Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Nine

Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Nine

{image_1}Between 1986 and 2006, Rhode Island ran a gauntlet of scandals that exposed corruption and aroused public rage. Protesters marched on the State House. Coalitions formed to fight for systemic changes. Under intense public pressure, lawmakers enacted historic laws and allowed voters to amend defects in the state’s constitution.

Since colonial times, the legislature had controlled state government. Governors were barred from making many executive appointments, and judges could never forget that on a single day in 1935 the General Assembly sacked the entire Supreme Court.

Without constitutional checks and balances, citizens suffered under single party control. Republicans ruled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.

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H Philip West's SECRETS & SCANDALS tells the inside story of events that shook Rhode Island’s culture of corruption, gave birth to the nation’s strongest ethics commission, and finally brought separation of powers in 2004. No single leader, no political party, no organization could have converted betrayals of public trust into historic reforms. But when citizen coalitions worked with dedicated public officials to address systemic failures, government changed.

Three times—in 2002, 2008, and 2013—Chicago’s Better Government Association has scored state laws that promote integrity, accountability, and government transparency. In 50-state rankings, Rhode Island ranked second twice and first in 2013—largely because of reforms reported in SECRETS & SCANDALS.

Each week, GoLocalProv will be running a chapter from SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, which chronicles major government reforms that took place during H. Philip West's years as executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. The book is available from the local bookstores found HERE.

Part One: DePrete, RISDIC

Chapter Nine: Olney Pond (1991)

Nearly three years after Common Cause board members and I signed our complaint, the hidden trial of Edward DiPrete finally began. What had started with newspaper clippings and a copy of the Ethics Law came, at last, to oaths and evidence. 

On an overcast October afternoon, Rae Condon and I needed to make a decision. We leaned on a balcony railing in the two-story glass entrance to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission’s headquarters and spoke quietly. Eleven months earlier, only days before he lost to Bruce Sundlun, DiPrete had appointed Ernest G. Ashton to the panel that would now weigh evidence against him. Ashton had been DiPrete’s friend for thirty years. He did business with DiPrete Insurance and contributed to many DiPrete campaigns. I asked Condon if we should try to disqualify Ashton.

“We could,” she said, “but I’m not sure we should.” Three commissioners on the nine-member adjudicative panel had already recused themselves, leaving only six to hear the case. The law required five affirmative votes to find a violation; it had no provision for alternates, as there would be in a jury trial. The commission’s first chair, John J. Tuohy, had been fatally struck by a car in a crosswalk. Condon’s math was simple: if we disqualified Ashton, only five members would remain. The hearings might take six or eight weeks. If accident, illness, or death incapacitated one, the entire complaint might founder under the five-vote requirement. We had no choice but to let Ashton sit. 

By law, the hearing would be secret. Condon and I took seats inside the hearing room moments before the ex-governor swept in with a pair of lawyers. As he had at the probable-cause hearing, DiPrete glared through me. He sat down a few empty chairs away.

John Roney, the lawyer hired to prosecute our complaint, backed in through a door, his arms loaded with loose-leaf binders of evidentiary documents.

Name plates for the six commissioners who would hear our complaint marked their places at a table. The six, including Ernest Ashton, entered from the commission’s administrative office. Francis P. Pellegrino, a retired high school principal from Westerly, would chair the panel. He tapped his gavel. 

Pellegrino called on Richard Ratcliffe, an assistant attorney general. Thin, in his mid-thirties, with a bald forehead above wire-rimmed glasses, Ratcliffe spoke with monkish humility and asked to postpone the Tutela/Olney Pond case. “Several of the witnesses that you’re expecting to hear from have testified before a statewide grand jury,” Ratcliffe explained. “These hearings could compromise the grand jury proceedings.” 

I relished news that a grand jury was weighing criminal charges. An awareness of an unseen criminal investigation might make these commissioners receptive to our ethics charges, which I believed were only the tip of a vast iceberg.

Pellegrino asked both lawyers about Ratcliffe’s motion to delay the hearing.

From the prosecution table John Roney opposed delay because he had a witness waiting outside. Joseph A. Kelly, DiPrete’s defense lawyer, agreed. He cited many months of getting to this point, adding indignantly that DiPrete had been waiting two years to clear his name and get on with his life. 

From his seat at the center of the table, Pellegrino asked if there were other questions before the panel cleared the room to deliberate. 

Rae Condon rose. She reminded the commissioners that the investigating committee had dismissed other charges not for lack of evidence, but because they involved actions the governor had taken before he signed the Ethics Commission into existence on June 25, 1987. Condon moved to reinstate those charges. She argued that six members of a fifteen-member commission had “gratuitously granted a general amnesty” for actions that were illegal under both the law DiPrete signed and the previous Conflict of Interest Law. 

After deliberations, the six-member panel rejected the motion to delay the Tutela portion of the complaint, but it also tabled our motion to reinstate the charges previously dismissed.

Condon addressed the question of Ernest Ashton’s participation. She reminded the commissioners that “a very stringent statute” created a predicament: if death, incompetence, or sickness were to leave fewer than five, the case could never be resolved. For that reason, she said, Common Cause would not object to Ashton’s participation. From his seat at the center of the table, Pellegrino thanked her. 

Commissioner Roger M. Freeman, a Republican and a retired insurance executive, raised his hand and spoke: “I’d just like to get this on the record that every one of us on this Ethics Commission who was appointed prior to January 1, 1991, was appointed by former Gov. DiPrete.” DiPrete had personally interviewed and named five of six panelists who would weigh the evidence against him. 

As prosecutor, Roney led off, promising that witnesses would explain how the governor had secretly picked Domenic Tutela, a $20,000 campaign contributor, for a state environmental project at Olney Pond in Lincoln Woods State Park. 

