by Mike Stanton
In researching the mayor’s personal finances, I talked to several people involved in negotiating various financial deals and obtained letters, financial statements, and an IRS document requesting records for an audit. I also relied on real estate records and published accounts in The Providence Journal detailing the mayor’s personal finances. I also obtained records, which I used in a 2000 newspaper story, detailing the mayor’s use of campaign funds to pay for his grandchildren’s birthday parties, as well as Christmas presents and Christmas dinners at his house.
Several former aides described the relationship between Cianci and Corrente; one, who requested anonymity, recalled Corrente’s saying that their job was to “make sure the king’s ass is firmly in the chair,” a quote confirmed by another source, and also that Corrente wanted it written on his tombstone that he was a stand-up guy. Several aides confirmed Corrente’s turbulent affairs with women at City Hall, and his rivalry with Artin Coloian.
The section on the Providence Renaissance is based on newspaper clippings, architect William Warner’s booklet An Abbreviated History of the Waterplace Park and River Relocation Projects, and interviews with Cianci; Ken Orenstein, former director of the Providence Foundation; Lynn Singleton, executive director of the Providence Performing Arts Center; and several former mayoral aides, including Paul Campbell and Patricia McLaughlin. I also attended a twentieth-anniversary press conference about the project, in April 2002, at which Warner and other key players reminisced. The Boston Globe’s Dick Lehr shared his notes from a Buddy profile in which he described the mayor after his appearance on the Don Imus radio show.
Wendy Materna told me about her life with Buddy and their breakup. Carol Agugiaro, Bruce Sundlun, and former aides also described the relationship and the affect of the breakup on Cianci.
I interviewed Anthony Quinn before his death in 2002. A source told me about the police officer’s searching the hotel room of Carol Channing’s stage manager. The then Rhode Island Senate majority leader, Paul Kelly, described one of his senators telling him how Cianci told her at Mediterraneo that he had several hundred police officers who worked for him. Former Journal reporter C. J. Chivers, now with The New York Times, was at Barnaby Evans’s home the night that Buddy behaved boorishly.
Buff Chace told me about his efforts to refurbish downtown buildings. John Palmieri and another source also described Cianci’s clashes with Chace. Palmieri and Tom Rossi described the mayor’s stormy directors’ meetings. Palmieri and another aide told me about the Calvin Klein trip to New York; Cianci told me about the dinner at Rao’s.
Former governor Lincoln Almond and officials in his administration described their clashes with Cianci over economic development, including the New England Patriots deal. Michael Rich, former head of the Providence Foundation, told me about the reluctance of the business community to deal with Cianci.
Former Cianci aide Melissa Forrest told me that Art Coloian pulled workers out of City Hall to orchestrate a drive to knock mayoral challenger Pat Cortellessa off the ballot in 1998.
A source who was there described the Bob Dylan concert at the Strand.
Cianci and Paul Campbell, who ran the mayor’s film commission, talked about the mayor’s efforts to woo Hollywood.
Chapter Nine: Mr. Freon
I interviewed FBI special agent W. Dennis Aiken and cooperating witness Antonio R. Freitas about the genesis of Operation Plunder Dome and Freitas’s year undercover. I also relied on extensive court records in the case, including videotapes and transcripts of videotapes of Freitas’s dealings with Joseph Pannone, David Ead, and Frank Corrente. Former federal prosecutor James E. O’Neil told me about working with Aiken on the Edward Manning case.
The material on Edward Voccola is based on court records and extensive interviews that I conducted for a two-part Providence Journal series that I coauthored with David Herzog, which was published on May 7 and 8, 2000.
Cianci talked to me about his dislike of Linc Almond and John Chafee, which he has made no secret of. A former aide told me of the mayor’s comment “You wouldn’t do very well in front of the grand jury.” The undercover FBI agent “Marco” was disclosed in Cianci’s trial by his defense lawyer, Richard Egbert, who argued that it showed that the mayor would not tolerate corruption.
Chapter Ten: Toads in the Basement
Dennis Aiken and David Ead described the scene at Doris Vending on the morning of April 28, 1999. Four sources told me of Aiken’s encounter with Cianci at the mayor’s house that same morning. Ead and his lawyer, James E. O’Neil, and Joseph Pannone described being in the holding cell that morning. I was at City Hall that day when the search warrants were being executed and in court that afternoon for Ead’s and Pannone’s arraignment. My Journal colleague Bill Malinowski and I visited Ead at Doris Vending shortly after his arrest, and also interviewed Pannone’s daughter, Debbie Pannone.
