[November 14, 2008]

Former Fumo aide says she spent most work hours handling senator's personal accounts

Nov 14, 2008 (Philadelphia Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A former Senate aide in state Sen. Vince Fumo's district office on Tasker Street told a federal jury yesterday that she spent most of her time on the job handling many of Fumo's personal bank accounts, doing campaign work and writing checks for a nonprofit organization connected to the senator.

Jamie Spagna said she began working part-time for Fumo from 1996 to 2001 and full-time thereafter until she left in February.

Spagna was hired in 2001 to be a legislative assistant at $24,000 annually. She eventually was paid $46,000. Spagna now works for the School District of Philadelphia.

Although job-classification reports submitted to the Senate described her various duties as being related to legislative matters, she testified that she occasionally took calls from constituents.

Mostly, she said, she was assistant to Ruth Arnao, Fumo's former deputy chief of staff. Arnao, who more recently was executive director of the South Philadelphia nonprofit Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, is a co-defendant in the senator's corruption trial.

After Spagna graduated from college in 2001 and began working full-time for Fumo, Arnao sent a memo to Spagna and another aide instructing them to spend workdays handling Fumo's personal and campaign accounts, as well as the bank accounts of Citizens Alliance.

For example, Spagna paid the mortgages and utility bills on Fumo's personal residences.
"I paid a lot of bills," Spagna said.
Spagna said she routinely prepared an overnight shipment to Fumo when he was vacationing or working in Florida.

"Every day?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Zauzmer.
"If he wanted something ordered, I would do it," she said.
Fumo sent Spagna an e-mail early on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2005, asking her to put some hazelnut coffee and a box of Earl Grey tea in that day's overnight shipment to his Florida home.

When Spagna wasn't tending to the senator's personal needs, there was campaign work and work on behalf of Citizens Alliance.

She testified that she served as Fumo's campaign treasurer, keeping track of his campaign contributions, and that she sent out invitations for Fumo's annual fundraiser. She said the work had been done on Senate time and at her Senate desk.

She said that she had never been asked to track time spent doing campaign work and that there had been "no distinction" in Fumo's office between official duties or campaign work.

In 2004, after a federal probe of Fumo became public, Spagna said a Fumo political-action committee began paying her for campaign work and she did the work from home.

Spagna also testified that she had written many checks for Citizens Alliance Holdings, a subsidiary of Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a nonprofit organization that Fumo founded to bring city services to neighborhoods in his district.

Spagna said she would write the checks at the behest of Arnao, usually during regular Senate working hours, and Arnao would then sign them.

One of those checks allegedly paid for a $449 deluxe meat-saw grinder for Fumo.
Spagna testified that she didn't know why CA Holdings was making such purchases and never questioned Arnao about it.

When Arnao left Fumo's employ in 2004 to become executive director of Citizens Alliance, Spagna stopped handling CA Holdings' checks, she said.

Spagna received a grant of immunity to testify for the feds.
At one point during a break in yesterday's proceedings, she lifted her head and smiled at Fumo.
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