Fumo

When Alan and Sheila Hunter decided to move into an old convent in South Philadelphia, they saw beauty behind the asbestos that hung from the ceiling and the plywood that covered the walls. "We came into the chapel and my wife started to cry," Alan Hunter said in an interview. "You could feel the presence of the nuns who had lived here. " There was nothing holy about what happened after that. Then-State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo wanted the property for a charter school. He leaned hard on Hunter to sell.

I was disappointed by the Fumo sentencing. He plotted and manipulated "OPM" to live off the fat of the land. He used his position to live a life of comfort, lies and manipulations at everyone else's expense. This is a sham and disgrace. He was in a position to do good, but chose to do otherwise. I thought we were prosecuting Fumo for his crimes - so much for "justice. " Veronica Wojnar, Philadelphia

The president of Verizon Pennsylvania struck a secret "gentleman's agreement" with State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo under which the phone company agreed to pay millions to a law firm of Fumo's choosing, according to court testimony yesterday. As part of the deal, prosecutors allege, Fumo would drop his push to break up the giant phone company. Fumo (D., Phila.) initially lobbied Verizon to hire his own law firm, Dilworth Paxson, but Verizon rejected that because it "would result in money directly into Fumo's pocket," the firm's general counsel told the FBI, according to testimony at a pretrial hearing in Fumo's federal indictment.

Philadelphia Sen. Vincent J. Fumo was expected to be released from a hospital here today after being admitted early yesterday for severe abdominal pains. Fumo was described by aides as "doing well. " A Polyclinic Medical Center spokesman said last night that Fumo was listed as "satisfactory. " Aides said the South Philadelphia Democrat rested yesterday, awaited medical test results, and did some work on the telephone. Several lawmakers who visited Fumo described his spirits as good.

Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D., Phila.) said yesterday that he has accepted a $50,000 out-of-court settlement from a small newspaper in the Harrisburg area that called him "the unofficial representative of the Mafia" in the state Senate in an editorial published five years ago. Fumo at the time called the March 16, 1983, editorial by the Hummelstown Sun, a weekly with a circulation of about 7,000, an "outrageous ethnic slur. " Fumo issued a news release calling the settlement "a victory for responsible journalism everywhere.

State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo yesterday emphatically endorsed Bob Blasi of Roxborough in the Fourth Senate District Democratic primary. In so doing, Fumo vehemently denied that he would drop his support if Blasi's campaign did not pick up steam in the final days of the campaign. "It is an absolute lie that I have made a deal with any other candidate or am backing down from my full support of Bob Blasi for state Senate," said Fumo, who called a news conference to quash the rumors of a deal in the making.

Far and away, the biggest PAC grabber in the Philadelphia delegation is Democratic Sen. Vincent Fumo. He got $157,582 from PACs, more money than 31 of the city's 33 legislative members who ran last year spent on their campaigns. Fumo also received the largest single PAC contribution of the delegation - $15,000 from Philadelphia Teamsters Local 115. Other Teamsters locals also gave to Fumo. All together, Teamsters gave Fumo $22,000. "He's not our boy, but he's our senator," said Teamsters chief John P. Morris.

State Sen. Vince Fumo yesterday lost his gubernatorial appointment to the Delaware River Port Authority, but it doesn't appear his seat will be getting cold. By the end of the day, Auditor Gen. Robert P. Casey Jr. had agreed to let Fumo, a Democrat, remain on the port's board as his representative. "The auditor general recognized Sen. Fumo's expertise in the economics of port development, and offered to let Vince take his position," said Fumo spokesman Gary Tuma. "Vince is happy about it. He no longer serves at the pleasure of the governor, and now he has more freedom to exercise his own ideas.

There's no disputing that State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo has done a lot of good for Philadelphia during 30 years of public service. By his own estimate, Fumo has brought $8 billion to the city over the years. He was probably the most powerful legislator of his era. But in the end, unrivaled power was also his flaw. Fumo, who announced his retirement yesterday, didn't know how to limit his seemingly limitless reach. His arrogance and apparent greed brought about a federal corruption indictment that is forcing him from office.