In subsequent interviews, Ead and Pannone talked to me about their backgrounds; one interview was conducted with Pannone after he was sent to prison in Fort Devens, Massachusetts. I was present when Pannone exchanged waves in the prison visitors’ room with Mafia underboss Jerry Angiulo. I also interviewed Ead’s former police partner, retired Providence major Pasquale “Pat” Rocchio, and former major John J. Leyden about Ead’s days as a police officer. Ead gave me copies of his police commendations.
Bill Malinowski and I also interviewed Christopher Ise for a Journal story on October 15, 2000, that detailed the three bribes that Ead told the feds he arranged with the mayor.
Cianci talked to me about his aspirations of opening a library and archive. Carol Agugiaro told me about her farewell conversation with Cianci when she retired.
The account of the University Club affair is based on court testimony, trial exhibits, the tape recordings of the mayor’s two telephone conversations with Steven Antonson, and my own interviews for an extensive Providence Journal story that I wrote on July 18, 1999.
Cianci talked to me early in 2001 about his feud with the producers of The Sopranos.
I covered Rosemary Glancy’s case, including her trial in 2001, and interviewed her many times, including in her hospital room, with my colleague Tracy Breton, just after her release from prison and a few months before her death.
Chapter Eleven: Buddy’s Inferno
I interviewed Laurel Casey. She also gave me a copy of a video documentary about a year in her life that includes footage of Cianci—Laurel Casey: The Hurting Truth, by Xaque Gruber.
I was at City Hall the night of Cianci’s indictment for his press conference. My Journal colleague Karen Lee Ziner was with the mayor afterward in his back office and later that night at the Oyster Bar. For an account of Cianci’s trip to the U.S. mayors’ conference in Washington, I relied on the reporting of the Journal’s Washington bureau chief, John Mulligan.
I was one of the reporters who received phone calls at home from the mayor’s office the night that the story about Richard Rose showing the Plunder Dome videotape broke. I spoke to Cianci the next day, when he accused Dennis Aiken of getting out of line with Chris Nocera. I also wrote the earlier stories about the dispute between Cianci and Tony Freitas. The background on Richard Rose is based on interviews I did with Rose, friends, and lawyers, including former U.S. attorney Sheldon Whitehouse and Clifford Montiero, president of the Providence chapter of the NAACP, as well as Rose’s public comments, in speeches and in a March 24, 1998, Q&A with the Journal’s Karen A. Davis.
I interviewed Amanda Milkovits, The Providence Journal’s police reporter who accompanied Cianci to Ground Zero in New York, about the trip. I was at the Providence train station the day after September 11, when Cianci showed up for the arrest of the terrorist suspect. I obtained a tape of The Truman Taylor Show.
I covered Cianci at a variety of public events in the weeks and months leading up to his trial, and engaged in private conversations with him afterward. An aide described his late-night party at the Biltmore following the Gay Ball. I read
Tristan Taormino’s August 10, 2001, column in The Village Voice about Cianci’s attendance at the Ocean State Leather Contest. I was in Cianci’s office when he was going through his mail and found his invitation to Liza Minnelli’s wedding; Lynn Singleton of the Providence Performing Arts Center told me about the Providence drag queens calling Buddy’s name outside the Waldorf in New York.
Two sources at the Providence Civic Center told me about the Boston Pops.
Two aides who were there described the episode involving “the mayor’s special foot powder.” One of them also described the incident in the Westin men’s room and brushing white powder off Cianci’s lapel.
An aide described Cianci’s drinking and comments on the night of the Aretha Franklin concert. Several concertgoers told me about witnessing the mayor’s antics, including his reference to her as “the soul of queen.”
Chapter Twelve: Pomp and Circumstantial Evidence
I covered the trial of Buddy Cianci for The Providence Journal. Much of this chapter is based on my observations inside and outside the courtroom. Background on Richard Egbert came from conversations that we had during the trial, from a Providence Journal profile that I did with three other reporters in 1998, and from profiles prior to the trial by Bill Malinowski in the Journal and Ian Donnis in the Providence Phoenix. I also interviewed defense lawyers C. Leonard O’Brien and Richard Bicki.
A source told me how Cianci dispatched an aide to the Foxwoods Casino to ferret out David Ead’s gambling records.
I interviewed G. Robert Blakey about the RICO law and Cianci’s case.
The account of Barney Prignano’s clash with prosecutor Richard Rose is based on my interviews with Prignano and his lawyer, Stephen Famiglietti. Dennis Aiken and Steven Antonson talked to me after the trial about Antonson’s decision to cooperate. I interviewed John DePetro and his lawyer, Joseph Cavanagh (who has also represented my newspaper), regarding the Plunder Dome subpoena.
