October 9-15, 2003

city beat

Cell Probe?

U.S. Postal Inspectors talk to Michael Youngblood about his stolen phone records.

by Howard Altman

If you're waiting for the U.S. Postal Inspector's (USPI) office to sort out the controversy over who stole Michael Youngblood's cell-phone records, don't hold your breath.

Youngblood -- former City Council aide, ex-convict and confidant of mayoral hopeful Sam Katz -- met with USPI officials for an hour Monday morning, but an agency spokesperson says it will be at least 30 days before it decides whether it will launch an investigation. That means the earliest a probe could start is the day after voters determine who gets to work out of City Hall Room 215 in January 2004.

The Katz campaign maintains that Mayor John Street's supporters are behind last week's release of Youngblood's phone records.

It was disturbing that someone would steal these records and try to use [them], says Maureen Garrity, campaign spokesperson. It doesn't matter when the investigation starts, as long as the person who stole these records is found. Most people have a pretty clear idea of where these phone records came from -- people supportive of the Street campaign. I think we will have to wait and see what the investigation says, but it looks like it is leaning in that direction.

The Street campaign, not surprisingly, says Garrity is missing the point.

Every day comes a different allegation from these people, says Street spokesperson Dan Fee. When are they going to get it through their heads it is not how these records were obtained, the issue is what was in them. They still have yet to explain why they were conspiring with a convicted extortionist. They have a lot of explaining to do. They can issue all the attacks they want, but it doesn't obscure the fact that Michael Youngblood is an integral part of their campaign,

Garrity has acknowledged numerous conversations between Youngblood and the Katz campaign.

He calls me, Garrity said last week. He'll tell me stuff he heard. We get lots of information from lots of people. He passes along interesting rumors he has heard, interesting things he heard about the campaign.

Efforts to reach Youngblood, at his home and via his pager, have been unsuccessful. The cell phone at the heart of this controversy has since been disconnected.

USPI spokesperson Tom Boyle says his agency receives between 100 to 200 stolen-mail complaints every month and that unless something earthshattering came up during [Youngblood's] interview, we'll put it in line with everyone else's complaints.

When asked for specifics of Youngblood's interview, Boyle said he won't go there.

Joe Podraza, one of two attorneys representing Youngblood, says he cannot comment on the possibility that the phone records did not come from the mail, but instead were printouts somehow obtained from Cingular, Youngblood's carrier. Efforts to reach Cingular have been unsuccessful.

Youngblood's phone records became a campaign controversy last week after City Paper reported that someone began distributing an inch-thick copy of his call history between May and September. The package included a cover sheet -- highlighting some of the 4,000 calls -- that attempts to establish a link between Katz and Youngblood around the time of the putative Molotov cocktail incident at Katz's North Philadelphia headquarters.

Though facts on the cover sheet were wrong -- Katz indeed spoke with Youngblood on Aug. 27 but the alleged attack on his office took place the previous night -- the distribution of the records had both sides crying foul and Youngblood's attorneys threatening to sue anyone who published information gleaned from the phone records.