Vote Fraud

It was billed as Leland M. Beloff's last court appearance - he starts a 10- year prison term for extortion next week - and the former South Philadelphia councilman struck a humble pose yesterday in federal court. Beloff acknowledged that his words, on FBI tape recordings that led to his earlier extortion conviction and in yesterday's admission of vote fraud, helped end a political career that spanned two decades. "Sometimes I may have spoken too often, too much, so I think the less I say the better off I'll be," Beloff, 46, told U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill Jr., after pleading guilty to the vote fraud charges.

State Rep. Joseph Howlett is the target of a federal investigation into alleged ticket-fixing in Traffic Court and vote fraud. The disclosure was made yesterday during a sidebar conference at City Councilman Leland M. Beloff's retrial on federal extortion charges. A sidebar conference is a discussion among defense and government lawyers and the judge that is held out of earshot of the jury and the public, but is still part of the official court record. According to the court record, Bel- off's lawyer, Oscar B. Goodman, brought up the Howlett investigation because Howlett, a South Philadelphia Democrat from the 184th Legislative District and a protege of Bel off, is supposed to testify as a defense witness in Beloff's retrial.

It was one of the most extensive criminal investigations in the state's history. For months on end, agents of the Attorney General's Office fanned out across North and Northeast Philadelphia, interviewing more than 2,000 people as they sought to unravel the absentee-ballot scandal that briefly put William G. Stinson in the state Senate. Twenty people were charged with vote fraud in the November 1993 election, nine of them committee people. Fourteen were convicted of misdemeanors.

A federal judge agreed yesterday that Diane Beloff, wife of a jailed former city councilman, "has been through the mill. " U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill sentenced Beloff, 29, to two years' probation after she pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of vote fraud. He said he agreed with comments by defense attorney Robert F. Simone, who had asked for leniency. Under terms of the probation, Beloff may travel to her summer home in Longport, N.J., and visit her husband, ex-Councilman Leland "Lee" Beloff, who is in a federal prison in Loretto, Pa. Lee Beloff is serving a 10-year sentence for conspiring with mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo to extort $1 million from developer Willard G. Rouse III. At the time of the extortion attempt, Beloff, 46, represented South Philadelphia and Center City east of Broad Street.

State Rep. Joseph Howlett is the target of a federal investigation into alleged ticket-fixing in Traffic Court and vote fraud. The revelation was made yesterday during a sidebar conference at City Councilman Leland M. Beloff's retrial on federal extortion charges. A sidebar conference is a discussion among defense and government lawyers and the judge that is held out of the earshot of a jury and the public, but it is still part of the official court record. According to the court record, Beloff's lawyer, Oscar B. Goodman, brought up the Howlett investigation because Howlett, a South Philadelphia Democrat from the 184th Legislative District, is supposed to testify as a defense witness in Beloff's retrial.

Some of the things people are saying about Nicholas Marrandino, the federal government's star witness in the vote-fraud case against City Councilman Leland M. Beloff, apparently are true. "Marrandino engaged in unauthorized, illegal activity while otherwise cooperating with the government," Assistant U.S. Attorney William B. Carr Jr. admitted in papers filed yesterday with U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill Jr. But, the prosecutor wrote, a motion by defendant Diane Beloff's lawyer, Peter F. Vaira, requesting that Marrandino's trial testimony be suppressed should be denied.

The lawyer for Diane Beloff contended yesterday that she cannot get a fair trial for alleged vote fraud if she is tried together with her husband, City Councilman Leland Beloff. "The fact that Diane Beloff is married to co-defendant Leland Beloff is an unusual circumstance that creates prejudice and conflict," her attorney, Peter F. Vaira, wrote in a motion filed in U.S. District Court. Vaira, a former top federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, is asking U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill Jr. to grant separate trials for Beloff and his wife in the vote-fraud case.

2nd SENATORIAL DISTRICT With 100 percent of the vote counted Tina Tartaglione (D) 30,561 (i) Bruce S. Marks (R) 30,522 As Democratic state senator-elect Tina Tartaglione wiped the tears of victory from her eyes last night, she was only taking a pit stop in a campaign that may never end. With an unofficial 39-vote margin of victory, Tartaglione can expect a challenge from Republican state Sen. Bruce Marks. His pitbull perseverance at the polls and in court got him the Senate seat he'd been after since 1990.

It was reckoning day in federal court yesterday for two longtime pillars of the Democratic Party in South Philadelphia: Robert Rego, an admitted drug dealer and convicted extortionist, and committeewoman Marge Giordano Coyle, an old hand at vote fraud. Coyle, who became an informant in the vote fraud case, left with a slap on the wrist from U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill - two years' probation and a 2-year ban from holding any "official" political office. Rego, already serving an 8-year sentence for extortion, saw 5 years added to his sentence, for manufacturing the drug methamphetamine at a clandestine lab in Philadelphia over a 5-year period.

A federal judge yesterday declined to issue an injunction requiring Philadelphia election officials to verify voters' current addresses at the polls Tuesday and to prevent voters who no longer live in the city from casting ballots. Former City Council candidate Julie Welker, who also has a lawsuit pending in federal court alleging that she lost her primary bid because of vote fraud, had petitioned U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter asking for the injunction. An attorney for Welker said he would appeal the decision.