Bug Didn't Incriminate Mayor (Street)

By Mark Fazlollah, Joseph Tanfani, Emilie Lounsberry and Nathan Gorenstein Inquirer Staff Writers

The bug planted in Mayor Street's City Hall office did not record any incriminating words from the mayor during its brief, two-week life, The Inquirer has learned.

The discovery of the FBI listening device, found so soon after it was installed, set back the wide-ranging corruption investigation that is mainly focused on the awarding of city contracts in exchange for campaign contributions.

It also ignited a public furor that has blotted out all other issues in the hard-fought mayoral election.

A confident Street, asked last night for comment for this article, said he was not surprised.

"From the very, very beginning, I said they can capture any conversations they want in my office, and I said there will be no corruption, no sex and no profanity," the mayor said moments after a speech to cheering supporters at Faith Tabernacle Church in North Philadelphia. "That's what I said then, and that's what I'm telling you now."

At the least, the lack of incriminating words in the two weeks' bugging may play a role in any decision federal prosecutors make about whether to seek charges against him.

Still, even after the bug was found, law enforcement officials described Street as a "subject" of the investigation - as someone who remains under close scrutiny, though not a target. They also seized his three BlackBerry handheld e-mail devices.

It also remains unknown what evidence investigators might have gathered apart from the bug.

Federal authorities, one person familiar with the case said, chose to install the bug when they did in part because the time was ripe: After Election Day, there would be much less talk about the need to raise money.

"The feeling was the campaign's going on," said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This is the time to do it."

Jeffrey Lampinski, head of the Philadelphia office of the FBI, had said Wednesday that his agents, in general, could not wait too long to make their moves - if information was "stale," he said, a judge might not approve a bug.

There were these other developments and disclosures yesterday in the bugging saga:

WPVI-TV (Channel 6) reported that the FBI tapped a telephone in the office of Ronald A. White, the politically connected lawyer whose firm was raided by agents last week. The station said agents had begun playing tapes of those bugged conversations for others in interviews. The Inquirer could not independently confirm the station's report.

A former Philadelphia treasurer disclosed that FBI agents interviewed her Wednesday in depth. The ex-treasurer, Folasade Olanipekun, now finance director for Birmingham, Ala., said the agents asked her about White, among other people. White has said he was being targeted because he is a successful African American businessman.

The Inquirer learned that White earned a total of $100,000 in legal fees by serving as a co-counsel in two Philadelphia Housing Authority bond deals now under review as part of the federal investigation.

Four former prosecutors called on the Justice Department to investigate leaks "with the same zeal" with which it is pursuing the criminal probe.

Seventeen days after the bug was discovered by Philadelphia police, during what was described as a routine sweep for bugs, it remains unclear who, if anyone, will be charged.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the inquiry, Lampinski said Wednesday that the investigation began before the current election campaign and would not be completed anytime soon.

"This began substantially well before the election cycle and will... be ongoing long after the election," said Lampinski, a veteran of political-corruption investigations.

Yesterday, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office refused to comment on what, if anything, the hidden device captured.

Citing strict laws forbidding disclosure of information about wiretaps, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI agents in Philadelphia have refused to provide details of the inquiry.

As The Inquirer reported last week, FBI agents were not permitted to listen in on all of the dozens of people who met with the mayor, but only to conversations involving a short list of visitors. It could not be learned whether any of those visitors' voices were captured on tape.

The federal judge who approved the bugging signed off on a restrictive order that sought to strike a balance between the FBI's effort to ferret out possible evidence of wrongdoing and the privacy rights of Street and any citizens who met with him.

As the federal investigation proceeded, there was even more evidence of its breadth.

In Alabama, FBI agents interviewed the former treasurer, Olanipekun, about everything from the duties of her post to a long list of people with whom the city has done business.

Olanipekun said agents conducted a wide-ranging interview, asking her about her duties as treasurer and about people and firms that did business with her office. Among the people they asked about, she said, was White.

