Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Ten
Monday, May 11, 2015
Between 1986 and 2006, Rhode Island ran a gauntlet of scandals that exposed corruption and aroused public rage. Protesters marched on the State House. Coalitions formed to fight for systemic changes. Under intense public pressure, lawmakers enacted historic laws and allowed voters to amend defects in the state’s constitution.
Since colonial times, the legislature had controlled state government. Governors were barred from making many executive appointments, and judges could never forget that on a single day in 1935 the General Assembly sacked the entire Supreme Court.
Without constitutional checks and balances, citizens suffered under single party control. Republicans ruled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTH Philip West's SECRETS & SCANDALS tells the inside story of events that shook Rhode Island’s culture of corruption, gave birth to the nation’s strongest ethics commission, and finally brought separation of powers in 2004. No single leader, no political party, no organization could have converted betrayals of public trust into historic reforms. But when citizen coalitions worked with dedicated public officials to address systemic failures, government changed.
Three times—in 2002, 2008, and 2013—Chicago’s Better Government Association has scored state laws that promote integrity, accountability, and government transparency. In 50-state rankings, Rhode Island ranked second twice and first in 2013—largely because of reforms reported in SECRETS & SCANDALS.
Each week, GoLocalProv will be running a chapter from SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, which chronicles major government reforms that took place during H. Philip West's years as executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. The book is available from the local bookstores found HERE.
Part One: DePrete, RISDIC
Chapter Ten, Jamestown Bridge (1991)
In 1987 contractors had quit work on a soaring new bridge between Jamestown and North Kingstown. Unfinished concrete pillars jutted up from the mile-wide channel. At their tops, tangles of rebar rusted in the salty air. The project fell three years behind schedule and ran $50 million over budget. The construction firms blamed the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (DOT) for faulty data and mismanagement. The DiPrete administration prepared for a legal battle.
In January 1989, Common Cause charged Gov. Edward DiPrete with conflicts of interest in the hiring of James L. Taft Jr. — the governor’s mentor, friend, lawyer, business partner, and campaign finance chair — to represent DOT in court. Taft had preceded DiPrete as mayor of Cranston and now led a prosperous law firm, Taft & McSally. The question for the panel hearing the case was whether DiPrete had improperly steered the litigation contract to Taft.
The case oozed with irony, since Taft had won the controversial contract in a joint venture with DiPrete’s primary defense lawyer, Joseph A. Kelly. Kelly was not present for Taft’s testimony, and two of his law partners, Keith B. Kyle and John R. Mahoney, sat beside the former governor. Kyle told the panel that Kelly was on vacation.
Under questioning from John Roney, Taft acknowledged that he and DiPrete were partners in Atwood Associates Realty Trust, the corporation that bought and sold property on Atwood Avenue in the notorious Cranston land deal. Roney directed Taft to documents in the binder and hemmed him in with questions. Taft had to acknowledge that Atwood Associates purchased that property, did the permitting on it, sold it to developer Kenneth Lokey, and cleared almost two million dollars.
From the defense table John Mahoney objected that there had been no finding of probable cause in connection with the Cranston land deal. “Whether it was sold for ten cents or ten million dollars is of no significance here,” he declared. “With all due respect, it’s inflammatory. It’s prejudicial.”
Roney smiled and turned to address the chairperson, Frank Pellegrino. “Shortly after the zoning matter that Mr. Taft has testified to, the chairman of the Cranston zoning board, George DiMuro, was appointed chairman of the Coastal Resources Management Council by the governor.” Roney also noted that DiPrete had been fully aware that he had a business relationship with Taft at the time Taft and Kelly got the Jamestown Bridge contract.
Abruptly, Roney sat down without asking Taft about the Jamestown Bridge lawsuit. DiPrete’s counsel, Mahoney, seemed befuddled. He had no questions for Taft.
I felt like clapping for John Roney. He knew Taft and DiPrete’s lawyers had come expecting to deal with the Jamestown Bridge contract. Under his questions, Taft had admitted in unmistakable terms that he and DiPrete had made a killing together on the Cranston zoning case and land sale. Roney had also locked down the fact that DiPrete and Taft were unarguably “joined together to achieve a common financial objective.” Under the state ethics law they were unmistakably “business associates.”
Commissioner John O’Brien, the retired IRS district director, asked Taft nonchalantly what his thoughts were when he bid on the Jamestown Bridge contract.
“To present the best proposal possible,” Taft said. “To convince the Department of Transportation that we could do the best job at the best price and to obtain the contract.”
O’Brien’s eyebrows lifted. “You never had any apprehension about public perception because of your friendship with the governor?”
