had a reputation for craving attention and for exaggerating. With memories of David Ead perhaps fresh in their minds, the prosecutors didn’t want to risk having Rossi’s revelations overshadowed by a withering Egbert cross-examination. Cianci’s defense team was calling people all over town, trying to dig up dirt on Rossi. Egbert sarcastically referred to him as “Rossi to the rescue,” noting how he so conveniently popped up throughout the case. In addition to the towers and the Voccola lease, Rossi also claimed to have dealt with one of the leaders of the University Club when they were having problems with Cianci—something that the club official had denied on the stand.
And yet some of what Rossi said had been corroborated by others. For example, Joseph Pannone had told the FBI of having seen Voccola at City Hall, paying his “juice” for the school lease. And tow-truck operator Kenneth Rocha testified that Rossi was present when Corrente demanded that the towers increase their contributions to Cianci.
Over the next three weeks, as the trial plodded on, Rossi hovered in the background. Judge Torres pondered the matter carefully, asking all of the lawyers to submit written briefs. Three weeks after the prosecution had sought to introduce the Rossi tape, Torres ruled that he would allow portions of it to be played, specifically Corrente’s comments about Cianci’s personal finances and the mayor’s use of campaign funds. But first the government would have to lay a sufficient foundation, by showing that Corrente had made the statements as a coconspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy. Otherwise, the statements would be inadmissible hearsay. As the trial moved on, the prosecutors had to decide: How badly did they want the Rossi tape? And how much was it going to cost? Ultimately, they decided the price was too high. Rossi was never called.
Rossi’s disappearance underscored the challenge facing the prosecution or how thin the government’s case was, depending on your point of view. Legal analysts said that the case had been “overcharged” with the hope of pressuring Corrente to turn on the mayor. But it hadn’t happened. As witness after witness testified to various sordid dealings, from illegal campaign contributions to payoffs for city jobs to the questionable circumstances surrounding Voccola’s school lease, Egbert kept pointing to the lack of evidence against Cianci. There was testimony that Corrente had shaken down the towers and arranged bribes with Voccola—but not with Cianci himself. He either was not involved or had insulated himself so well that no witness could testify to the mayor’s knowledge, at least in those two instances. Prosecutors did point to one piece of circumstantial evidence regarding the towers—a memo from Cianci’s campaign bookkeeper indicating that the mayor paid close attention to the money coming in. To bypass the legal campaign limit of one thousand dollars a year, towers testified that they made contributions in the names of others, including young children, which was
illegal in Rhode Island. When two towers inadvertently gave too much in their own names and the campaign had to return thirty-four hundred dollars, Cianci’s campaign bookkeeper sought Corrente’s help in rounding up replacement checks. “I know that the mayor does not want to part with that without money being replaced,” she wrote. The prosecution argued that Corrente acted on the mayor’s behalf, since the towers’ contributions flowed to Friends of Cianci for the mayor’s benefit.
Likewise, in the case of Voccola’s school lease, tracing a path to the mayor proved difficult. City officials testified that Corrente had ordered them to steer the lease to Voccola, even having them rewrite the bid specifications and arranging for Voccola to receive his monthly rent checks in advance—a courtesy previously extended only to the Catholic Church. And Roger Cavaca, Voccola’s longtime employee, testified that Voccola had told him about paying bribes to Corrente. Cavaca also described the time he cashed the $7,500 check for Voccola and watched him put the money in an envelope marked “Frank C.” shortly before Corrente stopped by the garage to see Voccola. That was the check that had helped Dennis Aiken launch the Plunder Dome investigation. But Judge Torres would not allow Cavaca to say in front of the jury that Voccola had described Corrente as “Cianci’s errand boy.” Without additional evidence tying Cianci into the lease conspiracy, Torres ruled that Cavaca’s statement was hearsay.
