Feds Seek To Appeal Fumo Sentence

PHILADELPHIA - Federal prosecutors stung by this week's 55-month sentence for a long-powerful Pennsylvania lawmaker in a sprawling corruption case will seek to appeal the ruling.

Prosecutors call Vincent Fumo's term "unduly lenient and unreasonable" and plan to ask the Justice Department to sign off on an appeal.

Fumo, a Philadelphia Democrat who amassed vast power during 30 years in the state senate, was sentenced Tuesday for misappropriating millions from the coffers of the state senate and two nonprofits.

"In opinion articles, letters to the editor, e-mails, blog postings, and a flood of phone calls to our office and, we believe, to this Court, thousands of citizens expressed their dismay at the unduly lenient sentence imposed on Fumo," prosecutors wrote in court papers filed Friday.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter sentenced Fumo well below the 20-plus years recommended by probation or his own guideline calculation of more than 10 years. Buckwalter credited Fumo's public service and mostly dismissed government claims that his crimes eroded public trust in the political system.

"Is anybody here from the senate, to say how badly they feel about this?" Buckwalter asked Tuesday. "I haven't seen the Pennsylvania people coming in here and complaining about this so much."

By week's end, even Gov. Ed Rendell -- who had written a character letter on Fumo's behalf -- suggested an appeal was appropriate.

Fumo, 66, is due to report to prison on Aug. 31. He must also pay $2.4 million in restitution and fines. Prosecutors argued that he defrauded the senate and charities of more than $4 million.

They disclosed their plans to appeal in a sentencing memo filed Friday for co-defendant Ruth Arnao, who faces sentencing Tuesday on 45 counts.

Arnao, a one-time waitress and teenage mother from the Pittsburgh suburb of Homestead, became a top aide and trusted friend over a quarter century with Fumo. She is married to former state turnpike commissioner Mitchell Rubin, now the target of an FBI investigation into $150,000 in alleged "no-work" senate contracts Fumo awarded him.

Fumo paid Arnao a $150,000 salary to run a South Philadelphia nonprofit he had created with $27 million from Peco Energy and the Delaware River Port Authority.

Fumo and Arnao spent some of the group's money on vehicles, vacations and shopping sprees, the jury concluded.

In letters to the judge, friends say Arnao, 52, is guilty mostly of blind loyalty. They say she worked tirelessly for Fumo and the causes he championed.

"Her crime -- she never questioned what she was asked to do," said Rosemary Dougherty, a former nun who leads a charter school the nonprofit started. "I felt the trial was unfair for Ruth, but it was her choice to stand by the senator."

Prosecutors want a sentence within the guideline range of 70 to 81 months, but expect it fall between the 55 months Fumo faces and the 30 months another judge gave a computer technician who destroyed evidence for Fumo.

"She is not the meek and dependent wallflower as she is now portrayed," prosecutors said. "She knew exactly what she was doing."