Taft chuckled. “I think if everyone who was to do business with the State of Rhode Island had an apprehension about a friendship or acquaintance with the governor, there wouldn’t be many doing business with the state.”
O’Brien asked Taft who might have recommended him to the governor.
“I didn’t need any recommendations. I’ve known him since I was a boy. I worked for his father in the apple orchard up in Scituate on Saturday mornings.”
Commissioner Richard Morsilli followed. “Mr. Taft, I know you’ve had a long relationship with the governor. Why wouldn’t you have thought to mention to the governor that he should seek an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission?”
Mahoney objected. “We’re asking the witness why there wasn’t an advisory opinion concerning a presumable conflict which has not been established on this record. We’re presupposing facts that are not in evidence, to the detriment of my client.”
Chairman Frank Pellegrino explained that advisory opinions were to help officials decide whether they had a conflict. He denied the objection, and Mahoney backed off.
Taft answered that he did not know why the governor had not sought an advisory opinion.
Persisting, Morsilli asked Taft why — as DiPrete’s friend and a former public official — he had not suggested to the governor that he seek an advisory opinion.
“I was looking at this as a piece of business,” said Taft. “It’s a lot easier to look at it four-and-a-half or five years later and say something went wrong. Technical violation, whatever it is. And I don’t think the governor did anything wrong. I know he didn’t.” Taft added that nothing even faintly suggested that DiPrete had intervened on his behalf to get the contract for legal work.
On November 12, 1991, Edward DiPrete swore to tell the truth. In response to Roney’s question about seeking outside legal counsel, he answered cheerfully. “At the point I was advised they would have to go to outside counsel, I said: ‘If that’s what you have to do, I agree. Do it.’”
After that relatively smooth start, the hearing erupted. In answer to a question from Roney, DiPrete flatly denied that he had recommended Taft’s firm to DOT director Matthew J. Gill Jr., whom he had appointed in 1986.
Roney seemed startled. With elaborate care, he asked again: “You don’t deny, Governor, that you gave Matt Gill the name of the firm Taft & McSally for consideration?”
“No,” said DiPrete. “I did not give him any specific name for consideration.”
Carefully, Roney posed a follow-up: “You recall, Governor, a meeting in your office on December 24, 1990, where I was present. Is that correct?”
“I recall a meeting in my office. If it’s December 24, so be it. I do remember. Yes.”
Roney focused and then spoke: “Lynette Labinger, a lawyer from Rhode Island, was present?”
“Yes. She was there.”
“And you had three lawyers present. Isn’t that correct? Joseph Kelly was present?”
DiPrete seemed wary. “I believe he was.”
Roney reminded DiPrete that the lawyers had come to the governor’s office at his request. The Christmas Eve meeting, a week before DiPrete would leave office, was to review the pending ethics complaint.
DiPrete agreed.
“And you were aware that one of the allegations concerned the hiring of counsel for the Jamestown Bridge. Is that right?”
“I was aware that was one of the allegations.”
“And do you recall stating in that meeting that . . .”
“I object,” Mahoney shouted, suddenly on his feet. “I mean he’s acting as a prosecutor and witness at the same time. I have to interrupt this question.”
Mahoney sparred with commission counsel Gary Yesser.
John Roney asked to speak. He ignored Mahoney and spoke directly to the adjudicative panel. “The governor has just made a statement to you, which I believe we will be able to show is at variance with what he said earlier. It’s a classic prior inconsistent statement. He made the statement before a number of people, including Lynette Labinger, a lawyer.” Roney paused. “I had no idea that the governor would deny facts that he stated as facts at that meeting. He has done so. If he continues doing so, we’ll put on a witness that will say he stated these facts at a different time under different circumstances.”
DiPrete looked bewildered.
Roney told the commissioners that it would be their responsibility to judge the credibility of witnesses. It would be for them to decide whether the former governor had changed his story from what he said in his office on December 24, 1990.
Pellegrino allowed Roney to ask his prior question again.
“Governor,” Roney said respectfully, “do you recall stating at that meeting that you had written to Matthew Gill, stating the need for the appointment of outside counsel and recommending Taft & McSally?”
“I’m glad to clarify this,” DiPrete answered. “I understood your question a few moments ago to be did I, in fact, recommend Taft & McSally to Matthew Gill. Is that substantially what your question was?”
Without an answer from Roney, DiPrete answered the question. “I said, ‘no, I did not recommend any specific attorney.’ I thought I had sent a written letter recommending different attorneys to be considered. I thought a written communication had gone over. Maybe it could have contained names. In fact, no letter evidently was ever sent. My office didn’t have a copy of it. Legal counsel didn’t have a copy of any such letter. Nor did the Department of Transportation have a copy of any such letter.”
