Sugar revealed cover-up in 2000

An FBI agent said that invoices for work done at Traficant's farm by Honey Creek Contracting had been doctored.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
CLEVELAND -- Two weeks before U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. won a ninth term in November 2000, A. David Sugar Sr. admitted staging an elaborate cover-up for free work he did at the congressman's Greenford horse farm.
Sugar has known since Oct. 24, 2000, that to receive a reduced prison sentence, he would have to testify against Traficant, of Poland, D-17th.
The time has come.
The New Middletown contractor has been waiting since Wednesday to take the witness stand in U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells' court.
Sugar was back today, along with his secretary and another employee, who were scheduled to testify. Sugar will likely find himself back in Cleveland on Monday because Judge Wells releases the jury at noon on Fridays.
FBI witness: The first witness today was FBI Special Agent Dean Hassman, who said that a subpoena he served at Honey Creek Contracting in Petersburg, owned by Sugar, turned up after-the-fact invoices that had been created for work done at Traficant's farm.
Hassman said the computer records showed that some of the invoices had been doctored about 20 minutes before he said he would arrive.
The only record of payment Traficant made, a check for $1,142, was issued Dec. 23, 1999.
The significance of the date is that Traficant's office records had been subpoenaed about two weeks before the check was issued.
Hassman also participated in surveillance of Traficant's farm in March 2000, when a large piece of farm equipment was moved on a flatbed tractor-trailer to Dean Foods, a dairy farm in western Pennsylvania.
The truck made a stop in Brookfield, at Kirila Construction, and then proceeded to western Pennsylvania.
Hassman said a check of the farm in western Pennsylvania showed that it's owned by Kirila.
The FBI notified Traficant that it had taken the farm equipment, which turned out to be a hay-baler, after the owners of the property said it wasn't theirs and they considered it abandoned.
The FBI told Traficant that if he could prove ownership, he could have the equipment back, Hassman said, adding that the congressman didn't follow through.
The equipment has been stored by the FBI at Gobel's Towing in Boardman.
Lied about bill: Sugar pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury when he said Honey Creek billed and received payment from the congressman for the work. Sugar also directed his secretary to create fake invoices and mailing dates and give the records to an FBI agent in response to a grand jury subpoena.
He also said he told her to misrepresent facts about the fake invoices if asked.
As it stands, Sugar faces 18 to 24 months in prison.
His cooperation could reduce the sentence to 10 to 16 months. At the low end, he could spend five months in a community corrections facility and five months' house arrest.
At the time of Sugar's plea, Traficant issued a press release saying the Justice Department was manipulating the legal process near election time.
"Instead of intimidating, pressuring and frightening good people, I wish the Justice Department would cut the bull---- and face me in court," Traficant said in the press release.
"I'm not even an attorney but I am ready to fight them and will represent myself. As far as Dave Sugar is concerned, he is my friend. I understand the tremendous pressure he and his family are facing."
Indicted in May: Traficant's 10-count indictment was handed up May 4, 2001. He faces charges of racketeering, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax evasion.
Sugar is named in Count 2 of Traficant's indictment -- conspiracy to violate the federal bribery statute. It charges that the congressman accepted free labor and materials and paid with favors.
Traficant assisted in the placement of Sugar's son at a halfway house in Youngstown and intervened on the contractor's behalf with a bidding process for demolition of the Higbee building in downtown Youngstown, the government said.
As a prelude to Sugar, Edwin R. Romero, general counsel to the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corporation, testified Thursday afternoon.
After the CIC discovered a typographical error in its bid forms regarding the terra cotta facade of the Higbee building, the demolition project was rebid, Romero testified. The second time around, in spring of 2000, a decision was made to not save the terra cotta facade.
In the first round, Sugar had the overall lowest bid if the terra cotta was saved. He lost in the final bid by being $14,000 over the lowest bidder, a Buffalo, N.Y., company.
Romero testified that Traficant sent a letter asking that the terra cotta be saved and used at the city's second federal courthouse, for which ground had been broken. The General Services Administration, though, said the plans were complete and they didn't include terra cotta.
Romero said Traficant was told that if the federal government wanted the terra cotta, "feel free to come and get it." The federal government had more money than the CIC and should pay for removal of the facade, Romero said.
"Is Dave Sugar my constituent?" Traficant asked Romero.
"I assume so," the lawyer said.
"Didn't I always advocate to give local people a shot?" Traficant asked Romero.
"I don't know that you advocate it -- I heard you say it," Romero answered.
Trial progress: The trial, which began Feb. 5, is expected to last at least through the end of this month. The government has presented more than half the 60-plus witnesses originally expected to testify.
Traficant and the prosecution team -- Craig S. Morford, Bernard A. Smith and Matthew B. Kall -- were to travel to Youngstown this afternoon to videotape the testimony of David Manevich, a carpenter recovering from heart surgery.