Still, as the Voccola lease was dissected, an unflattering portrait of the culture at City Hall emerged. Mark Dunham, the School Department’s finance director, said that he initially lied to the FBI about Corrente’s involvement because he feared for his job; when Dunham tried to get the city out of the Voccola lease when it came up for renewal, Corrente called him and screamed, “Are you fucking nuts?” Alan Sepe, the acting property director, said that he, too, had lied to investigators about Corrente’s role because “I wanted to be a stand-up person—I didn’t want to be a rat.”
Eddie Voccola, who often sat slumbering during the trial, lived in a world divided between rats and stand-up guys. He had a disdain for the media, which had latched onto the squat, no-necked Voccola as the quintessential Rhode Island thug. In the privacy of the room reserved for defendants during court breaks, he would complain about the press but also talk about which female reporters he’d like to fuck. Voccola was a funny man, regaling his codefendants with stories, like the one about the time he had stranded the insurance adjuster on the roof. And he was more cultured than one might think. He had traveled widely in Europe and would engage Cianci in discourses about the prosecution’s Machiavellian tactics and ancient Roman history. During a break in Roger Cavaca’s testimony, Voccola complained about what a smooth talker his former employee was. Asked to describe the safe where Voccola allegedly stored bribe money, Cavaca had deadpanned, “It’s a large metal object with a lock on it.” Said Voccola: “The fuckin’ guy talks better than Cicero.” Chimed in Cianci, “And Ovid, too.”
One morning, while the lawyers were preparing for court in the defendants’ conference room, Voccola and Cianci got into a heated debate about who made the best marinara sauce. The two went back and forth. Voccola told Cianci he needed to put meat in his sauce. Cianci emphasized the importance of the carrots, to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes. Voccola said that it wasn’t real red gravy if it had carrots. By the end, the lawyers were shaking their heads and smiling, and even Cianci was laughing hysterically. But one day Voccola encountered some digestive distress that wasn’t so funny. Shortly after court convened one afternoon, his lawyer asked the judge for an emergency recess. As Voccola waddled out of the courtroom toward the bathroom, Egbert chanted, “Go, Eddie, go!” When Voccola returned, Egbert teased, “Well, Eddie, at least no one can say you’re full of crap now.”
The day after Cavaca’s testimony, Don Imus parachuted into Providence, bringing more comic relief. Broadcasting his show on Friday morning live from the top-floor ballroom of the Biltmore—Cianci’s living room—Imus cracked: “Obviously, he’s guilty. The question is, can they prove it?” More than eight hundred people crowded into the ballroom, beneath the golden ceiling, to watch Imus and his sidekicks skewer the city’s rich history of mobsters and corrupt politicians. Imus lamented that he had to leave after the show for a wedding in Connecticut; otherwise he’d “hang out and launder some money.” Outside, a man hawked FREE BUDDY T-shirts that had been made in Raymond Patriarca’s former Federal Hill headquarters, now a tattoo parlor. When Cianci made his entrance at eight-thirty he was greeted by enthusiastic applause. Some people rose to their feet. The audience, some of whom had been waiting in line since 5 A.M., included the Chamber of Commerce president, who had testified for the government about the University Club, and a retired state police detective who had investigated Cianci’s assault of Raymond DeLeo.
Cianci told Imus that the trial had not interfered with his duties as mayor. Imus cut in to ask if those duties included opening the mail—“just an envelope joke,” he added, when the mayor appeared baffled. “See that? I’m innocent,” replied Cianci. The mayor launched into a lengthy monologue about Providence—the Renaissance, the rivers, the restaurants—until Imus interrupted, “Are you on amphetamines?”
When Cianci professed his innocence, Imus grinned and shot back, “You can say you’re not guilty, but they can still have something on you.” Imus told Cianci that he hoped he “got off.” The mayor corrected him—“found not guilty.”
THE MONDAY AFTER Imus came to town, Buddy Cianci’s former chief of police sauntered into the courthouse to testify under a grant of immunity.
