CLEVELAND Choices are clear for jury in Bucheit's bribery trial

Jurors were instructed to come in at noon today for closing arguments.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
CLEVELAND -- To find Bernard J. Bucheit guilty of giving his congressman a $30,000 "thank-you" tip, a jury has to believe the retired contractor and former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. struck an agreement to let a bill go unpaid.
To acquit, the jury has to believe that Bucheit sent a bill and took no action to collect because the congressman, who had IRS liens, promised to eventually pay.
The government says the jury has sufficient evidence to find that Traficant was given a thing of value -- noncollection of $30,000 in carpentry and electrical work at the congressman's horse farm -- in return for using his position to assist Bucheit.
Traficant helped negotiate settlements for Bucheit -- first in 1992 with the Saudi government for a shopping mall in Riyadh, and then in 2000 with the Palestinian Authority for a precast cement factory in the Gaza Strip.
Bucheit's trial continued today, with the jury told to come in at noon for closing arguments. Last week, the government called 10 witnesses; the defense, two.
Witnesses
The prosecution witnesses included those who did the work at the horse farm and congressional staffers who worked hard to resolve Bucheit's problems overseas.
The defense called Bucheit's daughter, who created the Traficant invoice for carpentry work, and a computer expert.
Bucheit, 70, of Florida, once owned Bucheit International in Boardman. He is charged with conspiracy to violate the federal bribery statute, giving an unlawful gratuity to a public official (Traficant) and perjury before a federal grand jury.
Traficant, 61, of Poland, was convicted April 11, 2002, of racketeering, bribery and tax evasion. His projected release from federal prison is July 2009.
The ex-congressman has claimed that Bucheit was threatened with an IRS investigation if he did not agree to testify for the prosecution at trial last year.
Motion to acquit
U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells today denied a motion for acquittal filed by Bucheit's Cleveland lawyer, Roger M. Synenberg.
Synenberg had asked the judge to dismiss the conspiracy charge, arguing that it is beyond the statute of limitations. The government, he said, wrongly linked the unpaid bill for 1993 farm work to official acts Traficant took in 1997 and thereafter to resolve the Gaza situation.
The alleged conspiracy, Synenberg argued, ended in 1994, making count one beyond the five-year statute of limitations.
Also, he said count two fails to state an offense because the indictment does not identify specific acts that Traficant committed to take, and it should be dismissed.
"Indeed, in 1994, no one could have anticipated nor has there been any evidence that Bucheit would develop problems in Gaza in 1997," Synenberg said in his motion. "In fact, if Bucheit had foreseen such problems, he wouldn't have done the Gaza project."
Response
Matthew B. Kall, in the government's reply, said Synenberg's claim for count one is untimely; it should have been filed before trial began.
The indictment alleges that from April 1993 through August 2000, Bucheit gave, offered and promised a thing of value to Traficant for official acts performed and to be performed by him. August 2000 is when Bucheit testified at the grand jury, saying then that he trusted Traficant and believed the congressman, who had IRS liens, would pay.
For count two, Kall said Synenberg misrepresents the "thing of value." The federal prosecutor said the indictment specifically charges that the illegal gratuity was that Bucheit allowed Traficant to not pay for substantial carpentry and electrical work, took no action to collect, and did not charge interest on the unpaid $30,000.
The crime, Kall said, did not end in 1993.
Kall said the time frame spans the Saudi dispute (resolved in 1992), the Gaza dispute (resolved in 2000) and up until Bucheit's indictment in January 2002.
Daughter's testimony
Bucheit's daughter, Leisel Bucheit, testified last week that her father had more or less retired to Florida by 1993, and Bucheit International was basically phased out. At the time, she was working at the office and created the invoice -- her first ever -- for carpentry work done at Traficant's farm.
The invoice for $27,217 was recently found on her old computer disk and verified by a computer expert, who said it was created in 1993, not recently. Leisel Bucheit acknowledged that she overlooked a few of the carpenter's bills (for $1,767) and also acknowledged that she never sent Traficant a bill for the electrical work, which totaled $3,990.
She paid the carpenter and the electrician from her father's account.
She explained to the jury that the Traficant farm work was irrelevant, extremely insignificant, when compared to other matters in her life in late 1993, early 1994 and afterward. She said she did no follow-up to see if the bill was paid and never sent another invoice.
At the time, in 1994, Bucheit International Ltd. was formed with her and her two brothers and her father as president for the Gaza project, part of the Builders for Peace program promoted by then-vice president Al Gore.
Synenberg, in his closing argument today, said he would tell the jury that the very government that encouraged Bernard Bucheit to do business in the Gaza Strip is the same government that told him he wasn't a target of the Traficant investigation when he appeared before a grand jury.
meade@vindy.com