"They asked about everybody involved in the investigation in Philadelphia," she said.

Of her own role, she said, "I'm not worried, and I didn't do anything wrong. We did things properly and never strayed."

Olanipekun, now 37, who was the youngest woman to serve as city treasurer, served from March 2000 until January of last year.

During that period, the city and its related authorities issued $2.3 billion in bonds, financial transactions that traditionally spin off lucrative legal fees for politically active lawyers, bankers and other consultants.

White, who has done legal work for dozens of bond deals in Pennsylvania and around the country, was named as a co-counsel on a pair of Housing Authority bond sales, authority spokesman Kirk Dorn said yesterday.

Both involved efforts to rebuild the Tasker Homes project in South Philadelphia. In one case, the authority raised $85 million; in the second, it raised $33 million.

White was brought in as a subcontractor by the authority's main bond counsel, the politically connected Ballard Spahr law firm, under rules that require minority participation.

Ballard Spahr, and not the authority, picked White, Dorn said, though he said the agency staff later approved the choice. Ballard Spahr was involved with at least 24 other bond deals with White in the last decade, according to records.

In another development, Street administration officials said "no records" existed to document Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson's statement that he had used outside experts to check the mayor's office for bugs.

Johnson had said he had not kept such records because he had gotten informal help on the "sweeps" from outside agencies. The Inquirer, in following up on Johnson's account, had made a formal records request of the administration.

Also yesterday, four former federal prosecutors yesterday called on the Justice Department to zealously investigate alleged leaks to the media. The disclosures, they said, "may taint the reputation of innocent people."

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, the lawyers urged him to stop the leaks and investigate them.

"We have never seen nor heard of a series of leaks like this about so important an issue so close to an election," said the letter, signed by lawyers Kenneth J. Trujillo, James Eisenhower, Walter M. Phillips Jr. and Glenn Bronson.

Trujillo served as the first city solicitor in the Street administration. Phillips served as a special prosecutor investigating municipal corruption in the 1970s. Bronson was an assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia.

U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan has said investigators never intended for the bug to be discovered before the election.

"Certainly no one wanted to have any negative impact on the election," he said Wednesday.

Contact staff writer Mark Fazlollah at 215-854-5831 or at mfazlollah@phillynews.com. Contributing to this article were Inquirer staff writers Cynthia Burton, Vernon Clark, Rose Ciotta, Angela Couloumbis, Thomas Fitzgerald, Nancy Phillips and Tom Turcol.

The bug planted in Mayor Street's City Hall office did not record any incriminating words from the mayor during its brief, two-week life, The Inquirer has learned.

John and Naomi Street and their son Sharif's financial records have been subpoenaed, so there is suspicion there.

"The bug planted in Mayor Street's City Hall office did not record any incriminating words from the mayor during its brief, two-week life, The Inquirer has learned. "

Geez, didn't these guys learn anything from the years of Willie's filth and corruption? This disclaimer is so specific that it clearly is designed to divert attention from the areas not excluded.

What about the bug planted in the Mayor's other work spaces? Whose incriminating words were recorded? What about the other bugs planted in the Mayor's city hall office? I have no problem with the FBI building a sound case against a crooked mayor, but that crooked mayor has probably been at it so long that he's used these weasel words himself.

I'm not quite sure why the discovery of the bug/s was made public or announced? You would think a smart snoop cop or agency would use the knowlege of the bug and modify comments or statements to refute any prior conversations which may have been embarassing? The only reason to announce the discovery was to throw feces at the fan in order to obfuscate or derail the investigation because they know they were caught red handed in conversation and the barn door is wide open.

If I found a listening device was planted in my place of business and I was up to no good, I'd swear my love of Ashcroft's fine job he's doing in the country. I'd discuss the need for the staff to take pay cuts in order to balance the budget. I'd proclaim that every office meeting be begun with a prayer, and end the prayer with..."and god bless our fine president Bush", and general nonsense which would play well if court transcipts or tapes were reviewed at trial.

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