State Sen. Vince Fumo said that he had offered operators of the proposed Foxwoods and SugarHouse casinos $50 million and $20 million, respectively, last year to abandon their waterfront sites. Fumo spoke of his efforts to relocate the casinos yesterday in a wide-ranging interview in which he addressed his fears and hopes about his forthcoming corruption trial, doubts about the Convention Center expansion, and national threats to civil liberties. Fumo said that the cash he offered to the casinos - which would have helped to offset relocation costs if they had moved - would have come from state gaming revenues, but the casinos refused the offer.

He may be behind bars, but former state Sen. Vince Fumo is still casting a long shadow over Philly policy debates. As City Council contemplates how to provide protection for homeowners whose tax bills could soar under Mayor Nutter's proposed property-tax plan, a tax break passed by Fumo in 1988 may prove crucial. The bill Fumo ushered through the Legislature 24 years ago allows the city to give tax relief to longtime residents of gentrifying neighborhoods. But to use the power, Council had to decide how much relief to grant and which sections of the city would be eligible — and it never could reach agreement.

  Top officials at Philadelphia International Airport say they were never informed that the son of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo had acquired a share in an airport cheesesteak franchise, but they're not sure they care. "We probably will take a look at it," James Tyrrell, city deputy director of aviation, said in a telephone interview last week. "We really need to discuss it. I don't know if this is something we should be overly concerned about. " Vincent E. Fumo II filed suit in Common Pleas Court on March 29, complaining that he had paid $150,000 in 2009 for a 30 percent share of the cheesesteak business, but had received less than half the return promised - "a guaranteed return of $50,000 a year for every year that the restaurant was in business.

The son of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo has filed suit against a South Jersey restaurateur for allegedly breaching the terms of deals in which Fumo paid $205,000 for shares of two restaurants, one of them at Philadelphia International Airport. In complaints filed Thursday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, Vincent E. Fumo II said he had written a personal check for $150,000 to buy a 30 percent share in a new Philly cheesesteak venture, completed in 2009 in the connector between the airport's B and C Terminals.

BUZZ BISSINGER'S article on Vince Fumo's resentencing ( "Judge a Total Fumo Suck-up," Nov. 15) was brimming with anger and frustration. I can understand that reaction, given the public outcry for a longer sentence. But we should all be glad that courts aren't bound by public opinion. Independence of our judiciary is essential to the protection of our constitutional freedoms. U.S. District Court Senior Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter considered the facts and the law, then did what he thought was right.

RUTH ARNAO, a longtime aide to Vince Fumo and later executive director of a nonprofit he founded, was "scared to death" she might be sent back to prison, her attorney said yesterday after her resentencing in federal court. She need not have worried about that. But U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter did stick her with half the tab - $783,264 - to repay now-defunct Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods for the fraud she and Fumo committed. Arnao, 55, was sentenced to a year and a day in July 2009 for 45 counts of conspiracy, fraud and obstruction of justice, and Buckwalter resentenced her yesterday to the same amount of time.

The eight-year saga of the Vincent J. Fumo federal investigation ended on a subdued note Wednesday when the former state senator's chief accomplice was resentenced - to time served. Ruth Arnao, a former top Fumo aide in the Senate, was resentenced by U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter after a hearing in which prosecutors said they did not expect to appeal her sentence or the one given Fumo last week. Ordered by an appeals court to redo sentencing hearings for Fumo and Arnao, Buckwalter simply reinstated Arnao's one-year term.

HUBRIS and omnipotence and unconscionable decision-making by men in power. Penn State is not the only place where it happens. It took place last week in Philadelphia in the inexcusable resentencing of Vince Fumo by U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter. You may have missed it because of the Penn State scandal. But in all my days of watching and covering courts (which includes winning a Pulitzer Prize for a two-year investigation of the Philadelphia court system)

The prosecutors of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo fired back at the federal judge in the case Saturday, saying that his criticism of them was "fundamentally wrong and markedly unfair. " In a rare weekend court filing, Assistant U.S. Attorneys John J. Pease and Robert A. Zauzmer said U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter had improperly chastised them for "overcharging" Fumo, who was convicted of 137 criminal counts. "The number of charges represents not 'overcharging,' but the fact that the defendants engaged in a literal crime spree for more than 15 years, engaging in dozens of separate and lengthy schemes, which are carefully detailed in a minimal number of counts," they wrote.