Abscam

Former City Councilman Harry P. Jannotti, who served five months in federal prison for his conviction in the Abscam scandal, filed papers yesterday to run for his old seat. Jannotti, 62, will seek to oust his former protege, Councilwoman Patricia A. Hughes, in the May 19 Democratic primary, even though City Solicitor Hansel B. Minyard ruled last year that Jannotti's criminal conviction made him ineligible to hold public office - a ruling Jannotti is now challenging in court. The former councilman, who these days often can be found behind the bar at his family's York Tavern in West Kensington, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Harry P. Jannotti was a key figure in a dark chapter of Philadelphia politics - the Abscam scandal of the early 1980s, in which he was convicted of taking a $10,000 bribe as a city councilman. But after his death at age 74 from cancer Thursday at Allegheny University Hospitals/Parkview, he was remembered by friends as the tall, weary-eyed man who could wring services for his constituents from a recalcitrant city bureaucracy. An overwhelming physical presence, Jannotti bore a slight resemblance to former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Harry P. Jannotti, 74, a once-powerful Philadelphia councilman who went to jail for taking a $10,000 bribe during the Abscam scandal nearly two decades ago, died Thursday afternoon at Allegheny University Hospitals/Parkview. Friends said that Mr. Jannotti, who emerged from the political wilderness in May as the Democratic leader of the 19th Ward in West Kensington, was diagnosed only recently with cancer. "He went to the doctor's and said he didn't feel good," said Margaret Tartaglione, chairwoman of the city commissioners and a longtime friend.

Jimmy Tayoun is sitting in the shadows of his Middle East restaurant on Chestnut Street. The door opens and a figure is framed by the hot morning sunlight. It's his old buddy, Lenny. "I've been looking for you, you bum!" Tayoun says as the two men embrace like a couple of old bears. "You slob, you!" Lenny says. They both laugh. Tayoun is home. Back from three years at a federal prison camp in rural Minersville, where he did time for taking and delivering bribes. But the joint didn't beat down the ex-city councilman's entrepreneurial touch.

The lawyer representing news anchor Alycia Lane in her battle with CBS3 has long experience handling high-profile cases where professional reputations and plenty of money are at stake. Paul R. Rosen also is known as a fierce advocate for his clients, stretching back to his days representing a defendant in the Abscam political-corruption case. He represented the Lower Merion Township Commissioners in their lawsuit against former Barnes Foundation board member Richard H. Glanton, who accused the panel of racism for opposing the Barnes' expansion plans.

You had to see Philadelphia City Councilman Leland Beloff and his sidekick- aide Robert Rego outside the courtroom to appreciate the full bouquet of their arrogance. When their indictments were temporarily withdrawn last year, they held a swaggering news conference in South Philadelphia, play-acting that they'd beat the rap. This April, when the first trial ended in a hung jury, they celebrated at the same posh Center City watering hole where their shakedown started. So it came with a special satisfaction yesterday that these smirkers who mocked public office, extorted payoffs from developers, consorted with organized crime and who came within a hair of pulling it off, ran into a federal jury - "12 people just like myself, working-class people," Rego observed before the guilty verdict - who didn't buy the phony, frightened, put-upon acts they staged for their trial.

During the gubernatorial campaign in New Jersey some cynics expressed the fear that James J. Florio, if elected, would put an unhealthy number of good ol' boys from his Camden County organization into key state jobs. Mr. Florio was elected, and he has announced his initial cabinet appointments, and it seems that the cynics were mistaken. So far, at least, Mr. Florio appears to be opting for competence over cronyism. He has named one Camdenite, three-term Mayor Randy Primas.

City Councilman Leland M. Beloff, whose October indictment on charges of extortion and vote fraud was augmented Friday with additional charges of extortion, is the sixth Council member to be charged with a crime during the last 15 years. The most recent were the Abscam councilmen of 1980: Council President George X. Schwartz and members Harry P. Jannotti and Louis C. Johanson. They were convicted of taking payoffs from a phony Arab sheik in a famous FBI sting operation conducted for 10 days in Philadelphia.

A Commonwealth Court judge ruled yesterday that former City Councilman Harry P. Jannotti is not qualified to seek elective office because of his 1980 Abscam conviction. Jannotti has been campaigning to unseat Councilwoman Patricia A. Hughes, his former aide, and yesterday vowed to appeal to the state Supreme Court before giving up. "If she thinks I'm just going to give up the fight, she better get ready for another one," Jannotti told KYW-TV (Channel 3) yesterday. The key question in the case was whether Jannotti is prohibited from running for office under a state constitutional provision that bars anyone convicted of embezzlement of public money, bribery, perjury or other "infamous crimes" from holding "any office of trust or profit.

Charles Ruff, the scholarly attorney seated in a wheelchair who defended President Clinton during his impeachment in the House and Senate, died Sunday of an apparent heart attack at age 61. "All of us at the White House admired Chuck for the power of his advocacy, the wisdom of his judgment and the strength of his leadership," Clinton said. "We loved him for his generous spirit and his keen wit, which he used to find humor in even the most challenging circumstances. " The President issued the statement aboard Air Force One during the flight back to Washington after his visit to Vietnam.