Smith has described Manevich as an essential witness who built a deck and two-story addition at Traficant's farm in the early 1990s.
At the time, Manevich worked for Bernard J. Bucheit, who once operated Bucheit International in Boardman. Bucheit, 69, of West Palm Beach, Fla., is under indictment, charged with conspiracy to violate the federal bribery statute, giving an unlawful gratuity to Traficant and perjury.
Traficant has lined up his first witness, James W. Price, a Weathersfield Township trustee. The subpoena was issued this week.
Price served as a trustee with George F. Buccella, now Trumbull County Health Board administrator. Buccella, a former Traficant staffer, testified that he labored on the congressman's farm on federal time.
Price would have knowledge of paving contracts the township awarded to paving companies owned by Anthony R. Bucci or James R. Sabatine, both of whom testified for the prosecution.
Sabatine finished his time on the witness stand Thursday afternoon.
Admitted bribe: The Canfield man, who once owned Hardrives Paving and Construction Inc. in Mineral Ridge, said he gave Traficant a $2,400 bribe in August 1998. In return, Traficant assisted in efforts to get a railroad interested in utilizing tracks on property he owned on Center Street, Sabatine said.
He said he no longer has the "physical evidence" -- the $2,400 in cash.
"I don't have the money I gave you -- you have it," Sabatine told Traficant, adding that he's willing to take a lie-detector test.
Traficant, as he did Wednesday when Sabatine was on the witness stand, tried to determine the specific stall and barn where the money changed hands. To do that Thursday, the congressman showed Sabatine aerial and ground photos of the barns.
Sabatine, who testified in a calm soft voice, said all farms look alike to him.
He did recall, however, that there was a lot of horse manure on the barn floor, something he hadn't mentioned Wednesday when Traficant wanted him to describe the floor.
Bribery allegation: A new allegation of bribery emerged Thursday.
Traficant asked if his driveway at his Poland home had been paved by Sabatine. Sabatine said yes, in 1984 or 1985, and he was never paid for the job nor did he send a bill.
Traficant asked for records of the job.
Sabatine doesn't have any.
"The people who did your driveway are still living and can always be called to testify," Sabatine said. "I helped put it in. You didn't hand me money, and I never sent you a bill."
Using an easel, Traficant enumerated parts of Sabatine's plea agreement, trying to show that the original combined penalty for racketeering and tax evasion was 23 years.
The judge brought the congressman's show-and-tell to a halt after lunch and delayed the trial for 45 minutes while she straightened him out regarding the plea agreement. Morford, up to that point, had objected to the easel demonstration, saying Traficant was misstating the facts.
With the jury seated in the back room, Morford complained that Traficant either does not understand the difference between indictment and a criminal information charge "or he does and is attempting to confuse the jury."
Judge Wells agreed the congressman's line of questioning and the conclusions he was drawing were confusing and wrong.
When Traficant wanted to read a definition from Black's Law Dictionary to the jury, the judge got wide-eyed.
"I can't permit you to do that -- we can't exchange places here," she told the congressman.
Traficant, his voice nearing a shout, said he wanted to show that had Sabatine not waived his right to indictment, he would have faced a sentence of 23 years.
"That is not a correct statement -- you have to look at the sentencing guidelines," Judge Wells said. She then told him to keep his voice down.
Heated exchange: Morford, clearly agitated, told Traficant that whether a person is indicted or charged in a criminal information, the maximum penalty is the same. Waiving indictment simply means a person agrees not to have the case presented to a grand jury and opts to be charged in a criminal information, the prosecutor said.
"I am not an attorney," Traficant said, his voice even louder.
"That's why you can't instruct the jury," the judge shot back.
"You are now limiting the defense," he shouted.
"Stop yelling in the courtroom; it's disrespectful," Judge Wells ordered.
"I apologize," the congressman said.
Judge Wells then went to her chambers and drafted a statement to read to the jury explaining how the sentencing guidelines work. Although a racketeering conviction may carry a maximum penalty of 20 years, the defendant is not sentenced to 20 years, she said.
The sentence -- a range of months -- is found within the sentencing guidelines, she said. A waiver of indictment does not mean the charges or penalties are different, she said.
Traficant grumbled that he was not allowed to show what he believed dropped Sabatine's sentence from 23 years to 10 months.
In Sabatine's case, his range was 37 to 46 months if found guilty at trial. Since he pleaded guilty, the range dropped to 27 to 33 months, with no cooperation against co-defendants.
Sentence range drops: His cooperation drops his sentence into the 10- to 16-month range. His sentencing is pending his testimony in Traficant's and other trials.
Last August, he pleaded guilty to engaging in a pattern of racketeering between June 1993 and December 1999 and filing a false tax return for 1994, understating his income by $239,000.
The conviction last August included bribing Traficant with $2,400, mail fraud and two more acts of bribery -- payments totaling $20,000 in 1994 to former Mahoning County Engineer William P. Fergus.
meade@vindy.com