SPECIAL REPORT: BUILDING THE CASE (How the feds got Fumo)

Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 3/22/09 | Emilie Lounsberry and Craig R. McCoy

[Born Conservative]

It was early in the investigation, but already the FBI was getting on Vince Fumo's nerves.

In a typically blunt e-mail, he wrote to a top aide in 2004 that a delicate part of his anatomy had just been "busted by my 2 friendly female FBI agents."

Then he cursed them.

His aide replied: "I do not like those people. Long live the realm of Fumo-world! :-)"

Now former State Sen. Fumo stands convicted of scores of counts of corruption in a $4 million fraud, his aide has lost his job, and Fumo-world is a smoking ruin.

Relentlessly civil, but also downright relentless, FBI Agents Vicki Humphreys and Kathleen T. McAfee scrutinized Home Depot receipts and analyzed American Express card bills, tallied up toll slips and tracked down yacht captains, all to build a case that everyone told them they could never construct.

They were joined by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John J. Pease and Robert A. Zauzmer. It was Pease who took Mensa member Fumo apart on cross-examination. Zauzmer was the unflappable strategist whose methodically searing closing argument sealed Fumo's fate.

While Monday's verdict turned out to be a resounding triumph for the government, McAfee, 54, and Humphreys, 40, say the case looks like a slam dunk only in retrospect.

"No one cooperated with us easily," McAfee said. "Not one person."

Over and over, she said, witnesses told them, "You'll never get him."

Said Humphreys: "This was an uphill climb."

In an interview last week, Pease, 41, and Zauzmer, 48, said that during the investigation they had to overcome an ongoing cover-up and a fierce counterattack from one of Philadelphia's most formidable defense lawyers, Richard A. Sprague.

[Born Conservative]

Ping

[Texas Fossil]

if they were going to take on one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the state, the evidence had to be irrefutable.

Does that surprise anyone that it is hard to convict a corrupt Dem Politician?

The MSM protects them, many of the Judges give them a "pass", and their own Party has absolutely no scruples.

[Tribune7]

That he's a Democrat is not mentioned until the 17th paragraph.

And no mention of ally Fast Eddie.

[baseballmom]

Bumparoo, and good riddance Vince.