I was with Cianci at the gay-pride parade on June 15, 2002, and later that night at Intermezzo and Mirabar.
I interviewed two of the jurors after the case about their deliberations.
I was in the courtroom when Cianci was sentenced, spoke to him on the courthouse steps about the confusion over whether he was still the mayor, and then hurried over to City Hall to observe the confusion and last-minute negotiations over the change in power.
Michael Corrente, who has optioned this book for a movie, told me about his phone conversation with Cianci after the mayor was sentenced, in which Cianci made the crack about Jekyll and Hyde and asked why didn’t he get two paychecks.
Epilogue: The Last Hurrah
I interviewed John Lombardi in the mayor’s office shortly after he replaced Cianci. Sources saw Buckles Melise at Cicilline’s campaign headquarters on primary night.
Wendy Materna talked to me about Nicole Cianci, as did Carol Agugiaro and other former Cianci aides who requested anonymity. So did Arlene Violet, who is a friend of Cianci’s ex-wife, Sheila Bentley. Cianci, in his letter seeking a new prison assignment, acknowledged his daughter’s problems and his own failings as a father, which he said he was eager to make up for. Police reports document the alleged assault of Nicole by her boyfriend. Former Journal reporter Jonathan Rockoff and I discovered that a company created by Cianci to handle his marinara sauce had paid Nicole’s car insurance after she was involved in an accident. We obtained police records documenting this and also interviewed the driver of the other car.
A former Rhode Island public official who had been incarcerated at Fort Dix talked to me about conditions there, and what Cianci could expect.
Bob Lovell told reporters about Cianci’s journey to prison.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The story of Buddy Cianci could not have been told without the generous support of many people. Although the mayor was not enthused about this project, I am grateful for the time that he did spend with me in the year leading up to his trial and also during the nine days that the jury was deliberating his fate.
I was lucky to find a terrific agent in Andrew Blauner, who was always there with advice and encouragement, and a superb editor at Random House in Jonathan Karp, who pushed me in many ways to make this a better book. With Jon’s support, I expanded my initial focus on Operation Plunder Dome and went back to Cianci’s early years, which I believe made for a richer and more complex tale. I’d also like to thank Amelia Zalcman, Jonathan Jao, Barbara Bachman, and Steve Messina at Random House for their efforts.
I have been blessed with wonderful colleagues and editors in my eighteen years at The Providence Journal, a newspaper whose proud heritage includes such distinguished journalists as A. J. Liebling, Ben Bagdikian, and Jules Witcover. I would like to thank the Journal’s publisher, Howard Sutton, for standing up for me when Cianci tried to stop me from doing this book. I owe a special debt to Tracy Breton, a good friend and classy colleague on the investigative team who introduced me to Raymond DeLeo, Ronald Glantz, and others. I also couldn’t have survived this without the friendship and counsel of another investigative colleague, Bill Malinowski, the best partner in crime a journalist could hope to have. I would also like to acknowledge the support over the years of a man I’ve kicked many a trash can with, the Journal’s executive editor, Joel Rawson. And if it weren’t for Tom Heslin, the Journal’s metro managing editor, I might still be covering the Friars. Thanks, Tom, for your patience, wisdom, and insightful editing over the years, and for teaching me THWTB: “The hard way’s the best.” And thanks to my former I-team colleague David Herzog, whose journalism students at the University of Missouri probably won’t believe his stories about Eddie Voccola. I’d also like to thank Mary Murphy for her friendship and her marvelous photography throughout Plunder Dome, and for my book-jacket photo. Thanks also to Journal photo editor Mike Delaney and Maureen Aldrich for their assistance in rounding up the photos for this book. Several other colleagues provided advice, shared information, and offered moral support: Linda Borg, Ged Carbone, Hilary Horton, Bob Kerr, Jennifer Levitz, Peter Lord, Kevin McNamara, Amanda Milkovits, G. Wayne Miller, Tom Mooney, Mark Patinkin, Bill Reynolds, and Karen Lee Ziner. And a special thanks to Scott MacKay, my former Rhode Island history classmate at URI, and M. Charles Bakst, both of whom read the manuscript and offered valuable feedback. I’m also grateful to former Journal editor Chuck Hauser and former colleagues Chris Chivers, Doane Hulick, Mark Johnson, and Jon Rockoff. Linda Henderson’s library staff at the Journal also deserves thanks, particularly Jennifer Hazard and Christina Siwy.