Then Kelly rose for the defense. Tall and gaunt, with head completely shaved, he commanded attention. “The first thing you’re going to learn,” the lawyer said, “is that Mr. Tutela did not receive the so-called Olney Pond contract. You’re also going to learn that Mr. Tutela was never advised that he had been selected to receive the so-called Olney Pond contract.” 

Before DiPrete took office, Kelly said, many state contracts went “to particular firms and to a very few particular firms.” To spread the work around, the governor established an Architectural and Engineering Services Selection Committee to screen qualified contractors. That committee, he added, had put Tutela on a short list for the Olney Pond contract. Kelly made light of the fact that a list went to the governor: “As was his hands-on procedure, the governor might make a recommendation, not a selection. He really couldn’t make a selection. He didn’t know the contract price.”

When Kelly explained it that way, the process sounded credible. He said Tutela would testify that he had never contacted DiPrete about the Olney Pond job.

John Roney called Judith Benedict as his first witness. She described her duties as chief of planning and development at the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and cited problems with water quality in Olney Pond. Scientists under her supervision used criteria established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to evaluate proposals for finding the source of pollution. Lycott Environmental Resources and IEP Inc. had ranked highest on qualifications and filed the lowest bids. Benedict testified that their prices fell below the $100,000 grant expected from EPA, and none of the other firms “were found to be acceptable.” 

Benedict said she had put all this in writing and sent the complete file to State Purchasing Agent Dennis Lynch of the Architects and Engineers Selection Committee, known as “the A&E committee.”

Significantly, Benedict had sat in for DEM director Bob Bendick at the A&E committee on April 8, 1988. It was her first A&E meeting, and the process baffled her. She met the three other participants for the first time that morning, presented her department’s review, and explained why only two firms were acceptable. She was flummoxed when they insisted on sending a “short list” of at least three firms to the director of administration. 

“What happened after you made your recommendation?” Roney asked.

“Someone suggested that Tutela’s name be added, and there may have been another firm as well.” Roney let her comment sink in. “Do you recall who suggested that Tutela’s name be added to the list?” 

“I don’t,” Benedict said. 

Roney asked her to look at the binder of evidence and examine minutes that noted the committee had agreed unanimously to Tutela and a fourth firm. “Do you recall whether a vote was taken?”

“I don’t remember,” Benedict said softly.

“Did you vote to include Tutela on the list?”

“I don’t recall, but I’ve since been told that I did.” 

Roney asked why she agreed to include Tutela on the list.

“My memo to Mr. Lynch clearly stated that we thought there were only two qualified applicants, so it didn’t seem important to me if there were other names added.”

Roney directed her to review a document in the binder addressed to Frederick Lippitt, DiPrete’s director of administration. A&E committee chair Dennis Lynch had signed the memo that recommended four firms for the Olney Pond Project, giving no hint that the professionals at DEM strongly preferred Lycott and IEP or found the other firms, including Tutela, unacceptable. Nor did Lynch note that only bids from Lycott and IEP fell within the $100,000 EPA grant.

The binder also held Lippitt’s response to Lynch, announcing that he had “selected” Tutela for the Olney Pond project. Roney asked Benedict and the commissioners to review these documents.

“When you learned that the Tutela firm had been selected,” Roney asked her, “what did you do?” 

Benedict replied that she told DEM Director Robert Bendick what happened, and she drafted a memo Bendick could send to Lippitt, DiPrete’s director of administration. Roney directed her to review her memo in the binder. She had written that Tutela’s $178,000 bid was “substantially higher than the EPA Clean Lakes grant of $100,000,” that Lycott Environmental Research and IEP each had the required experience, and that their bids of $73,294 and $88,920 fell within the budget of the grant. Benedict’s memo informed Lippitt that Lycott had scored 91.5 on the federal criteria, while IEP got 91.8. By contrast, Tutela ranked seventh of eight with a score of 67.5. 

Her memo was moderate in tone, but its substance exploded off the page. “Tutela Engineering, although experienced in the field of wastewater management, has not performed any Clean Lakes grant studies.” For all those reasons, DEM found it necessary to “request that you reconsider the awarding of the contract.” Benedict testified that Bendick initialed her memo and fired it off to Lippitt. 

In cross-examination, Kelly tried to have Benedict state that, contrary to what she had said, all of the bidders were qualified and the only problem was cost. She stood her ground: her professional review committee at DEM had found only two qualified.

Unlike jurors at a criminal trial, members of the Ethics Commission were allowed to ask questions. Richard W. Morsilli, the only panelist appointed by Gov. Sundlun, spoke softly: “What really gets me confused is that when the list is finally submitted, all the names are in alphabetical order. Alphabetical means everyone is equal and as qualified as the next. Almost like someone was trying to hide something.” 

Benedict told him that was how the A&E committee operated. 

State Purchasing Director Dennis M. Lynch, a former mayor of Pawtucket, followed Benedict in the witness chair. As at any trial, he had not heard the prior testimony. Under Roney’s questions he acknowledged chairing the A&E committee on April 8 and sending the Olney Pond short list to Lippitt. Then Roney directed him to the agenda, which noted that DEM director Robert Bendick had been scheduled to represent his agency but Judith Benedict had attended in his place. He asked Lynch if Benedict had participated in any previous A&E committee meetings.

“I’m not sure she had,” Lynch answered. “I think very highly of Judith, and I think she’s a true professional, but in answer to your question, I think the process was unfamiliar to her at that time.” He affirmed that Benedict had presented DEM’s position. “Their in-house study had concluded that two firms were qualified, one in particular that they felt strongly about.”

“Who recommended that the Tutela firm be added?” Lynch said he did not know. Nor could he recall who proposed to add the fourth company to the short list. 

