CLEVELAND Jury to decide if Detore conspired in bribing of ex-Rep. Traficant

By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
CLEVELAND -- To find Richard E. Detore guilty, a jury must conclude that he knew of the conspiracy to provide gifts to now-expelled U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. and willingly participated.
The jury, eight women and four men, began deliberations Thursday afternoon and resumed this morning in U.S. District Court. If convicted, Detore, a 43-year-old Clifton, Va., pilot, faces 24 to 36 months in prison under the federal sentencing guidelines.
"It's all right to tip a waiter, but you can't tip a member of Congress," Matthew B. Kall, an assistant federal prosecutor, said in his closing argument Thursday. "I can't hand you a [signed] conspiracy agreement; that's not how conspiracies work. They're secret."
Detore's trial, which began June 16, focused on J.J. Cafaro's now-defunct USAerospace Group in Manassas, Va. It tried, in the late 1990s, to win Federal Aviation Administration certification for laser-lights aircraft landing technology.
Cafaro, 50, of Liberty, testified for the prosecution as a condition of his plea agreement. He said he gave Traficant more than $40,000 in cash, boat repairs, meals, a welder, generator, cars and more.
Albert Lange Jr. of Virginia, a former USAG executive, also testified for the government but did so with immunity. Lange linked Detore to the scheme and said the gifts were to "keep Traficant happy."
In return for the gifts, Traficant, now in prison, promoted USAG's technology with the FAA, the government said. Among other things, he introduced legislation that, if successful, would have required the technology at all commercial airports.
Prosecution's closing
In his closing, Kall showed the jury a series of documents that had been used during the trial. They tracked Traficant's press releases related to USAG, checks Cafaro wrote for boat repairs, expense statements that listed dinners Detore and Traficant had together, memos between Detore and the congressman's chief of staff, Detore's rental of a Corvette for Traficant, USAG's purchase of the welder and generator and more.
The prosecutor acknowledged that the documents are boring but said they tell the story. Why, he asked, would the memos use coded phrases and why would Detore ask for cash if the boat repairs, for example, were legitimate?
Kall said it was Detore who created the cover story that Lange was buying and repairing Traficant's decrepit 37-foot wooden boat. He said Detore's contention that the House ethics committee OK'd the purchase is bogus because a committee lawyer was not told that the deal included repairs and payment of Traficant's past-due slip fees and electric bills.
"I don't think anyone would trust the word of J.J. Cafaro," Thomas W. Mills Jr. of Dallas, Detore's lead attorney, told the jury in his closing argument. Mills called Lange "shifty" and suggested he kept some of Cafaro's money intended for boat repairs.
Kall told the jury members they don't have to like Cafaro and may even think of him as an "arrogant fat cat who throws his money around and likes to control people." The government, Kall said, doesn't pick who gets involved in a conspiracy.
What defense said
Mills said Detore relied on the House ethics committee opinion that Lange's purchase of the boat was permitted as long as fair market price was paid. He said Detore went along with the repairs once persuaded that the boat would be rented from Lange and used to test maritime applications of the laser technology.
Mills said Cafaro is motivated to make Detore into a crook because it would diminish the pending $1.8 million civil lawsuit Detore filed -- after being fired by Cafaro in March 2000.
Mills called the case "the Cafaro conspiracy" and referred to Lange as a lackey parrot. What in Detore's history suggests that he would commit a federal crime, the lawyer asked rhetorically.
Mills said Detore never should have been charged -- "they got the bad guys" -- Cafaro and Traficant. Mills said the government was over-reaching and guessing and trying to put an honest person into the conspiracy.
"This man is not guilty from the evidence," Mills said, gesturing to Detore at the defense table. He said Detore picked up Traficant's dinner checks because "he worked for a rich guy and had an expense account."
Cafaro is a multimillionaire and a vice president with the Cafaro Company, a mall development empire.
Mills said the government lawyers can argue all they want that "surely" Detore knew about the conspiracy, but there was no evidence and no proof.
Kall reminded the jury about the Corvette rented for Traficant on Nov. 10, 1999, on Detore's credit card. It was due back Dec. 10, but the rental was extended because on Dec. 8, Traficant's records were subpoenaed and the conspirators knew the rental looked bad, Kall said.
The rental charge, about $5,000, was transferred to Traficant's credit card when the sports car was returned Dec. 17, 1999.
Kall told the jury that Traficant was in bad financial shape, living out of his office on Capitol Hill and always complaining about the IRS attachment of his wages. "Do you believe he intended to pay for the Corvette?" he asked.
Why, Kall asked, did USAG arrange for the car rental? Traficant had staff members to take care of his personal errands.
The federal prosecutor also connected the dots between the $5,000 rental and Traficant's insistence, once he knew he was under investigation, to pay Cafaro $7,000 for an Avanti sports car and a Jeep that Cafaro had given to the congressman.
The amount, $12,000, is what Detore asked Cafaro for in mid-December for security manuals that no one at USAG saw, the prosecution said.
J.J. Cafaro's daughter, Capri S. Cafaro of Washington, D.C., USAG vice president, testified last week that a $12,000 check was used to open a bank account for USAG and that she signed a few blank checks for Detore before she left town for the holidays. She said Detore cashed a check for $11,800, saying he needed cash for security manuals.
Detore testified that he gave the $11,800 to Capri Cafaro, who wanted cash to pay the security manuals vendor. He said she left in her car after receiving the cash, which made him suspicious.
Kall asked the jury: "Does Capri Cafaro need money? She's a trust-fund baby."
Kall drew a correlation to the $5,000 Corvette rental and the $7,000 Traficant suddenly had to pay for the Avanti and Jeep and asked the jury: "What do you think happened to the $11,800?"
meade@vindy.com