Alas, the first real day of the Fumo trial has come and gone, and there’s been nary a word from Fumogation.

Why, you ask?

Late last week, I accepted a job reporting in New York City, thus ending this grand experiment in criminal justice. Props to City Paper for agreeing to toss the resources behind it all.

Of course, our good friends at the Inky, Daily News, and millions of city blogs will hopefully satisfy your thirst for all things Fumo. If not, and if you have some spare time, start up a Twitter account, take a seat in the courtroom, and text away!

Looks like the new judge, Ronald Buckwalter, agreed to let federal prosecutors interview Fumo’s former attorney, Richard Sprague, without defense attorneys present. Let me break down, in simple yet dramatic terms, what’s happening here. (For more info, click here and here.)

Act 1: Sprague and Fumo are the Yoda and Luke Skywalker of Philadelphia clout.

Act 2: Fumo is indicted, in part, for obstruction of justice charges for allegedly deleting e-mails. Sprague agrees to defend him.

Act 3: Sprage and Fumo split. The Force is in disarray. Fumo says Sprague said it was a-ok to delete e-mails. Sprague says that’s not so.

Act 4: Sprague will likely be interviewed by the feds.

Act 5: Will Sprague take the stand for the feds? STAY TUNED!

From the Inky story:

The feds may want to call Sprague as a rebuttal witness if Fumo asserts an advice-of-counsel defense to obstruction charges.

The ruling came after U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter said that a government subpoena issued to the Sprague firm last month was too broad.

The subpoena was in response to a letter from defense attorneys to prosecutors that Fumo would defend himself against obstruction charges based on advice he had gotten – or understood he had gotten – from Sprague before Feb. 18, 2005, that it was permissible under federal law for Fumo to destroy documents so long as Fumo had not received a grand-jury subpoena.

The feds want to see if any Sprague records reflect that. Fumo had previously agreed to a limited waiver of the attorney/client confidentiality in the matter.

May I also point out that the new judge’s first major decision favored the feds? Just saying.

There will be a new judge hearing Sen. Fumo’s corruption case come Oct. 20.Judge Ronald Buckwalter will replace the ailing Judge William Yohn. Though there are usually timing concerns with a change like this, Buckwalter told the Inquirer that the final round of jury selection will resume, as planned, in 20 days.

Inky:

Yesterday’s one-sentence court order putting Buckwalter in charge of the trial gave no reason for Yohn’s withdrawal. Yohn’s staff declined to comment.

The two judges are much alike. Both are in their early 70s and are serving as senior judges. Both were appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush almost two decades ago.

And both Buckwalter and Yohn began their public careers as Republican officeholders in the suburbs. Buckwalter was a Republican district attorney in Lancaster County; Yohn was a Republican member of the state House from Montgomery County.

A native of Lancaster, Buckwalter graduated from Franklin and Marshall College, and earned a law degree from the College of William and Mary. After serving as district attorney in the late 1970s, he was a Lancaster County Court judge for a decade.

Since you’ve all surely been starved of Fumo-trial related news these days, you can go ahead and read pretty uch the same story in the York Daily Record or on It’s Our City.

Here’s Buckwalter’s bio from the Federal Judicial Center:

Born 1936 in Lancaster, PA

Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U. S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Nominated by George H.W. Bush on November 17, 1989, to a seat vacated by Charles R. Weiner; Confirmed by the Senate on March 9, 1990, and received commission on March 12, 1990. Assumed senior status on December 11, 2003.

Education:
Franklin and Marshall College, A.B., 1958

College of William and Mary School of Law, B.C.L., 1962

Professional Career:
Private practice, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1963-1980
Legal aid attorney, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1964-1966
Clerk, Hon. John Bowman and Hon. Anthony Appel, Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1966-1970
Assistant district attorney, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1970-1978
District attorney, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1978-1980
Judge, Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1980-1990

Race or Ethnicity: White

Gender: Male

I’ll post things as they develop. Otherwise, keep hanging tight

Time is not on our side

Bit of a Public Service Announcement:

During this excruciatingly long wait to Oct. 20, you should know that there will be less posts per day on Fumogation.

Every so often, I’ll toss up important documents that come over the transom, and update everyone on important news, views, and articles written in other publications. We’re not going away completely.