The afternoon had vanished, and the panel adjourned. The next hearing took place on October 31. At that hearing Kelly asked Lynch if it was his job to submit the names of qualified people for state contracts. Lynch said it was.

“And I take it that all of those people were therefore qualified?”

“Yes, sir,” Lynch answered. Kelly did not ask how the committee had certified Tutela after the DEM review team had found this firm unqualified. Instead, he inquired about political influence. Had DiPrete or anyone on his behalf said to put any firm on a short list?

“No, sir,” said Lynch.

When time came for questions from the adjudicative panel, Chairman Frank Pellegrino wondered how Lynch’s committee had washed away the DEM reviewers’ ranking and put Tutela on the short list. 

Lynch answered evasively: “My testimony was that I can’t recall who recommended Tutela.”

“Do you have minutes of those meetings?”

“Yes, sir. The minutes do not show.”

“Do you have a tape of the meeting?”

“No, sir.” 

In his turn, Richard Morsilli pushed Lynch for more. He asked why the A&E committee ignored the recommendation of the environmental experts. 

“They made two recommendations,” said Lynch. “Those two names were forwarded to the person making the selection.” Morsilli frowned.
 
“Mr. Lynch. I would love to know how Tutela’s name . . .” He stopped, puzzled. “I mean, someone must have said favorable things about Tutela for that name to get on the list.”

“That’s right, and I can’t recall, but that’s exactly how the committee works. The record also shows that DEM did not oppose any of those four names going to the director.” 

Beneath curly dark hair, Morsilli’s brow furrowed, and the newest commissioner asked more questions, but Lynch gave no more. For nearly an hour, he defended the A&E process without explaining how or why Tutela landed on the list. I caught myself tuning out. Although Dennis Lynch was responsible for all state purchasing, he had presided over a bumbling and poorly documented process. 

I was surprised when Judith Benedict was called back to the witness chair. She explained the EPA requirements again, adding the fact that three members of the DEM review committee had doctorates in their scientific specialties. She insisted that she had told the A&E that Tutela was not qualified to analyze fresh water lakes, and that neither she nor Lynch had suggested Tutela. She barely remembered the two other men she met for the first time that day, but thought that one of them had named Tutela. 

Pellegrino asked if the A&E committee had voted separately on the proposals.

“No,” Benedict said decisively.

“In other words, there was a single vote for the four companies?”

“Yes.”

“And it was unanimous?”

“Yes,” she admitted with an air of defeat. Benedict had found herself in a Kafkaesque predicament. She had failed to object when a stranger proposed Tutela for the short list. Later, when she learned that Tutela had been selected, she drafted a memo that exposed the sham. 

Her testimony ended the afternoon, and I followed her out into the glassed-in landing. I said her decision to blow the whistle had exposed the scam.

“I had no choice,” she said modestly. “I had to live with myself.”

I drove home on I-95, wondering if a sloppy system and vague minutes would forever hide DiPrete’s hand. The prosecution would have to show by “a preponderance of the evidence” that the governor had steered the Olney Pond contract to Tutela. This standard of proof, widely used in civil litigation, is only slightly less stringent than the criminal standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

On both sides of my exit ramp, curving rows of maples still full of autumn colors flared in final brilliance. The names of Judith Benedict and Bob Bendick, her boss at DEM, played in my mind. During my years as a pastor, I had dismissed worshipers hundreds of times with a benediction. That word, derived from the Latin, meant to “bless” or to “speak well.” It struck me that Judith Benedict had spoken well in the deepest sense, and Bob Bendick had done the same when he backed her up. Both denounced the sham. Benedict and Bendick had blessed Rhode Island. 

Gilbert R. Parrillo was the “public member” DiPrete appointed to uphold, at least theoretically, the public interest on the A&E committee. Parrillo testified that he could not recall who suggested putting Tutela on the short list. 

In answer to questions from John Roney, Parrillo said he had known Edward DiPrete more than twenty-five years and had helped with DiPrete’s campaigns for mayor of Cranston as well as for governor. For thirty-seven years he had worked for the City of Cranston. “I started out as a truck driver in the Highway Department, and I’m presently an architectural technician in the Department of Public Works.” He had served on the A&E committee since its inception and received $25 per meeting. When bids came in, Parrillo testified blandly, “We would try and short-list them down to no less than three names.”

In response to Roney’s questions, Parrillo recalled Judith Benedict but could only vaguely remember the meeting that picked firms for the Olney Pond contract. Roney asked if he remembered who suggested Tutela.

“No, sir,” Parrillo said, “I do not.”

“Did you suggest the name Tutela Engineering Associates for this project?”

“I don’t recall if I did or not, sir.” Roney asked if he knew Tutela.

“Yes, I know Domenic Tutela. I met him when he did some work for the City of Cranston.”

Roney asked Parrillo if he recalled the reason Domenic Tutela was added to the short list.

“As I recall, we selected his name because he was a mechanical engineer. He falls within that field. We just kept his name on the list, if memory serves me right.”

“Do you recall anyone on the committee speaking in favor of Domenic Tutela for addition to this list?”

“I don’t recall, sir.” Parrillo kept reprising that line. He could not recall who suggested putting Tutela Associates on the short list. “Memory doesn’t serve me ,” he added politely. 

Commissioner John O’Brien was in his seventies and had retired as director of the IRS office in Rhode Island. He asked Gilbert Parrillo again if he had worked for DiPrete’s campaigns.

“Yes, sir. I did.”

“What position did you have in the campaign?”

“I used to hang signs.”

“Hang signs?” O’Brien sounded incredulous.

“Yes,” said Gilbert Parrillo.

Finally, the adjudicative panel’s chairperson, Frank Pellegrino, asked Parrillo how the A&E committee added or eliminated names from the list. Parrillo said the A&E studied the proposals and reviewed the bidders’ experience.

