No bail yet for Silvester scandal figure, who files another appeal

 

By Don Michak  Journal Inquirer   October 8, 2011

 

A federal judge has yet to rule on a former West Hartford lawyer’s bid to stay out of jail while appealing his conviction on an obstruction of justice charge, but the judge has agreed to briefly extend the deadline by which he was to report to prison.

The lawyer, Charles B. Spadoni, last month was sentenced to serve two years in a federal prison and pay a $50,000 fine by U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Breen Burns in New Haven.

Spadoni, who had been battling the government for eight years, promptly vowed to appeal, charging that prosecutors had used “evidence they never had and then drew inferences of guilt.”

He subsequently filed motions seeking to stay the date of his scheduled incarceration and put off his surrender deadline, and lodged his appeal with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

Burns said this week that she would extend the Oct. 14 surrender deadline but that Spadoni would still be required to report to prison within 45 days of his sentencing.

Now residing in Pennsylvania, Spadoni, who has been acting as his own lawyer, never apologized or said he had accepted responsibility for his crime, which occurred as the FBI and a grand jury investigated the corrupt former state treasurer, Paul Silvester.

He told Burns that was because he didn’t want to make any statement that could hurt his bids for a retrial or outright exoneration.

Spadoni in 2003 was convicted on charges of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, and wire fraud, as well as obstruction of justice. In 2006 Burns sentenced Spadoni to 36 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, in 2008 reversed Spadoni’s conviction on all but the latter charge, concluding that prosecutors had violated his right to a fair trial by keeping from the defense handwritten notes an FBI agent took in an initial meeting with Silvester.

Prosecutors, who have said they won’t retry Spadoni on the charges rejected by the appellate court, say Spadoni’s claims of government misconduct are specious, unfounded, and scandalous.

And in a filing this week objecting to Spadoni’s bid to avoid prison pending his appeal, prosecutors argued that even were the appellate court to agree with his central complaint, it would not likely result in a reversal or reduced prison sentence.

At the center of Spadoni’s claim, they added, was a “proffer” — an agreement under which a person gives information about his crimes that could be used to follow up against others involved — and statements made by Spadoni during “proffer sessions.”

The prosecutors said while they described some of those statements in a footnote to a court filing they didn’t breach the agreement because they weren’t offered against Spadoni, but rather against the government in a bid to be candid with the judge.

They also disclosed that Spadoni was attempting to provide the government with information helpful to the government’s trial of a co-defendant, Ben Andrews.

Andrews had helped Silvester get appointed as state treasurer when his predecessor quit to take a private-sector job.

The former head of the NAACP in Connecticut and a Republican candidate for secretary of the state in 1998, Andrews was convicted in 2003 on charges of bribery, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements to federal agents.

Silvester was convicted on federal corruption charges in 1999. He was said by prosecutors to have arranged for Triumph Capital of Boston to hire Spadoni as its general counsel after the now-defunct firm created an investment partnership that got most of its money — $200 million — from the state pension fund Silvester oversaw.

Triumph and its chairman were convicted at the same 2003 racketeering trial as Spadoni.

Spadoni in his filing this week said the government’s claim that it acted against its own interest and out of a duty of candor was “illogical and disingenuous” and “unsupportable and incredible.”

He also wrote, “Remaining free on bail while awaiting a decision by the 2nd Circuit will bring a small measure of justice” if he’s successful on appeal