TRAFICANT CASE Judge rules to keep Bucheit imprisoned

The retiree argues that his two-year sentence could be much less.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A federal judge has denied Bernard J. Bucheit's motion to remain free on bond pending appeal of evidence that showed he rewarded a congressman with a $30,000 "tip."
The 71-year-old retired Boardman contractor is now imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton in Columbiana County.
With good time, his projected release from the low-security prison is June 22, 2005.
In April, a jury found Bucheit guilty of conspiracy to violate the federal bribery statute -- he gave an unlawful gratuity to a public official (then-U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr.) -- and perjury before a federal grand jury.
In August, U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells sentenced him to 24 months in prison and fined him $5,000.
Bucheit's Akron lawyers, Christopher C. Eskew and Peter T. Cahoon, have filed a notice of appeal with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Attorney's argument
Bucheit's trial attorney, Roger M. Synenberg of Cleveland, had argued in his motion for bond pending appeal that Judge Wells erred when she denied Bucheit's statute of limitations defense for failure to raise it prior to trial.
Traficant, expelled and imprisoned in July 2002, accepted roughly $30,000 worth of remodeling work done at his Greenford horse farm in the early 1990s from Bucheit, who collected political favors instead of cash.
Near the end of the trial in April, Synenberg asked the judge to dismiss the conspiracy charge, arguing that it was beyond the statute of limitations.
He said the government wrongly linked Traficant's unpaid bill for 1993 farm work to official acts Traficant took in 1997 and thereafter to resolve a dispute Bucheit's construction company had in the Gaza Strip in the Middle East.
Synenberg argued that the alleged conspiracy ended in 1994, making count one beyond the five-year statute of limitations.
Also, he said in court that count two failed to state an offense because the indictment did not identify specific acts that Traficant committed taking.
Judge's ruling
Bucheit, who was indicted in January 2002, had more than a year before trial to present his statute of limitations defense, Judge Wells said in her order denying bond pending appeal.
Bucheit acknowledges that the perjury conviction would stand, according to court papers. In August 2000, he lied to the grand jury investigating Traficant.
Judge Wells, in her order, said even if Bucheit prevails on appeal, the perjury conviction would mean 18 to 24 months in prison. Bucheit's lawyers contend the sentence would be less than 15 months, the expected duration of the appeal process.
The 6th Circuit appellate court, meanwhile, has scheduled oral arguments on Traficant's appeal for Dec. 9. The 62-year-old Poland man, convicted of racketeering, bribery and tax evasion, is serving an eight-year sentence at a federal prison in White Deer, Pa.
meade@vindy.com