“How long would it take to do that?”

“Anywhere from five to six minutes. It would be a brief summary of their work.”

No one could calculate how much time the Ethics Commission was spending to discern what happened at one brief committee meeting on April 8, 1988. Every minute of that meeting was now costing state taxpayers thousands of dollars for investigators, lawyers, and stenographers, not to mention judges to hear the appeals that were sure to follow. Corruption might have enriched DiPrete and his cronies, but giving him due process of law would cost immeasurably more. 

I had never seen Domenic V. Tutela before he arrived and the stenographer swore him in. Was he painfully shy or extremely reluctant? 

As John Roney posed groundwork questions, Tutela relaxed slightly. He had met DiPrete during the early 1980s while vice president of a Rhode Island company that did work for the City of Cranston. DiPrete was then mayor of Rhode Island’s third largest city. In 1982, Tutela founded his own company, Tutela Engineering Associates, headquartered north of Boston. He also opened an office in Providence.

Without warning, Roney had Tutela look in the binder at lists of contributors to DiPrete’s 1984 campaign for governor. Tutela had started contributing to friends of DiPrete under his own name: $100 in June 1984, $1,000 in August, and $100 in September, all before the election that made DiPrete governor.

After DiPrete won the election, Tutela multiplied his contributions: $1,000 between the November 1984 election and DiPrete’s inauguration in January 1985, then $2,600 in January and $1,500 in June. These checks and subsequent ones were drawn on Tutela’s corporate account. Roney asked if his math was correct that during 1985, a non-election year, Tutela Engineering Associates contributed a total of $5,900. 

Tutela hesitated but had to agree. Roney asked if Tutela could recall being awarded any contracts by the DiPrete Administration.

“I object,” Joe Kelly interjected. “I think we’re trying one case here, the Olney Pond case. Are we going to now litigate any other contracts? We’re going to be far afield. I object.”

After a skirmish, Roney cited a 1985 contract with the Department of Transportation. “Do you recall that the federal government objected and that the contract was canceled?”

Kelly objected boisterously, but Tutela answered, “No, I do not. I don’t recall this at all.”

Roney directed his witness to the binder and asked him to read a Providence Journal story: the Federal Highway Administration had threatened to block funding for nine projects awarded to Tutela. The story said Transportation Department Director Joseph Pezza had overruled his own selection committee and picked Tutela anyway. 

In the face of objections from Joe Kelly, Chairman Frank Pellegrino sent Tutela out and asked the defense lawyer why he kept objecting. Kelly insisted that allegations involving the highway projects had been adjudicated and dismissed. 

“If a person is acquitted of a crime and is now charged with another crime,” he demanded, “can you use the acquittal of that crime to impeach him or to attack his credibility on another crime?” 

Commissioner Roger M. Freeman raised a hand. In his late sixties, Freeman had retired from a career in insurance. He wanted to correct what Kelly had just said: that the commission had previously adjudicated these matters. “They never reached our adjudicative panel,” Freeman said softly. “They were
dismissed prior to reaching the full commission.”

“I understand that,” Kelly said with a smile. “Those matters were dismissed. That’s an exoneration.”

Freeman shook his head. “I’m not legally trained. . . .”

“I am legally trained,” said Gary Yesser, the commission’s counsel. “Mr. Kelly, I think you said adjudication was exoneration. In fact, the record ought to clearly indicate those matters were dismissed because of the chronology. The events occurred before this commission was formed. That’s hardly exoneration on the merits.” 

They brought Tutela back, and Roney asked him if he had testified in 1987 as an expert witness before the Cranston zoning board in support of DiPrete-Laurienzo.

Kelly objected again. “How does that materially bear upon this case?”

Without waiting, Tutela answered: “I did.”

“And you’re aware,” Roney asked, “that the zoning board approved the petition of DiPrete-Laurienzo for a zoning change. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” Tutela replied.

“And as a result of that petition, they were allowed to build substantially more apartments than had been previously allowed?” Kelly objected again.

“I can’t address that,” Tutela replied without waiting. “I don’t know anything about it.”

Roney had scored points. Domenic Tutela had multiplied his contributions after DiPrete was elected governor, giving heavily from his corporate account. His testimony had helped DiPrete-Laurienzo win an extraordinary zoning change that netted $2 million in a single day. Long before the Olney Pond project, Tutela had established himself as a stalwart supporter of
Edward DiPrete. Roney pressed his advantage. “And your last contribution was August 4, 1988?”

“That’s right,” Tutela said. 

Roney asked the businessman why he stopped contributing to DiPrete. Tutela said ruefully that the publicity around DiPrete’s dealings, especially the insinuations that campaign contributions got him state work, had hurt his reputation. “I felt it was a negative thing, so I stopped contributing.” 

Roney nodded sympathetically. “And your last contribution to the governor’s campaign was in August of 1988. Is that correct?”

“To the best of my recollection,” Tutela agreed.

“And you made no further contributions for the governor’s election campaign in 1990?”

“That’s right,” the engineer said. 

Joe Kelly asked a few desultory questions. Nothing he did could erase the portrait John Roney helped Tutela paint of himself as a sycophant currying favor with DiPrete. 

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Frederick Lippitt finally took his turn as a witness. Descended from a prominent Rhode Island Republican family, Lippitt was a nephew and grandson of governors and the son of a U.S. Senator. He had stood among the dignitaries who welcomed President Gerald R. Ford to Rhode Island in 1975. Minority leader in the Rhode Island House, Lippitt had also run for mayor of Providence and lost twice to Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. He had always struck me as thoroughly decent. 

After the stenographer swore him in, Roney quizzed him about conversations with DiPrete before his appointment as director of administration in 1985. “Do you recall having a discussion regarding the selection of architects and engineers for state contracts?”

