BUCHEIT TRIAL Lawyer: Why was old wood offered for use?

The jury resumed deliberations today.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
CLEVELAND -- Why, in 1993, would then-U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. ask a carpenter to use old wood stored at his horse farm if the remodeling being done were an illegal gift from a contractor?
The question was posed to a jury by Bernard J. Bucheit's lawyer, Roger M. Synenberg, during closing arguments Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court here.
Bucheit, 70, of West Palm Beach, Fla., once owned Bucheit International in Boardman. The retired contractor 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.
The jury must decide if Traficant was given a thing of value -- $30,000 in carpentry and electrical work at the farm -- in return for using his position to assist Bucheit.
Traficant helped negotiate financial 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.
The jury got the case at 4 p.m. Tuesday, picked a foreman and then went home. They resumed deliberations at 8 a.m. today.
Synenberg asked the jury to think back to the testimony last week of the carpenter, who said Traficant did try to get him to use the wood stored on the property in Greenford, but he declined. The carpenter was hired and paid by Bucheit, not Traficant.
His question
Synenberg said if Traficant and Bucheit had an agreement that the congressman wouldn't have to pay for the work, as a thank you for official acts, then why was there the offer of the old wood?
Traficant, 61, of Poland, is serving a federal prison sentence in central Pennsylvania and is set to be released in July 2009. A year ago, a jury found him guilty of racketeering, bribery and tax evasion.
Bucheit's wife, RuthAnn, and son, Kurt, were in the gallery for closing arguments. Bucheit, as he has throughout the trial, sat quietly taking notes, occasionally turning to smile at his wife.
U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells told the jury that to find Bucheit guilty, they must agree that he and Traficant had a mutual understanding, spoken or unspoken, and that Bucheit willfully joined the conspiracy.
And the jury also would have to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bucheit rewarded Traficant "for or because of official acts performed or to be performed," the judge said.
In his summation for the government, Matthew B. Kall said Traficant had the carpenter at his farm in April 1993, four months after Bucheit won a multimillion-dollar settlement from the Saudis.
The federal prosecutor said Traficant never paid $27,217 for the work and Bucheit made no effort to collect.
Kall said Bucheit's workers did big-ticket items. "They weren't neighborhood handymen." The prosecutor reminded the jury that some of the work done by the carpenter and an electrician, roughly $5,700, was never even billed.
Who sent invoice
Bucheit's daughter, who sent one invoice for the carpentry, acknowledged that she missed charging Traficant for some of the work paid for by her father's company. She said it was an oversight, not intentional.
Synenberg suggested that maybe Bucheit should have kept better records.
Kall countered that the suggestion was Synenberg's way of saying Bucheit "got stiffed" by the congressman. Bucheit, though, fought hard to recoup money owed him by the Saudis and the Palestinian Authority, so the defense lawyer's suggestion that he'd let $30,000 slip didn't jibe, Kall said.
Kall told the jury that Bucheit lied to the grand jury about his relationship with Traficant by saying he expected the congressman to pay.
Compelling evidence just wasn't in the government's case, Synenberg said. The issue, he said, was whether Bucheit, with "wicked, evil intent," entered into an illegal agreement. He said the jury cannot convict on speculation or conjecture.
"We agree the congressman performed official acts. We agree Mr. Bucheit sent out a carpenter," Synenberg said. "We disagree he entered into a wicked agreement."
Why, Synenberg wondered, if Traficant "got a porch" after the Saudi settlement, he didn't seek Bucheit out for something else after the Gaza Strip settlement.
About Jennings
Synenberg tore into the testimony of Leo A. Jennings Jr., 68, of Canfield. Jennings, whose daughter worked for Traficant, testified that he persuaded the congressman to help Bucheit with the Saudi dispute and was promised $100,000 by the contractor, who paid $3,000.
Jennings, Synenberg said, is not to be believed. Of the 11 alleged lies Bucheit told the grand jury, six are where the government chose to believe Jennings, the lawyer said.
Bucheit had thought of Jennings as a friend since they attended the University of Notre Dame, Synenberg said. The friendship extended to Jennings' driving Bucheit to Washington, D.C., more than a dozen times during the Saudi situation.
Jennings testified that he sought out Jack Scalish, a Cleveland mobster, to send someone to threaten Bucheit, who reneged on the $100,000.
Kall said that Jennings, a bookie with ties to organized crime, was taken by Bucheit into high-level meetings with Saudi officials. Jennings was not just Bucheit's driver, the prosecutor said.
Synenberg told the jury he feared that they would find his client guilty by association with Traficant. "Don't, please," he said.
meade@vindy.com