A few days before proceedings resume, I’ll start posting and tweeting with regular ferocity again. Like a battle horn in the night, you’ll know the Trial of the Century is closing in when the traffic significantly picks up here.

Also, feel free to keep commenting and sending in tips and ideas.

Let’s all hope Judge Yohn is feeling better by the day.

Now that we know that the Fumo trial will be suspended for at least 33 more days, I called former U.S. Attorney Peter Vaira — who charged and unsuccessfully prosecuted Fumo in the 1980’s and gave us his thoughts on this trial in a recent CP article — to get his take on what effect the delay could have on the case.

Basically, Vaira says, both sides are pretty much in a holding pattern. The prosecutors will likely have to do more in the way of rescheduling a horde of witnesses, which could be tedious. Most of the same goes for the defense.

(Personally, I thought a delay could be helpful for Fumo’s team. The prosecutors already have thier case laid out, the defense can spend the extra time preparing for the sure-to-be- document onslaught. But hey, maybe they don’t need it.)

Things could also get complicated with the jury pool, which still hasn’t been cut down to the 16 people who will be empaneled. Some of them could claim that they have a new hardship because of the new scheduling. This next part is me talking, but I’m assuming there are some jurors each side just wanted to have based on look, demographic, and their responses to the personal interviews — maybe that person will be gone?

Finally, let’s say that, for whatever reason, Judge Yohn isn’t able to hear the case and it has to be reassigned. Ut-oh.

The new Judge will have to catch up on the case’s complex history, and get a general understanding for Yohn’s decisions. “You don’t have to reenact the whole thing,” Vaira says. “But the new judge would have to read the all motions and see what was at stake, and how prior ruled, so he’s familiar with it all.”

And how long can that take? Vaira’s unsure: “It’s up to that individual judge to determine when he or she is ready.”

–

Also, while all this is going on, Fumo made a surprising return to Harrisburg yesterday for a legislative session.

Judge Yohn

…for Monday, October 20th, according to his court staff; four weeks and five days from now.

A motion is expected to be filed later today saying as much.

• Good Lord, the Daily News reports today that Fumo’s trial may be delayed up to a month, because Judge Yohn hasn’t recovered from his sickness yet.

An aide to Yohn said yesterday that it “appears that the case is going to be put off for at least a month,” although he said that an actual date has not yet been set by the judge.

The judge alone determines the dates of courtroom proceedings.

Yohn, 73, checked into a hospital briefly Sunday night to have some tests performed and then returned home, the aide, Tom McCann, said. At that time, the judge requested that the trial resume on Sept. 22.

But McCann said that the judge’s condition has not improved, and that he needs more time for additional tests to find out what is ailing him and to get well.

Lawyers in the case were mum on the latest developments.

• Cue the conspiracy theorists on PhillyBlog!

Stay tuned.

Commenter Fred Dobbs makes an excellent point that’s worth more discussion: when it comes to allegation of criminal wrongdoing, how far should people’s “loyalty” to each other go?

Fred was responding to my summary of the Inquirer’s profile of Ruth Arnao, Fumo’s co-defendant. I wrote that she came off as “fiercely loyal — a key distinction between she and Fumo’s two former computer techs who were once charged and are now government witnesses.” (Leonard Luchko and Mark Eister plead guilty to their charges and will likely testify for the government.)

As you may have heard in the past, oh, 30 years, Fumo says he places high value on staff and family loyalty, and has the definition of the word framed in his South Philly office. As he told the Inquirer before he went to trial:

“I’m big on loyalty,” Fumo said. “I believe loyalty is a two-way street. I’d go through walls for people. I’m a little bit different that way than the average politician. But also I’ve got to look back and say, after 30 years, 27 of it in the minority, how did I become what the media calls the most powerful politician in Pennsylvania? And it had to be a lot of those attributes that people saw in me that I wouldn’t lie to them. I wouldn’t screw them over. You know, I’m a warrior, but I’m also an honorable warrior.”

But his idea of the quality might be a bit skewed, Jason Fagone argued in the summation of his recent Philly Mag story:

For Vince, loyalty was about control. It was about getting his way — not just with the city and the state, but with his own son, his own daughter, his son-in-law, his ex-wife. Loyalty was just a word — a convenient explanation for his deep need to dominate and complicate everything around him.