“Yes,” said Lippitt. “The governor wanted a list of at least three names for each contract. He wanted to have a say and actually tell me which ones he wanted. That’s the way we operated.”

Roney nodded. “Did the governor tell you that he wanted to make the selections of the A&E committee?”

Kelly objected. “That’s not his testimony. His testimony was that the governor wanted to ‘have some say.’ It’s a leading question, a suggestive question, and it doesn’t correctly paraphrase the witness’s testimony.” 

Roney drew a breath and turned back to Lippitt. “Mr. Lippitt, did the governor use the words ‘have a say in the selection process’?”

“I think it was clear what the governor wanted,” Lippitt replied. “Among three qualified people, he wanted to pick the person. That was my understanding of our conversation.”

Kelly leaped to his feet again, demanding that Lippitt’s answer be stricken from the record. “That’s speculation. He’s saying what’s in his mind. He’s supposed to testify what he knows through his five senses.”

“Mr. Lippitt,” said Gary Yesser, the commission’s counsel, “why don’t you tell the panel what the governor said to you that led you to the belief that you just reiterated a moment ago?”

“What the governor said was that he wanted to be sure that qualified people got the contracts, that at least three names were to be given to him, and that he would like to pick the one, assuming the person was qualified, to get the job.”

“Do you recall,” Roney asked, “whether or not the governor ever put this request to you in writing?”

“No,” replied Fred Lippitt. “I don’t think he did. There was never any further discussion of it.

“And after your conversations that you’ve related to us, you took the job?”

“Yes.” If Lippitt felt embarrassed or ashamed, he hid it well. I glanced at DiPrete but saw no emotion. 

Under Roney’s carefully segmented questions, Lippitt told how he received short lists from the A&E committee. His assistant routinely prepared a package that went to DiPrete: names in alphabetical order and a separate page that showed how much state work each firm had received. “As long as I was there,” Lippitt said, “this was the format.”

“Was that procedure embodied in any regulation or rule?”

“No,” Lippitt replied. “I don’t think so.” 

Roney asked Lippitt to review the evidence book, which held executive orders DiPrete signed in 1985 and 1986. The first ran three pages, single-spaced. The second stretched to a fourth page. Both contained sections about the process for selecting firms that were professionally and technically qualified. Both specified that the director of administration would select the highest qualified firm. “Is that correct?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lippitt replied. 

“The executive order does not say anything about sending the names to the governor. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct.” Lippitt sat ramrod straight. 

“Do you recall mentioning to anyone that there was a step in this process that wasn’t contained in this document?”

“No.” 

Roney had Lippitt look at another tab in the binder, a cover page that listed vendor information. To the left of the firm’s name was a box. “Do you recall getting these forms back from the governor on a regular basis?”

“Yes,” Lippitt said.

“Would you get these forms back from the governor with some indication of his preference or choice?” 

Kelly objected. “‘Choice’ could very well be a recommendation, so I object.” 

Yesser asked gently: “Mr. Lippitt, would there be any marks?” 

“Yes.” 

“What would be the nature of those marks?” 

Kelly objected to the repetition. “It was a check mark,” he said. “That’s right,” Lippitt agreed. “It would be a check mark.” 

After further skirmishing, Roney tried again. Had Lippitt and DiPrete used this procedure “a number of times?” 

“Relatively frequently,” Lippitt said. “I mean in three years a substantial number of things that went through.” 

“Fair to say a number? Thirty or forty contracts?” 

“I would think at least that,” Lippitt agreed. 

Roney circled back: “So the choice of Tutela Engineering was made by the governor. Is that correct?” 

Kelly objected again but was overruled. 

Lippitt said he could not remember preparing the Olney Pond list. “I can’t say to you three years later I remember that specific one, but I’m sure that’s what happened because that was a regular procedure.” 

His large horn-rimmed glasses gave Lippitt an owlish look. Under cross-examination, he had bared DiPrete’s secret protocol, shuffling lists that no outsider could have seen. Lippitt had abetted this routine deception but saw nothing wrong. 

Roney pounced. “So the choice of Tutela Engineering was made by the governor. Is that correct?” 

Kelly objected. “That’s the issue to be decided by this board.” Pellegrino overruled him. 

“Mr. Lippitt, please respond.” 

“Yes,” said Lippitt without visible embarrassment. “I should perhaps add that Tutela never got the contract.” 

Without celebrating, Roney directed Lippitt to Judith Benedict’s memo that spelled out the reasons Tutela was unacceptable for Olney Pond. DEM director Robert Bendick had initialed her memo and sent it to Lippitt.

Lippitt acknowledged receiving the memo but said he had lost it, a mistake that prevented the water quality study from going forward that summer. He said DEM had started calling him. “Unfortunately, I’m not noted for a very clean desk. One way or another, this memorandum disappeared. I couldn’t find it so they sent another copy to me in August.” 

Finally, four months after the original Tutela choice, Fred Lippitt had grappled with the need to rescind it. “I think I talked with Mr. Bendick or someone in his department,” he said straightforwardly. “I felt we ought to look again at who should get that contract.” 

No one guffawed, and Lippitt plunged ahead. “The governor was away. I don’t remember whether he was in the Governor’s Conference or Republican National Convention. I reached his chief of staff, who was with him. He talked to the governor and called back. He said the governor agreed we should review it, and so then he said . . . ” 

“Well, I object,” Kelly shouted. “This is double hearsay.” 

Yesser asked Lippitt if he had finished his answer.

“I got interrupted,” Lippitt said, as if miffed that Kelly impugned his recitation. “The governor agreed that we were having a problem with this and that it would be appropriate to select one of the others.” Lippitt said he then felt free to choose Lycott Environmental Research for Olney Pond. “Frankly, it was perfectly clear to me that this was the way the government should operate.” 