Whatever DiPrete actually said on Christmas Eve, barely a week before he left office, had obviously shocked his lawyers. They had scoured three sets of files for the letter he mentioned.
“I was confused in answering you on the 24th,” DiPrete said. “My recollection is that I sent a handwritten note back on his memo to me, literally with a Flair pen, as was my practice on short replies of this nature. The gist of it was: ‘While I have no specific objection to any of the above firms, aren’t there any qualified law firms in the State of Rhode Island that you could consider?’”
DiPrete seemed to have regained his footing. He sounded plausible, down to the Flair pen. “It’s been state practice — and I think it’s a good policy — if there are qualified vendors in the state. We’re not giving up either in terms of competitiveness or quality.”
Roney spoke carefully. “Governor, at that same meeting on December 24, with your counsel present, do you recall stating to us that you had recommended Taft & McSally because you knew them and knew they had handled nine major public works matters for the city of Cranston, and had the wherewithal to handle the case, or knew how to get it?”
“I don’t recall saying that, because — quite frankly — I don’t.”
Roney spoke with deliberate care. “Do you recall saying later in that same meeting, after we requested a copy of your letter to Matt Gill, that perhaps you had made the recommendation in a meeting with Mr. Gill?”
Cautiously, DiPrete said he thought Roney had mentioned a verbal, rather than written, recommendation to Gill.
Roney absorbed what sounded like a deliberately garbled answer. “Just so we are clear on the record, Governor, you agree that you stated to us that you had written to Matt Gill recommending Taft & McSally?”
Mahoney objected, and Roney tried again. “Governor, do you deny that you stated at the meeting we have described on December 24 that you had written to Matt Gill stating the need for the appointment of outside counsel and that you had given him the name of Taft & McSally?”
“I may have said that, but subsequent investigation indicated that I was incorrect. And I think we subsequently notified you to that effect,” he rambled on.
Roney persisted. “Do you deny stating to us at that meeting that you had recommended Taft & McSally because you knew them and they had handled major public works in the city of Cranston?”
“I don’t recall saying that, but I’ve known Taft as an individual and that the law firm of Taft & McSally was believed to be a good one.”
“Do you deny stating at that meeting that Gill took over the process and that you never spoke to him about the selection again?”
DiPrete looked Roney in the eye. “I never spoke to him about the selection. Period. He kept me abreast, as I mentioned a moment ago. I had no input into the process.”
“Do you deny that you gave him the name of Taft & McSally?”
“Absolutely.”
Roney drew a deep breath and stepped backward. “Mr. chairman, we will be adding another witness to this matter, who was a participant in this meeting.”
A week later, John Roney called as his first witness attorney Lynette Labinger, his law partner. Defense counsel John Mahoney objected to her and to the next witness Roney had listed: Deming Sherman, a lawyer who had bid on the Jamestown Bridge litigation contract. Commission Chairman Frank Pellegrino listened to Mahoney, consulted in whispers with the commission’s counsel, Gary Yesser, and announced that the panel would hear testimony from both Lynette Labinger and Deming Sherman.
Labinger told of practicing law in Rhode Island for twenty-five years. She had assisted Roney at the Christmas Eve meeting by taking detailed notes. In response to Roney’s question, she skimmed her notes and outlined the conversation. DiPrete had said that neither legal staff at the DOT nor the attorney general could handle the Jamestown Bridge matter. With her index finger in the margin, she read verbatim: “The governor stated that he felt he would be remiss if he did not take action. He wrote to the department director, Gill, stating that outside counsel was needed, and he suggested the firm of Taft & McSally.”
Labinger quoted DiPrete as saying the DOT solicited bids and ultimately hired Taft & McSally, but he had “no part in the selection process.”
Roney nodded. “Did the governor state why he had recommended Taft & McSally for the Jamestown Bridge litigation?”
Labinger skimmed to another point in her notes and read again: “He was asked the basis for his recommendation of Taft & McSally. The governor stated that he knew Taft & McSally. They had handled major public works matters for the city of Cranston. He believed they had the wherewithal to perform the legal duties or knew how to get them.”
In answer to another question, Labinger quoted DiPrete’s assumption that Gill’s letter and his written response were at the Department of Transportation.
Roney asked if the letter to Mr. Gill came up again during that meeting.
“Yes.” She found a section in her notes. “Towards the end of the meeting when we were talking about collecting documents, Gov. DiPrete stated that maybe there was no letter, that he could have made the statement at a meeting with Mr. Gill.”
