TRAFICANT CASE FBI conducts perjury probe

The investigation could wrap up in six weeks, the FBI says.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The FBI believes some defense witnesses committed perjury at the racketeering trial of former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr.
"We're looking at more than six witnesses," said FBI Special Agent John Kane, agent-in-charge of the bureau's Boardman office. "We've discussed the situation with the U.S. attorney's office and they said 'review the trial transcripts and federal grand jury testimony, bring us the evidence and we'll prosecute.'"
Kane declined to identify the witnesses he believes lied to protect Traficant. During the defense portion of the 10-week trial in Cleveland, Traficant called mostly friends and congressional staffers to the witness stand.
The penalty for perjury is five years in prison.
Bernard A. Smith, assistant U.S. attorney, said his office would not comment.
Traficant, 61, of Poland, is serving eight years in a federal prison in central Pennsylvania. In April, a jury convicted him of racketeering, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax evasion.
Citing a manpower crunch, Kane couldn't say when perjury charges would be filed against Traficant's witnesses, but he said the investigation could wrap up in six weeks. The Boardman FBI office, with the recent transfer of two agents, is down to 16 agents, he said.
When the trial ended in April, Kane was asked about the possibility of perjury charges.
"We won't walk away, that's wrong," Kane said at the time. "If we allowed [perjury] to happen, it would bring the whole judicial system down."
No one should lie in court, to a grand jury or to the FBI, Kane said.
Traficant called his Greenford farmhand, 20 friends, six congressional employees and four others to testify on his behalf. Testimony from three of the witnesses was deemed by U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells to be irrelevant or hearsay and was not heard by the jury.
The defense witnesses included Anthony T. Traficanti of Poland, who was named in the indictment as one of three congressional staffers who labored at Traficant's horse farm in Greenford while on federal time. Traficanti joined the congressional staff April 1, 1991.
Traficant was found guilty of using the three staffers for his own personal gain. Two of the three testified for the prosecution.
Traficanti's trial testimony March 27 didn't quite match what he told the grand jury about work at the farm and Henry A. DiBlasio, prosecutors showed. DiBlasio, Traficant's longtime administrative assistant, pleaded guilty in June and received probation in September for lying to a grand jury about giving Traficant salary kickbacks.
Compared testimony
At trial, Craig S. Morford, lead prosecutor, used a grand jury transcript to show that Traficanti considered baling hay at Traficant's horse farm hard, sweaty work that created chaff and aggravated his allergies.
When Traficant questioned Traficanti, though, the staffer testified that he "lent a hand -- if you want to call that work" at the farm and went willingly, mostly on weekends. He said that he considered the work good exercise and that he shed some pounds.
Traficanti testified that he would show vacation days for being at the farm. "He could give you as many vacation days as he wanted?" Morford asked.
"I guess, he's the boss, yes," Traficanti answered.
Another staffer, Robert W. Barlow, and Traficanti testified that DiBlasio worked hard. Under cross-examination by the government, they admitted they had little contact with DiBlasio.
Previous testimony showed that DiBlasio, who maintained a full-time law practice, did little work for a high salary.
Far from considering DiBlasio a friend in their working relationship, as Traficanti testified at trial, he told the grand jury they had a "hi and goodbye" relationship and that they didn't work together. Only the elite got to go upstairs to DiBlasio's law office, once located in Traficant's Boardman district office building, he told the grand jury.
Welder alibi
Another defense witness, Brian Kidwell, a metalworker from Vienna, supplied Traficant with an alibi for Nov. 14, 1998, the day J.J. Cafaro of Liberty said he handed Traficant $13,000 in cash as they drove around Youngstown State University.
Kidwell testified March 25 that Traficant came out of the building at YSU with a short gray-haired man -- not with Cafaro. Traficant got into his pickup truck and they went to the congressman's office in Boardman to pick up parts of a tree stand they were building for deer hunting, Kidwell said.
Cafaro also gave a $2,900 welder to Traficant in 1999, which Traficant immediately turned over to Kidwell, wanting him to build an aluminum horse trailer with sleeping quarters, testimony showed.
Kidwell testified that the welder was on his property, but later said at a press conference that three men took the welder, which Traficant wanted brought to Cleveland as an exhibit for the trial. Traficant accused the men of being FBI agents.
Kidwell testified that he needed the welder to make aluminum trailers for Cafaro's now-defunct USAerospace Group once the prototype had been built by someone else. A company in Canfield had been chosen to build a prototype aluminum trailer to carry landing lights technology, Cafaro testified.
When Morford questioned Kidwell, he acknowledged that he had no letter, no contract, no orders from USAG, only drawings for the trailer given to him by Traficant. Kidwell testified that he didn't find it strange that USAG would do business with a welder working out of his garage.
Two defense witnesses gave testimony to counter the testimony of two former women staffers who said Charles P. O'Nesti, Traficant's longtime district director, confided in them that he gave part of his salary back to Traficant.
The two defense witnesses were Michael S. Terlecky and staffer Dennis Johnson.
Terlecky, of Canfield, was convicted 12 years ago of taking mob bribes while a lieutenant at the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department.
O'Nesti, Terlecky said, bought a newspaper in the summer of 1999 that had a story about Traficant and the congressman's picture and reportedly said: "Who are they intimidating now?" Terlecky then recalled O'Nesti saying that he had not kicked back money to the congressman.
Date mix-up
The flaw in Terlecky's story, Morford explained in court, was that in the summer of 1999, O'Nesti had not been asked about kickbacks so it wouldn't have been in the newspaper. It wasn't until January 2000 that O'Nesti was asked about the kickbacks by the FBI, the lead prosecutor said.
Johnson testified that he had conversations with O'Nesti.
Johnson said he was approached by O'Nesti at a restaurant and pulled aside for a private talk. "Jim did nothing wrong. They want me to say things that aren't true, and they're going to send me to the Army," Johnson testified, quoting what O'Nesti said.
The Army was ostensibly a reference to a government medical facility prison. O'Nesti was awaiting sentencing in an unrelated racketeering case but died in February 2000, before being sentenced.