Roney finished his cross-examination. He had forced Lippitt to reveal vital secrets. 

Joe Kelly rose and took off his jacket. He hung it neatly over the back of his chair. 

“Mr. Kelly,” said the chairperson, Frank Pellegrino, “it seems like you’re ready to question this witness.” 

Kelly forced a laugh. He turned to Lippitt. “You said the press was inquiring about the Tutela matter. Is that correct?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you also said, if I heard you correctly, ‘I don’t know why they were making an issue of that.’ ” Lippitt seemed relieved. 

“I’ve always had trouble with wanting to make an issue of this because Tutela never got the contract.” 

“Tutela never got the contract?” Kelly sounded shocked. 

“That’s correct,” said Lippitt. “I frankly thought it was a very political thing. We were in the middle of a political campaign. These make wonderful things during campaign time.” 

Kelly kept it brief and cordial with Lippitt. “It was your understanding that DEM approved Tutela as qualified?” “The record shows they did,” Lippitt said, apparently unaware of Judith Benedict’s predicament in the A&E committee. Under Kelly’s questions, Lippitt affirmed that DiPrete had acted in keeping with his stated intention to hire Rhode Island firms whenever possible. Lycott and IEP were Massachusetts companies, he said, while Tutela was the only in-state outfit on the short list. He seemed oblivious to the fact that Tutela’s primary office was in Wilmington, north of Boston.

Lippitt came across as reasonable and sincere but emotionally detached. He answered Kelly with disarming candor but then offered a tidbit that Kelly could not block, object to, or strike from the transcript. “Since the governor had made the original selection,” Lippitt said, “I thought it could not be changed without checking with him, telling him what the problem was.” 

Lippitt’s call to DiPrete at the Republican National Convention was the essential final link in a chain of proof. Joe Kelly never flinched. “And you selected Lycott then?” 

“That’s right,” Lippitt said agreeably. 

“And you also said, if I noted it correctly, ‘It’s perfectly clear to me that that’s the way government should operate.’ ” 

“That’s right. The wrong person didn’t get the contract.” 

Ernest Ashton, DiPrete’s friend for thirty years, had sat silently through hearing after hearing. His expression gave no clue about his feelings. Finally, he raised a hand to be recognized. 

“Mr. Lippitt,” Ashton said politely, “I have one question. You were asked, I believe, did you always follow the governor’s recommendation when the names came back to you? You answered: ‘Most of the time with one or two exceptions.’ Is that right?” 

Lippitt described the River Walk project in downtown Providence. “Bill Warner designed it, and he wasn’t selected for it.” Lippitt said he challenged the governor’s choice of another firm. 

“And the governor’s reaction to that?” 

“He said, ‘You have a point.’ And he took Warner.” 

I wondered if someone on the DiPrete side had fed those questions to Ashton. The exchange lessened the impression that Lippitt always took DiPrete’s check marks as contract orders. 

Mathies J. Santos followed Fred Lippitt in the witness chair. Santos had been Lippitt’s executive assistant and was the fourth member of the A&E Committee that short-listed Tutela. I had often seen Santos at the State House in an Air Force uniform resplendent with ribbons, combining an officer’s bearing with a ready smile. He came before the adjudicative panel in a business suit. 

After preliminaries, John Roney asked him if he recalled the discussion that put Tutela on the list.

Santos said he could not remember it. 

Roney persisted: “Did you recommend Tutela Engineering Associates for inclusion on the short list?” 

“I don’t know,” said Santos. “I don’t specifically recall recommending Tutela.” 

“Do you recall recommending any of the four firms’ inclusion on the short list?”

“No.” 

Roney pointed Santos to minutes that suggested that the A&E meeting began at 10:00 a.m. and ended at 10:45. “So you were able to review and conclude the discussion on four projects within forty-five minutes?” 

“That’s what the minutes say.” 

Roney directed Santos to a series of documents: the short list of projects and a cover sheet that would have gone to the governor. 

Santos agreed that he had prepared the cover sheet, which included bare basics of the proposed project. To the left of each firm on the short list was an empty box. Roney asked if the lists routinely had little boxes next to the names of vendors. 

“Correct,” said Santos, clearly on guard. He explained that the list with boxes and the sheet that summarized prior contracts went together in an envelope to the governor’s office. 

“And how would it be sent?” Roney asked. 

“Someone would drop it off up there. If I were going that way, I’d drop it off.” 

“How did you know to send this to the governor’s office?” 

“To get his feedback,” Santos answered, seeming not to notice how much he had just given away. 

“Was there any notation on those documents?”

“There would be an indication for selection.” 

Kelly objected and moved to strike. “If there’s a check mark or a dot, that may not be an indication of selection. It could easily be a recommendation. It’s not fair to this witness to have him say that a check mark means selection or choice or acknowledgment.” 

Gary Yesser, the commission’s lawyer, reminded Kelly that he could clarify the meaning of a mark during his cross-examination. 

“A check mark,” Santos said without being asked. “There was a check mark.” 

Kelly objected. Every exchange sparked a sparring match between him and Roney. The legal nuances vanished, but an impression of lists secretly shuffled back and forth remained. 

Roney focused on Santos: “The cover sheet and short list that went to the governor, how would that be returned to you?” “Usually in the mail from the governor’s office.”

“And having received that from the governor’s office, you would simply prepare the letter you’ve identified. Is that correct?” 

“Correct.” 

“And this letter was prepared for Mr. Lippitt’s signature?” 

“Yes, it was.” The point was unmistakable. DiPrete’s check mark with no further input from Lippitt prompted Santos to prepare the selection letter. Lippitt then signed the document, as if the choice were his own, another telling detail.

