Figure in corruption case ordered not to gamble

Richard Lewis

Friday, Aug. 23, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- David Ead, the blustering former tax official who admitted taking bribes to lower tax bills and boasted about his connections to a corrupt City Hall, Wednesday received a year of home confinement, four years of probation plus fines.

Considered a star witness in the federal government's case against Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci Jr., Ead spent a week on the stand portraying Providence City Hall as a place where favors were regularly handed out for bribes.

U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux, accepting a recommendation from federal prosecutors, ordered Ead to spend four years on probation after a year of home confinement. Ead also was ordered to pay $60,000 in restitution plus $10,000 in fines.

Ead -- who was portrayed by Cianci's attorney as a gambling addict who took bribes only for himself and lied on the stand -- also was ordered not to gamble. "Not even lottery tickets," Lagueux said.

"It was difficult to cooperate. I took a beating," Ead, 61, told the judge, pausing frequently to collect himself. "I did my best. I'm very sorry."

Moments later, Angelo Mosca, an attorney who was the middleman in a bribery scheme with Ead to lower the back taxes on an estate, was sentenced to a year of home confinement, followed by two years of probation. He also was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines and $50,000 in restitution.

Mosca apologized in court to his family, who were in court, for humiliating them.

"There's no excuse. I blame no one," Mosca said.

Prosecutors described Ead and Mosca as the "dominoes" that allowed them to reach into the inner workings of City Hall and topple the Cianci administration.

"Without their cooperation, this case could not have been made, and people should realize that," U.S. Attorney Margaret Curran said outside of court.

Ead and Mosca collaborated on a deal in which a $15,000 bribe was paid to lower the back taxes on an estate Mosca represented. Ead testified he delivered $10,000 of the money to Cianci's bag man, Frank Corrente, and the rest to the tax board's chairman Joseph Pannone, who is serving time in a federal prison hospital in Massachusetts.

Although Cianci and Corrente were found innocent of all the charges related to Ead's testimony, prosecutors and the judge said his cooperation was essential to other convictions in the case.

"He established indeed there were stains on the mayor's jacket," Lagueux said, referring to Cianci's remark proclaiming his innocence after he was indicted in April 2001.

Ead, the former vice chairman of the Board of Tax Assessment Review, testified that he arranged three bribes for the mayor, totaling $25,000, in exchange for favors and tax breaks from the city.

He also was featured on several surveillance tapes made by FBI informant Antonio Freitas. On them, he claims he has the authority to go around Cianci's top aides and straight to "the big guy."

But Cianci's attorney, Richard Egbert, told the jury that Ead was "a pig, plain and simple," who used his tax board position to line his own pockets and feed a gambling addiction.

Ead agreed to plead guilty to six extortion-related charges and testified in the Plunder Dome trial.

After a seven-week trial this past spring, Cianci was convicted of racketeering conspiracy. He is set to be sentenced next month, and faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Corrente was convicted on six of 16 corruption charges.