“Did the governor in any way retract or revoke his statement that he had recommended Taft & McSally for the Jamestown Bridge litigation?”
Labinger looked up from her notes. “No, he did not.”
In his turn, Commissioner John O’Brien asked Labinger whether she had done other interviews with Roney.
“We’ve done client interviews jointly in the office. Sure.”
“Do you usually take notes?”
Labinger smiled. “Yes, I’m a compulsive note-taker. In fact, I used to give away my notes during law school to people. We had ‘open note’ exams, and other people would borrow my notes.”
Labinger was excused. Her testimony seemed unassailable. Had DiPrete’s lawyers not recorded the session or made verbatim notes? What had they said to DiPrete after that meeting? Had they prepped him to claim he had never recommended Taft? Had he now committed perjury?
Deming Sherman was the managing partner at Edwards & Angell, a prestigious Providence firm. Roney led him through preliminaries. Sherman testified that Veronica Ridolfi, the chief legal counsel at the DOT, had invited proposals to handle the Jamestown Bridge lawsuit. Sherman described his proposal and pointed in the evidence book to Ridolfi’s date-stamp on his cover letter: September 11, 1987. “My recollection is that was a Friday,” he said. “And sometime that day — possibly even before our document was delivered — I learned that the legal representation was going to be awarded to Taft & McSally.”
Under Mahoney’s cross-examination, Sherman described a phone call with Ridolfi. “I told her that I was extremely upset. Not because we had lost the contract, but that the decision had apparently been made before our proposal had even been considered. I told her she had wasted my time and that she need not ask for any proposals from me again.”
Sherman’s outrage electrified the hearing. Four years after the event, his resentment still smoldered. Commissioner John O’Brien asked whether he would have had the same reaction if he were turned down for another state job.
“No,” said Sherman. “I was upset with the process. My concern was with the fact that I had been asked to submit a proposal, which — as far as I knew — wasn’t even considered. The whole thing was a charade. That’s what I was upset about.”
Richard Morsilli signaled for a question. “Mr. Sherman, were you aware that Mr. Taft was a close friend of the governor’s?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That was common knowledge?”
“Yes, sir.” Sherman glared at DiPrete, who sat at the defense table only a few feet away. While not speaking directly to the former governor, Sherman radiated contempt.
In his turn to ask questions, Mahoney pressed Sherman. Had he not testified already that Veronica Ridolfi told him her department had made the decision to hire Taft?
“She indicated the decision wasn’t hers. I interpreted what she said to mean that the decision was made by someone she reported to. It’s my interpretation that the decision was made by the governor.”
Ridolfi had testified five days earlier. She and her staff had developed a list of six firms capable of handling a lawsuit as large and complex as Jamestown Bridge would be. She phoned principals in these firms, including Deming Sherman at Edwards & Angell, then followed up with written requests. She had not blamed others but forcefully defended what she had done.
At the heart of Ridolfi’s testimony was the fact that on the day after the invitation letters went out, DOT Director Matthew Gill directed her to add Taft & McSally to the list. She said she warned Gill of an uproar if the contract went to Taft, since everyone knew of his close ties to DiPrete. But Gill insisted, and she obeyed. Her letter to Taft went out five days after the first batch.
Gill had previously testified that he chose Taft-Kelly without interviewing any other firms. Fred Lippitt had signed off on the contract, and State Purchasing Agent Dennis Lynch negotiated the details. As the Jamestown Bridge lawsuit went forward, Taft & McSally received $258,125.60, while $465,282.19 went to Carroll, Kelly & Murphy.
In his closing argument on the Jamestown Bridge portion of the case, John Roney rehearsed the irreconcilable differences between the testimony of Veronica Ridolfi and Matthew Gill. He emphasized contradictions between DiPrete’s testimony and the handwritten notes taken by Lynette Labinger on December 24, 1990. In the face of conflicting evidence, he challenged the commissioners to decide which version of those events was credible. Roney ended his summation of the Jamestown Bridge charges by pointing to the larger damage that occurs when “honest bidders like Deming Sherman become cynical and drop out.”
Snow blew from impenetrable clouds on December 17, one of the year’s shortest days, and night seemed to be falling at mid-afternoon. Commissioners, lawyers, DiPrete, and two of us from Common Cause settled in the ethics commission’s hearing room. Beyond narrow windows the world looked gray. We were waiting to hear final arguments on the Olney Pond portion of the complaint, which had been running concurrently with the Jamestown Bridge adjudication.