Urbano Prignano, Jr., had served five tempestuous years as chief, years marked by scandals involving missing evidence, including gold and cocaine; loose control of automobiles seized from drug dealers; political favoritism in promotions; and paranoia and low morale. To his critics, Prignano presided over a corrupt department where justice was for sale, where the mayor’s friends were protected and his enemies spied on. Several of Cianci’s City Council foes through the years had stories about being followed by the police. The day before Operation Plunder Dome became public, the police union had voted no confidence in Prignano following the discovery of a hidden surveillance camera at a police substation, apparently planted to catch whoever was posting unflattering messages about the chief on the bulletin board. Prignano had resigned under fire in 2001, as the widening federal probe explored payoffs for police promotions and case fixing.
Politics in the police department had been a reality since the early Cianci years, when the mayor had had City Council president Robert Haxton arrested and chief Robert Ricci committed suicide amidst allegations that Cianci had pressured him to hire unqualified recruits. The Plunder Dome investigation had turned up more recent allegations. Rosemary Glancy had been busy raising money for the mayor to help her brother’s chances at being promoted. David Ead told investigators that he went to Art Coloian, who threw a big fund-raiser for Cianci attended by cops, on behalf of a friend willing to donate five thousand for a promotion to major. Coloian, he said, told him that he had to be kidding, that a major’s job cost twenty thousand.
During the trial, Major Dennis Simoneau, who had been passed over for advancement, testified that he started contributing to Cianci, at Prignano’s urging, and was subsequently promoted after donating about three thousand over the next few years. (On cross-examination, Egbert raised another reason for the delay of Simoneau’s promotion—his involvement in a drunken episode at the police union hall in 1978, when disgruntled officers had fired their service revolvers at a picture of Cianci on the wall.) Prignano said that the politics predated Cianci, accusing the Irish cops who controlled things under Joe Doorley of each memorizing sections of the promotional exams and passing them on to their friends.
A stumpy man who looked like Fred Flintstone and answered to the nickname Barney, Prignano had been a streetwise cop who specialized in wiretaps. In the late seventies, he had served as Cianci’s bodyguard. A Silver Lake native, the future chief had
played Babe Ruth ball with Joseph Mollicone, the future embezzler, and had once been treated by Cianci’s father after being hit in the head by a baseball bat while playing catcher. Many were surprised when Cianci chose him to be chief; he had skipped the ranks of lieutenant and captain. Prignano, who had an explosive temper, blew up at a reporter who wrote about his meteoric rise, thinking that the reporter meant mediocre. Because Prignano was so unpolished, an arrogant young lieutenant with his own ambitions of being chief, John Ryan, was promoted to captain and served as the department’s public mouthpiece.
When The Providence Journal wrote stories questioning Prignano’s friendship with a convicted felon and bail bondsman, Wayne David Collins, Jr., who had been involved in the armed robbery of a Cranston fur salon, Prignano pointed angrily to the wall, where Cianci’s picture hung, and shouted: “I work for him—and he’s a convicted felon. So if you wanna bang me, bang me for that.” Collins had the run of the chief’s office, to the point where he once sat in the chief’s chair when Prignano wasn’t there, feet up on the desk, as he dished dirt to a reporter about the alleged mob ties of one of Cianci’s political enemies.
Prignano was being called to testify about charges that Corrente and Autiello had extorted a five-thousand-dollar bribe from the mother of a police recruit who had had several run-ins with the law, but was still admitted to the Police Academy, only to withdraw due to injury. The recruit was subsequently denied entrance to the next academy class, after other senior officers learned about his troubled past. Autiello lobbied Prignano to reinstate him. So did Ryan, who ran the academy and had his own allegedly corrupt relationship with Autiello. (Autiello, who had a multimillion-dollar contract to repair city police vehicles that Ryan administered, bought Ryan a car and gave it to him at a discount, according to court records.) Prignano, who was offended by the recruit’s arrest for impersonating a police officer, refused to reinstate him. Still, Autiello told the angry mother to forget about getting her money back.
