Fumo

VINCE FUMO is no longer a state senator, and his felony conviction on federal corruption charges ensures that he'll never be one again. But Fumo, also known as inmate #62033-066 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Ky., is embroiled in a nasty legal dispute over how the curiously named Fumo for Senate political-action committee has been spending money while he's locked up - and what will happen to the money that's still in the bank....

VINCE FUMO LOVED to spend OPM - his notorious acronym for "Other People's Money" - but he's not a big fan of letting other people spend his. The former state senator has filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court alleging that two New Jersey pals who ran his political-action committee "engaged in a scheme to take money from the campaign for their own personal use and benefit" while he's been locked up in Kentucky on 137 counts of conspiracy, fraud...

And now, because some sagas never end, we face another round of the U.S. vs. Vince Fumo. The feds, after winning their case against the former political powerhouse in March 2009 and after losing an effort to greatly extend his prison time last November, are back again. They want about $800,000 more from The Vince in restitution payments; this after just getting another $1 million-plus from the sale of Fumo's Fort Lauderdale house. It sold in April for $2.3 million.

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.