Let’s say that. for whatever reason, you were made by Vince Fumo. Let’s say he provided you with a job, a stability in life that today, as we know, is ever-fleeting. Let’s say that because of this, you were always unflappably in Fumo’s corner. And then, this indictment comes up, and you’re essentially expected to remain unflappable, even though, you’re in a situation that Fred, the commenter, paints well:

It wasn’t a lack of loyalty that made them plead guilty. They just couldn’t afford to go to trial they are not millionaires like the two remaining defendants. Their legal bills right now are over six digits, a trial like this would cost them $20,000 a week for 4 months, and they would be out of work during the trial as well. So here were their choices go to trial and lose everything you have in the world or cut a deal.

What would you do?

He, also, has got nothin’ today.

The Archives

…the media will tell you it dosen’t make a sound.

Your two options for Fumo news in the papers, wire services, and blogs today is as follows: a) Yes, the trial is still postponed for a week, or b) nothing.

Vincent Fumo III has been picked up posting on his blog, which, as we pointed out last week, is here.

So, yeah. Go spend an extra few minutes at the coffee shop this morning. I’ll have more news and feature posts up today. If I missed something worthwhile, send it in.

For you corruption trial addicts, I can only say I sympathize. Here’s the Star-Ledger’s account of former New Jersey Democratic State Senator Wayne Bryant’s hearings, which are happening in Newark. It’s a pretty interesting case. (”Jersey?!” you ask,  “all you have to offer me is Jersey?” Yes, yes it is.)

The Star-Ledger:

At the opening of the federal bribery and fraud trial of former Democratic state senator Wayne Bryant yesterday, prosecutors described how he conspired with a South Jersey medical school dean to funnel millions of dollars in state funding to the school in exchange for Bryant getting a “trumped-up job” that boosted his pension.

Bryant took a job at the School of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and essentially “lobbied himself” as the influential Senate budget committee chairman to ensure the medical school reaped more than $6 million in state grants, Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Drew told the jury of 10 women and seven men in Trenton. Bryant took what prosecutors have referred to as the no-work job as program support coordinator in 2003 for $35,000 a year.

He also made $50,000 as an attorney for the Gloucester County Board of Social Services, where he allegedly delegated work to junior associates in his private law practice. His pension, which he sought in 2006, jumped from $36,000 to $81,000 a year.

“With 20 years in the state pension system, he was going to cash in,” Drew said.

But Carl Poplar, Bryant’s attorney, said there was “nothing nefarious” about his client’s job at the medical school. He performed tasks such as arranging meetings between the school and prominent state officials to expand critical programs benefiting abused children and senior citizens, Poplar said.

Nov. 15, 1982: The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article titled “For The Glory of Phila., Fumo Wants A Top Senate Post” and authored by Bonnie Rodden. In the piece, Fumo plainly lays out his ambitions for a leadership position. Three years later, he was the Minority Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, one of the most coveted positions in Harrisburg. He was either the majority or minority head of that body for roughly the next 22 years, until February 2007.

Although Fumo said some senators have told him they don’t want to change the makeup of the leadership, legislative sources have said some senators may challenge [Minority Leader Edward] Zemprelli and other senators in top positions.

“Once the change starts, I’m not going to sit back,” Fumo said.

Senate sources point out that Fumo has several factors going for him:

* The taint of his conviction on charges of padding the Senate payroll with ghost employees has nearly dissipated in political circles. The conviction was overturned by a federal judge on a technicality and the ruling was upheld in September by a U.S. appeals court.

* Fumo helped elect a Philadelphian, Rep. M. Joseph Rocks, as the only new Democrat in the Senate.

* Senators interested in running for statewide office in the future want to stay on Fumo’s good side because he can deliver South Philadelphia’s votes, particularly in a primary.

At least three senators – Michael O’Pake, Craig Lewis and Robert Mellow - have been mentioned as possible candidates for state treasurer or auditor general.

As Fumo put it: “I don’t think you can ignore my base in South Philly. People are very loyal and we’re very good salesmen.”

It’s safe to say both of those highlighted quotes passed the test of time.