After preliminaries, Joseph Kelly launched his closing argument on the Tutela/Olney Pond case. He argued that the department of environmental Management had been at fault when its director, Bob Bendick, sent Judith Benedict as his designee to the A&E meeting. Kelly described Benedict as “a very knowledgeable person, but a novice on this question.” He went on to blame Benedict because she considered only two firms acceptable but voted for all four on the short list. “If Judith Benedict had voted as she should have voted, we wouldn’t even be here. If Bob Bendick had gone to the meeting, the meeting he should have gone to, we wouldn’t have been here.”
Next he blamed Roney for not calling the secretary, Irene O’Donnell, as a witness, since she had written and signed the A&E committee minutes. “Who would know better than her as to the votes and how they were cast? She’s the recording secretary. Did they call her? Absolutely not.”
I had never thought of that. I assumed that O’Donnell would have long forgotten the details of a meeting where she only took notes. But Kelly had a point. He argued that the burden of proof lay with the prosecution: “They must satisfy you on every facet of this case before you can make any adjudication against this respondent.” He reminded the commissioners that they had wanted more information than they had received.
After that he homed in on the list that went to the governor without prices or a description of the Olney Pond project. “If the governor made a selection from the short list without knowing the bids, he wouldn’t be a very smart governor. If the governor made a selection that was binding, it would be ludicrous. The governor makes a recommendation.”
Kelly made it sound self-evident that there could be no final selection until the purchasing officer negotiated a price with the contractor. “So the governor does not make the selection. The governor makes a recommendation, and there isn’t anything wrong with the governor making a recommendation. As the captain of the ship, he should have input as to what goes on in the state. It’s amazing to think anyone would feel he shouldn’t have input into who is going to get jobs and protect Rhode Island engineers and architects.”
He reminded commissioners that Tutela never got the job. “Bendick said, ‘I don’t want Tutela,’ and what happened? On the very next day Tutela was out.” He pointed to the evidence book. “In that very book, there is a notation under the date of May 4 — the day after the Bendick memorandum — saying ‘Hold up on Tutela.’”
“What did Mr. Lippitt say?” Kelly asked rhetorically. “He said: ‘I don’t know why you’re bringing this case. This is the case that you shouldn’t bring.’ This is a case of government the way it’s supposed to go. The people with the hands-on expertise didn’t want Tutela. They didn’t get Tutela. They got who they wanted. What does the little old lady say in the Wendy’s ads? ‘Where’s the beef?’”
Kelly circled back to the fact that Tutela never got notice of his selection. “Tutela had no idea that his name had been bandied around.”
He then flagged the newspaper story. “I suppose they were trying to make some heat within the political arena, and it did make some heat. It made heat for Tutela. What did Tutela say? ‘After that, I’m not going to make any more contributions.’” Kelly paused. “And the telling tale is this: even though he didn’t make any contributions, he got further work. The main point of his testimony is that he never sought and never got any edge by reason of any association with Gov. DiPrete.”
Kelly then turned to testimony that Lippitt’s assistant, Mathies Santos, had discussed contractors with Dennis DiPrete. “What’s wrong with that?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with someone in state government seeking advice from people who have expertise? There isn’t anything wrong with it. That’s done day in and day out in government. I call tax lawyers for information. Tax lawyers call me. Many people call me to find out what the expertise of a witness is.
“Furthermore, where is the link between that conversation and Gov. DiPrete? Mr. Santos, because he was pressed, said: ‘Well, I assume he may have talked with his father.’
“No good! No good! That’s assumption. That’s speculation. That’s not evidence. The evidence is what Dennis DiPrete gave you: ‘I never discussed this Tutela matter with my father. I never took any lists. My sole purpose was to advise my friend, Mr. Santos.’ That’s it. There isn’t anything wrong with it. That’s how the record stands.
“Dennis DiPrete says: ‘I never discussed this with my father.’ Gov. DiPrete says: ‘I never discussed this with Dennis.’ That’s it: direct, uncontradicted evidence. It’s worthy of belief. That’s the rule of law.”
With infectious sincerity, Kelly neared his conclusion. “Gov. DiPrete said: ‘I did nothing to favor Tutela in this contract or in any other contract.’ Tutela said: ‘I never approached Gov. DiPrete. I never got any favor by reason of anything that I did or didn’t do for Gov. DiPrete.’ That is the strict unequivocal direct testimony that must be believed. There is no foundation for the charges that have been laid here.”
Kelly closed with his “Where’s the beef?” question. “There is no beef here,” he insisted and urged them to dismiss the complaint.