In their turn, commissioners quizzed Santos. Roger Freeman directed him to the DEM technical committee’s original memo to Judith Benedict. One conclusion stood alone as a paragraph. Freeman read it aloud: “ ‘None of the other firms that submitted proposals were found acceptable to the committee.’ ” He paused and focused on Santos. “Was that given to you prior to the April 8 meeting?” 

“No,” said Santos. “To the best of my recollection, it wasn’t handed out as part of our package.” 

In his turn, John O’Brien asked Santos whether anyone on the A&E committee, except Judith Benedict, had qualifications to select a firm for the Olney Pond Project. Kelly objected that O’Brien was wrongly impugning the A&E members’ qualifications. 

“Well, I’ll rephrase it,” O’Brien answered. “Did anyone on the A&E committee have knowledge of the type of work that was to be accomplished except DEM?” 

“I think,” said Santos, “Mr. Parrillo had some background or had dealt with those types of firms before.” 

O’Brien asked if Santos thought that—other than Benedict—Parrillo was the most qualified on the A&E committee to rate the applicants. 

“Off the top,” said Santos, “I’d say yes.” 

O’Brien smiled. Santos had not heard Gilbert Parrillo testify that the DiPrete campaigns assigned him to hang signs, nor that the City of Cranston had promoted him from truck driver to an “architectural technician.” 

“Who made the final selection saying Tutela gets the job?” O’Brien asked. “Who made the selection?” 

“The governor,” Santos said meekly. 

“The governor did?” O’Brien sounded shocked. 

“On the documentation there was a check mark indicating Tutela,” Santos said, then pulled back: “Tutela, as you’re aware, did not get the job.” 

“I know that,” said O’Brien. “I’m talking about how he was selected to get the job.”

Kelly kept objecting. After another legal volley, O’Brien tried a backhand. 

“You don’t know who made the check in the governor’s office, do you?” 

“I assume the governor,” said Santos. 

“When you sent that form up, who did you address it to?” 

“To the governor.” 

O’Brien nodded. “To the governor personally?” 

“Correct,” said Santos. 

O’Brien said he was finished. The wily former IRS director had elicited damning facts. 

Pellegrino, the chairperson, posed a follow-up question to Santos. 

“When Tutela was ‘selected’ or ‘recommended’ on the list that came back from the governor’s office, you directly prepared the letter?” 

“Yes,” said Matt Santos, reinforcing the point that Lippitt signed the letters but did not select the contractors. 

“You prepared the letter for Mr. Lippitt’s signature?” 

“Yes.” Pellegrino saw Ernest Ashton’s hand go up, and signaled permission to speak.

“Mr. Santos,” Ashton began, “did you say that you were influenced prior to A&E meetings by someone to make a choice of vendors? Did you say that?” 

Kelly objected but was overruled. 

Unperturbed, Ashton asked again, “Were you influenced?” 

“My sense,” said Santos, “was that the firms were qualified. If they could get on the short list, I would get them on the short list.” 

“Did anyone suggest to you that Tutela’s name be placed on the short list?” 

“Not to the best of my recollection.” 

“You were never influenced in any way to put a particular vendor’s name on the A&E short list prior to a meeting?”

“This meeting?” Santos asked. “Are we talking about the Tutela meeting?” 

“You already answered that,” said Ashton. “You said you were not influenced. Were you influenced in any other situations?” 

Kelly objected for the record.  

“I think I went to some meetings that a firm. . . .” Santos floundered. “If it were possible to get a firm on the list, I would get them on the list.” 

Kelly shouted to strike that, but Santos pushed on: “Assuming that the firm is qualified.” 

“But never in the case of Tutela?” Ashton asked. 

“Not to the best of my recollection.” 

Ashton sounded sympathetic. “That’s what we’re talking about today. You sent it to the governor to get his feedback. That was your testimony?” 

“Right,” said Santos. “I took it to be his recommendation when it came back with the check mark. I would write up the letter in that fashion.” 

Before his grilling was over, Santos admitted that he sometimes brought the names of firms to the A&E meeting and that those names routinely made the short list. The stark truth settled in. One witness after another claimed not to remember crucial details, and minutes of the A&E committee were worthless. 

Mathies Santos returned another afternoon for further testimony. Just before he was to be ushered in, Joe Kelly stunned the room by suggesting that commissioner Cheryl Fisher-Allen be disqualified. 

Before Santos’s first testimony, Fisher-Allen had informed the panel that she knew Santos but had not seen him in years. She had said their relationship would not affect her objectivity.

Now Kelly said she had not recused. “Nor did I ask her to be excused,” he said. His ploy was clever but risky. If Fisher-Allen were to leave, only five commissioners would remain, and Kelly’s chances of having DiPrete exonerated would soar. But if she stayed, Kelly’s move might antagonize her and her fellow commissioners. She and Santos were both part of an emerging black middle class in Providence, and the only people of color in these hearings.

Kelly insisted that questions asked of Santos had put Fisher-Allen in an unfair position. “That never should have happened,” he declared, “except by inquiry into irrelevant matters. She may now have to judge the credibility of someone who is a friend or a social acquaintance and that just should not be.” He suggested, he said “respectfully,” that she be excused.

 John Roney pounced on Kelly’s suggestion, reminding the panel that Fisher-Allen had already said her acquaintance with Santos would have no bearing on her ability to judge the matter fairly. He noted that Santos was testifying under oath and that his credibility was no more an issue than it had been from the start. 

The six commissioners prepared to deliberate on Kelly’s challenge with their counsel, Gary Yesser. Everyone else stepped out into the bland reception area. DiPrete’s forces staked out one corner, whispering among themselves. Rae Condon and I stood near the doorway. John Roney found a neutral spot and studied his notes. The stenographer thumbed through a magazine.

