Our Buddy's F*cked

For Fumo, what went around, came back around.

by Brian Hickey

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Published: Feb 7, 2007

"When you have money, you can do anything you want." — CP, Oct. 17, 1996

Sometimes, the story speaks for itself. So, here's a trio of highlights from Tuesday's 273-page corruption indictment that, if true, expose the Honorable Vincent J. Fumo as a paranoid megalomaniac and political Koresh who views us commoners with the contempt generally reserved for a smear of pigeon shit that falls upon a custom-made Brioni:

• "After FUMO broke up with another girlfriend in 2002, FUMO directed Senate Contractor No. 1 to surveil the woman on approximately six occasions, for six to 10 hours each time. In part, he was told to identify her companions and activities and to contact local police to have her arrested if it appeared that she was driving while intoxicated. In addition, FUMO, using Senate employees, also endeavored to revoke the Pennsylvania driver's license of the woman's new boyfriend, based on a conviction for drunk driving."

• Fumo allegedly used employees of both the state, and his "nonprofit" Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, to do personal work while on someone else's clock. Among the tasks? Make sure the "sidewalk heat (is) hooked up." "Also," he e-mailed an employee, "I want the gas lamp in the front of the house fixed once and for all. ... [F]ind out who at the Academy of Music handles their maintainance and get our's to work like their's. I don't care what it costs."

• And finally, there's the budget analyst who "assisted FUMO in researching the price of goat meat, during the Senate workday. ... Another budget analyst, at FUMO's direction, investigated whether cows could be imported from Italy."

Yes, Fumo is now payback's bitch. One needn't have looked much further than the eighth-floor conference room in the U.S. Attorney's Office on Tuesday morning to see that. The anxious energy at Patrick Meehan's SRO press conference felt as if it were a tough, conscious decision away from pom-poms and a spotter. Which is understandable, considering they think Fumo (allegedly) bilked "substantially in excess of" $2.1 million from taxpayers, the tax-exempt Citizens' Alliance and the Independence Seaport Museum.

Now, this is different than Mariano's credit-card debt and Kemp's Super Bowl tickets. This is about class and privilege. Specifically (and allegedly), someone who thought having loads of money made him, by default, high-class. And that when you're high-class, you can take as you please, from where you please, whenever you please.

In other (alleged) words, it's about a sense of entitlement that Meehan hammered home by reiterating a phrase he claims Fumo just loved to use: OPM. Shorthand for: "other people's money." And shorterhand for: Why spend your own loot if you can just tap the OPM machine? Especially when you've (allegedly) so dangled the fruits of privilege before your minions that they're loathe to defy, or drop dime on, you.

"Because he delivered money to his constituents, he felt entitled to reach deeply into the pockets of Pennsylvania taxpayers with the other hand," Meehan said. This is about "deception, greed, manipulation, rampant obstruction."

Truth be told, the details weren't all that shocking because, as far back as the mid-'90s, this newspaper was hammering away at Fumo's (alleged) improprieties. That landslide of throwdown-journalism scrutiny — led by Howard Altman, Scott Farmelant and Noel Weyrich — ultimately led Fumo's current-day nemesis, the Inquirer, to do more than piggyback us. "I was happy to see them pick up the trail and paint a picture with far greater detail than we could," wrote Altman in a 1997 article that sparked a $5 million lawsuit (later settled).

So, for nine years, the city's paper of record has done, in this narrow scope, its job: Keep digging and digging, even when the threatening letters started flying. Sure, they'll be called vengeful in coming days, but it should serve as a reminder of what we journalists need to return to even if, in the face of legalized bullying, the resources to do so are being withheld.

Though the settlement remains confidential, the filing indicates that Fumo found it offensive to allege that he was "abusing his power as a public official, and violating his fiduciary duties" in regards to his work on the Board of City Trusts. It also read, "[T]he defendants created the totally false impression that (i) Senator Fumo is unethical, untrustworthy, immoral, dishonest and dangerous, (ii) that Senator Fumo is unfit to be a state senator or Board member, and (iii) that Senator Fumo has abused his power as a public official."

Fast-forward to today, and consider what it means should this indictment hold water. Items (ii) and (iii) are pretty clear, so:

Is he unethical? Yep.

Immoral? By most standards.

Dishonest? As Geppetto's puppet.

Dangerous? Ask the ex.

But untrustworthy? I had to ask that of someone closely familiar with Fumo, someone who said he or she knows some, but not all, of the allegations are true. After noting that Fumo is, in fact, a man of his word, he or she said, "Vince has his own sense of honor."

Which, to me, translates as: OPM may make — and keep — you filthy rich. But, it makes you Honorable in title alone.

(hickey@citypaper.net)

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