John Roney began his closing statement in a wistful tone. “You’ve seen a small part of how government worked, the hiring of architects and engineers during the respondent’s administration. Gov. DiPrete created and controlled and manipulated a secret, superficial, and ultimately corrupt process designed to permit him to clandestinely select who got state contracts while telling the public that he had created a publicly accountable system.”
Next Roney walked commissioners through the A&E process that was supposed to produce a short list of qualified firms. He reminded them that the executive order handed decision-making off to Fred Lippitt, who was to select the highest qualified applicant and have a contract negotiated. “Sounds good on paper,” Roney said, “but we saw what the system really was. We saw the A&E committee: superficial, cynical, manipulated, cursory, an example of how government ought not to work.”
Roney checked his notes and went on. “The A&E committee here is important — if for nothing else — to show you how little it meant and how easy it was for Tutela to get on that list. Dennis Lynch told you all you really need to know about the A&E committee. He told you that if anyone felt strongly enough, they put the name on the list.”
Sadness seemed to fill the room as winter darkness settled outside.
“Why Tutela?” Roney asked. “You have interviewed every member of the A&E committee. Mr. Lynch and Ms. Benedict say they didn’t make the selection. Mr. Parrillo can’t recall whether he did or not. Mr. Santos can’t recall whether he made the selection or not.”
Roney said he had wanted commissioners to see the A&E committee, so they would understand that getting on the short list did not necessarily mean excellent qualifications. The process had been easy to manipulate, so that any member for any purpose could get any contractor on the short list.
“Poor Judith Benedict,” he added. “You were kind of tough on Ms. Benedict. You asked her again and again: how did this happen? Judith Benedict got snookered. She believed the executive order. She believed there was another deliberative process.”
Roney’s tone became indignant. “So what happened? We have the truly amazing tale that a sitting governor secretly demands the right to make A&E selections as a precondition to selecting Mr. Lippitt. So important that he talked to him before hiring him and told him: ‘I want to make the selections.’
“Fred Lippitt told you it was one of the conditions under which he accepted the job, and he showed you several times that the only way he ever made a different selection was if he went back to the governor and got his permission. He didn’t just select Warner for Water Place. He went back and got the governor’s permission. That’s exactly what he did with Tutela. Afraid they were going to lose the federal grant, with Bob Bendick raising objections, he went back to the governor and said: ‘Governor, can I change this?’ He made no move without obtaining the governor’s permission.
“You might have reservations about Fred Lippitt, and you might find his abdication of his responsibility — his willingness to accept a job under these conditions — was sad and shocking.
“But I don’t think you’ll find that Fred Lippitt is a liar. He told you what the process really was. The governor’s choice was the final selection. There was no deliberative step. That final, crucial step so trumpeted in the executive order — that the director was going to interview people, the director was going to look at the proposals, the director was going to consider the project — none of that happened.
“The short list went up to the governor. The governor made his check mark, and the contract went down for negotiation on the price.”
Roney took umbrage at the deception. Tutela would have gotten the contract if DEM had not pressed its objection with Lippitt. “If federal funds had not been involved, Bob Bendick couldn’t write to Lippitt: ‘We’re going to lose federal funds if you do this.’ So you’re at the point where the governor is faced with making a choice using the system he created.”
Roney laid out the stark choice between Tutela, who had contributed more than $20,000 to DiPrete’s campaigns over the previous four years, and Lycott, the firm that DEM scientists believed would pass federal muster.
In closing, Roney turned to the law that prohibited all public officials in the state from any transaction “in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his or her duties.”
Each fact became a declaration. “The governor knew that Tutela had been contributing to his campaigns. He had every reason to believe and expect that this contract would continue that symbiotic relationship. The governor knew he had a conflict. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and that’s why the whole process was so secretive. That’s why it wasn’t in the executive order.”
Roney then pointed commissioners to another section of the law, which required DiPrete or any public official who faced a conflict of interest to file a statement of the conflict with the ethics commission, refrain from taking action, and assign the decision to a disinterested third party. “The governor should have come to you. He should have filed a statement. He should not have been in this selection process, and he should have left the decision where it belonged, with Mr. Lippitt. It would have been so easy.”
He cited a third section of the law that barred public officials from using their powers of office to obtain financial gain not provided by law or from accepting any political contribution “based on any understanding” that their official actions or judgment would be influenced.
He reminded commissioners that DiPrete’s two executive orders never mentioned that the governor would play a central part in choosing architects and engineers. “The duplicity of the selection process was a condition of employment. It was never embodied in any memorandum or regulation. It was never mentioned in an otherwise extensive executive order signed with the knowledge that it was dramatically incomplete at best and fraudulent at worst.”
