By Rick Pfeiffer
Niagara Gazette
BUFFALO —
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, but the arguments remain between prosecutors and lawyers for former Falls Mayor Vince Anello over whether he should face a trial for violating the federal honest services law.
During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Buffalo on Wednesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Campana told Chief U.S. District Court Judge William Skretny he is ready to proceed with his public corruption case against Anello.
“We think the charges in this case survive the Skilling decision,” Campana told Skretny in discussing the impact of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court in a challenge to the honest services law brought by former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling. “The Skilling decision preserves bribes and kickbacks and we think (Anello’s case) falls into a bribe.”
Anello’s lead defense attorney, Joel Daniels, disagreed.
“As we read Skilling, we don’t believe the honest services charges survive,” Daniels said. “The government alleges a conflict of interest here Skilling says honest services charges are limited to bribes and kickbacks. If you’re going to get into conflict of interest, that’s off limits.”
The judge gave both sides in the case until the end of August to submit legal arguments on whether Anello should still face a trial under the honest services law. Skretny also set a trial start date of Nov. 30.
He said the start of a trial could come sooner if his calendar of cases opens up.
Anello is charged with single felony counts of conspiracy and obstruction and four counts of scheme to deprive of honest services. The charges stem from his dealings with Tuscarora businessman and developer Joseph Anderson and three loans that Anello received from him.
Prosecutors contend that the loans Anello received from Anderson, totaling $40,000, deprived “the city of the intangible right of the honest services of a public official” because he took the loans while Anderson was doing business with the city and failed to disclose the loans as required by the city’s Ethics Law.
The former mayor has claimed the checks from Anderson represented interest-free loans to his electrical contracting business. Prosecutors charge that Anderson gave Anello the loans so he could become “a player” in development projects in the Falls.
At Wednesday’s hearing, prosecutors appeared to change course a bit on their explanation of Anello’s wrong-doing. Rather than claiming the former mayor’s crime was not disclosing the loans, they said the non-disclosure proved the loans were “bribes.”
“This isn’t a conflict of interest case,” Campana told Skretny. “There is non-disclosure, but that is evidence of what the payments (were).”
Campana said if the Anderson loans hadn’t been bribes, Anello would have disclosed them.
The Skilling case, and two others, had challenged the constitutionality of the honest services law. The Supreme Court in a pair of 6-to-3 decisions found the law was constitutional, narrowing its scope significantly.
The justices limited honest services prosecutions to what they called the law’s “solid core.” In majority opinions written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court defined that “solid core” as cases involving bribery or kickbacks.
However, in the third case which closely tracks the facts in the Anello prosecution and involves the actions of an Alaska state legislator, the high court simply returned the case to a federal appeals court with instructions that the justices there should consider the impact of their Skilling ruling.
“I know what the Supreme Court says,” Skretny said, shaking his head. “I don’t know if anyone knows how that impacts us.”
Anello’s co-defendant, Anderson, has already pleaded guilty to a single honest services count of scheme to deprive and is currently co-operating with prosecutors. His sentencing has been postponed until after Anello’s trial.
The Supreme Court ruling will not impact a separate federal criminal complaint recently filed against Anello. In that case the former mayor is accused of embezzling benefits from a union pension fund.
The complaint charges that Anello “did knowingly and intentionally embezzle and steal” money from the pension fund operated by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 237 in the Falls. The former mayor is also accused of making false statements about the number of hours he worked as an electrician so that his pension benefits would not be suspended for working over 40 hours per month.