Roney added that the process was “so clandestine that the chief of staff felt called upon to deny its existence to the press, so secret that Lippitt did not reveal it until after he left office, so secret that Lippitt dissembled, denying any mention of the governor’s role.”
He continued to demolish DiPrete’s defenses: “How could he choose Tutela over Lycott? He told you he didn’t even know Lycott. If he wanted to make a qualitative decision, he would have asked for more information. Yet, time and time and time again, he got only the prior contracts and names of the firms.”
Roney reminded commissioners of the standard form that went to the governor’s office. “This went up into his office — from Mr. Lippitt’s testimony — thirty or forty times! It contains no information about Rhode Island connections, only the name of the firm!”
He asked how a governor who held the single most important job in the state could take time out to check a list. He asked why the transfer of lists had been left out of two executive orders. “Why is this power so important to him that he asked for it as a precondition to appointing Fred Lippitt as director?”
Roney paused dramatically. “Because the power to control state contracts is the power to reward.”
Then he asked softly, “Do you believe that Dennis DiPrete would have become regularly involved in helping to select A&E contracts without telling his father?” He reminded the commissioners of Mathies Santos’s testimony that after the Providence Journal exposé, he stopped sending the short lists to the governor’s office and gave them to his son instead. “Dennis DiPrete had become the courier. And this is important only because it shows there was no legitimate governmental purpose for this secret selection process.”
Finally, Roney traced the arc of Tutela’s contributions during DiPrete’s first four years as governor. “Look at the fact that he stopped after he was denied a contract and informed that he wasn’t qualified. His reasons for stopping are simply not credible. Tutela told you his contributions were hurting the candidate, which is ludicrous. The real reason is that he didn’t get the contract.”
Roney then asked if campaign contributions influenced the decision to give the Olney Pond contract to Tutela. “What distinguished Tutela from the others? Tutela had contributed $20,000.”
In an instant, Roney pivoted back to DiPrete’s claim that he had not steered the Jamestown Bridge contract to James Taft.
“Just a moment!” Joe Kelly sprang to his feet, interrupting Roney’s summation. “I object to the infusion of the Jamestown Bridge into this hearing. I understood that the Jamestown Bridge has already been tried and argued. That’s a closed case, and I point out that counsel for the Jamestown Bridge isn’t here.”
Roney paused, looking puzzled. “This matter was bifurcated at Mr. Kelly’s request. I certainly have the right in my closing to expose the contradictions between what the governor stated in his testimony in the Jamestown Bridge matter and what he said here.”
Pellegrino told Roney he could continue.
“In Jamestown Bridge,” Roney said, “the governor’s defense was that he didn’t make a recommendation. He simply told the director to pick a local firm and stayed out of the decision for what turned out to be a three-quarters of a million dollar contract.” Roney stressed the contrast between DiPrete’s insistence that he needed to be a “hands-on manager” for small contracts and his claim to have stayed out of the Jamestown Bridge selection.
Kelly objected, but Roney kept going. He described the corrosive effect of the process on workers and administrators like Fred Lippitt, who have to go along with a corrupt process: “Honest, conscientious, and qualified contractors cannot be expected to bid in a process that’s rigged to favor the political contributor. I ask you to find a violation. Send a message to elected officials that when they’re faced with decisions that will benefit political contributors, they must step aside or face the consequences of violating the Code of Ethics.” He ended by calling the commissioners to judge “on behalf of an exasperated and angry public.”
The arguments were over. Frank Pellegrino thanked all the participants and closed the hearing. He said the commissioners would take a short break and then deliberate.
Rae Condon had to leave, but I waited to thank John Roney for his blistering summation. I asked what he thought they would decide.
Roney slid his scrawled notes into his briefcase. He replayed the proceedings the way a shortstop might rerun his mental video of a double play. He thought DiPrete and his lawyers made several serious mistakes. One mistake came on Christmas Eve the year before, when DiPrete acknowledged that he had recommended Taft for the Jamestown Bridge litigation. “The fact that DiPrete thought he had sent a letter to Gill, when he actually made the recommendation verbally, only strengthened our case. And they had no way to impugn Lynette’s notes.”
I asked about other mistakes.
“I think they underestimated how it would play to have Joe Kelly represent the governor on the Olney Pond portion but then remove himself from Jamestown Bridge because he did the joint venture with Taft.”
“Wouldn’t it have been worse if Kelly had tried to defend his firm’s work with Taft & McSally on Jamestown Bridge contract?”
“Absolutely,” Roney agreed. “But they wound up working with two teams of lawyers and failed to harmonize the governor’s actions. Once it became clear that they would have to defend Jamestown Bridge, DiPrete should have chosen a single lawyer to handle both parts. John Mahoney had made his closing argument in November and never even showed up after that.”
I told Roney I thought he had caught Joe Kelly flat-footed when he tied the two cases together.
Roney smiled. “He had no real grounds to object. We never agreed not to mention Jamestown Bridge again.”
“So will the commissioners find DiPrete in violation?”
“I couldn’t tell with Ashton,” Roney said, “but I think all the others were with us at the end.”
By the time I stepped out into the winter darkness DiPrete and his lawyers were gone. Fresh snow covered cars in the tiny parking lot behind the ethics commission’s office. I drove north on I-95 without turning on the radio. Whatever the outcome, this complaint against a sitting governor had shaped my first three years in Rhode Island. Like John Roney, I thought we would prevail.
Three days later, on December 20, the written decision came by fax. The six panelists had ruled unanimously that DiPrete had violated the law in both the Tutela/Olney Pond and the Taft/Jamestown Bridge portions of the case. All six had agreed on “findings of fact,” a list that ran eight single-spaced pages. Their findings followed our complaint and Roney’s prosecution, each fact articulated in a precise legal statement. Their conclusions filled four dense paragraphs. The first found DiPrete “in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his duties” in the Tutela selection. It cited “the improper solicitation or acceptance of a political contribution.” Then followed DiPrete’s failure “to prepare or file a written statement of conflict of interest.”
The Taft/Jamestown Bridge findings followed the same format but without the reference to campaign contributions. Under a heading called “civil penalties,” the commission ordered DiPrete to pay a total of $30,000 in fines: $10,000 each for his actions in the Tutela and Taft sections of the complaint, and $5,000 each for his failures to notify the ethics commission and recuse himself from those conflict situations.
The last line of the document lay there in ordinary type, without any box or boldface or underlining: “The Vote on the above Decision and Order as to Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Civil Monetary Penalties was unanimous.”
Even Ernie Ashton had recognized DiPrete’s wrongdoing.
Russ Garland phoned from the Providence Journal. “You must be happy,” he said.
His brief story made the front page of the paper’s evening edition on December 20, and a fuller account dominated the front page of the edition I read over breakfast the next morning. DiPrete told the reporters that he was “really disappointed” with the decision and would file an appeal in Superior court.
Just after Christmas, the Providence Journal ran an editorial entitled “The $30,000 message,” which skewered DiPrete: “The public was told the most qualified contractors would get the job while, in fact, the chief criterion was closeness to the governor.” In 1988, the paper had printed front-page stories about DiPrete’s wrongdoing, but its editorial board endorsed him for re-election. Now, three years later, an editorial declared the hope that “a stiff price tag should help to concentrate some officials’ minds in the future.”
On New Year’s Eve 1991, only days after the Ethics Commission’s unanimous decision against DiPrete, Gov. Bruce Sundlun announced that he had fired Taft’s firm from the ongoing Jamestown Bridge litigation.
Ironically, the case had been restarted the previous summer when the presiding Superior Court Judge Antonio S. Almeida was arrested for taking bribes from lawyers. After the costs of restarting the trial and then replacing the legal team chosen by a corrupt governor, the legal costs soared higher than the graceful span that would eventually cross the deep western channel of Narragansett Bay.
The year 1991 finally came to its end but questions remained. Would DiPrete’s appeal get him off the hook? And would public indignation over systemic corruption dissipate or produce lasting reform?
H. Philip West Jr. served from 1988 to 2006 as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, chronicles major government reforms during those years.
He helped organize coalitions that led in passage of dozens of ethics and open government laws and five major amendments to the Rhode Island Constitution, including the 2004 Separation of Powers Amendment.
West hosted many delegations from the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program that came to learn about ethics and separation of powers. In 2000, he addressed a conference on government ethics laws in Tver, Russia. After retiring from Common Cause, he taught Ethics in Public Administration to graduate students at the University of Rhode Island.
Previously, West served as pastor of United Methodist churches and ran a settlement house on the Bowery in New York City. He helped with the delivery of medicines to victims of the South African-sponsored civil war in Mozambique and later assisted people displaced by Liberia’s civil war. He has been involved in developing affordable housing, day care centers, and other community services in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
West graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., received his masters degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and published biblical research he completed at Cambridge University in England. In 2007, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rhode Island College.
Since 1965 he has been married to Anne Grant, an Emmy Award-winning writer, a nonprofit executive, and retired United Methodist pastor. They live in Providence and have two grown sons, including cover illustrator Lars Grant-West.
This electronic version of SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006 omits notes, which fill 92 pages in the printed text.
Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption
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