When the session reconvened, Cheryl Fisher-Allen asked to make a statement on the record. A fourth-grade teacher, she had won several awards for excellence. Now, in a deep contralto, she enunciated every word. “Before Mr. Santos was sworn in as a witness, I asked that the record show that I knew him personally. We grew up in the same neighborhood, and our families knew each other quite well.”

She directed her full force at Kelly. “I was closer to his sister than I was to Mr. Santos. I have not seen him more than twice in the last ten years, and that was only on a professional basis.” She described brief contacts at an educational forum and a foundation reception. “I have not seen Mr. Santos or talked to him since, so I still do not feel that I should recuse myself. I think I can be very objective with his testimony and that of other witnesses.” 

Like a schoolboy caught out in mischief, Kelly said blandly that he had spoken only for the record and that he had not actually made a motion to disqualify her. 

The tension dissipated, and Santos returned to the witness chair for a few further questions from Roney, Kelly, and John O’Brien. Nothing of substance emerged. Santos’s answers seemed to have little consequence for either side, and as Santos left, I wondered why they bothered to bring him back. Perhaps Roney had recalled him as a ruse, luring Kelly to challenge Fisher-Allen. I sensed that Joe Kelly had made a strategic blunder.

Finally, Dennis L. DiPrete entered the hearing room, taller than his father but with the same large brown eyes. He seemed naked without his mirrored, wraparound sunglasses. Under the shadow of grand jury proceedings, he brought his own lawyer, Mark Freel, who sat beside him. The younger DiPrete gave his name and swore to tell the truth. 

Under Kelly’s questions, Dennis DiPrete acknowledged a social relationship with Santos. Of the governor’s entire staff, only two besides Santos had been invited to the younger DiPrete’s recent wedding. Kelly established an explanation for the fact that Dennis DiPrete and Matt Santos spoke often on the phone and met frequently. His questions enabled the governor’s son to say Santos had asked advice from him because he wanted to do a good job. 

“You never delivered any of that information to your father?” Kelly asked. 

“That’s right,” Dennis DiPrete said. 

In cross-examination, Roney asked him: “Did you ever tell your father that Matt Santos was regularly asking for your advice on architects and engineers?”
 
“No.”
 
“So, your father was the governor of Rhode Island at the time, and someone you’ve referred to as a member of his staff was regularly asking you for advice as to his job and you never mentioned it to your father?” 

“No,” said Dennis DiPrete. “I never told my father about it.”

Roney nodded and took a step backward. “Do I understand you to be testifying that Mr. Santos would ask you your opinion about various architects and engineers who had made proposals for state contracts?”

“Matt and I would talk about many things. Quite a few were issues that we dealt with during the campaigns. I remember talking to him in the context that he was going to be part of selecting architects and engineers. It really wasn’t his field of specialty. He knew me to be a friend with no hidden agenda.”
 
Roney let Dennis DiPrete ramble, and he kept explaining. “Sometimes when he asked me, I wouldn’t know any of them. Sometimes I would know them by reputation. Sometimes I might know some of them personally.” 

Roney asked if these conversations occurred in Santos’s office. 

“Usually, or else I may have gone out to lunch with him.” 

“Would he call you and ask you to come down specifically for this purpose?”

“Yes, several times he did. I remember specifically a few times Matt saying that he had to go to a meeting later on that morning, and would I have time to come down and meet with him?” 

“And would Mr. Santos have a list in front of him when he was going over these?”

“Ordinarily, yes.” The younger DiPrete’s tone was matter-of-fact, but it strained credulity that his father did not know. 

Several commissioners asked about the documents. Had he read them? Had he taken any with him from these meetings? 

Dennis DiPrete’s lawyer objected, citing huge numbers of documents being produced in response to grand jury subpoenas. He directed the former governor’s son not to answer. Roney asked Dennis DiPrete if he had worked with Domenic Tutela on the 1988 zoning change in Cranston. 

Kelly shouted his objection. “Now we’re going to try the Cranston land case? You know, it’s okay for Common Cause to be present here, but I didn’t get this nose from not knowing where I’m running as a lawyer. I certainly know these questions are coming from Common Cause. They’ve got a motion here to reopen the Cranston land case, and we take a recess, and all of a sudden start asking questions on it? Not fair.”

Rae Condon rose. “Objection to that statement!”

“I object,” roared Kelly. Condon moved to strike Kelly’s remark from the record. “Mr. Chairman, Common Cause has abided by the rules of this commission and has not provided any particular questions at recess to counsel for the commission. And we still hope to be heard on our pending motions.” 

“That’s typical of the attitude!” Kelly swelled with indignation. Condon demanded that his remark be struck from the record. 

“Enough!” Pellegrino pounded his gavel, and the room fell silent. 

After that uproar, John O’Brien asked a series of gentle questions that established Dennis DiPrete’s closeness to his father and frequent meetings with Matt Santos before A&E meetings. Dennis DiPrete acknowledged that he often combined those sessions with stops to see his father. 

O’Brien looked puzzled. “And you never discussed your meeting with Mr. Santos at any time with your father, the governor?” 

“I never discussed the A&E issues with him. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.” 

O’Brien scowled. “I’m trying to understand what your thinking was. Don’t you see how embarrassing it would be to your father if it came out that you were in the office on the day of an A&E meeting, and you talked to Mr. Santos? And these contractors were talked about? He may have made some notes, and some clerk got hold of them? Didn’t you have your father’s welfare in mind?” 

Kelly objected. “How does that impinge on his father’s welfare?” 

O’Brien raised his eyebrows and said he had no more questions. 

The commission’s attorney, Gary Yesser, asked Dennis DiPrete whether he had given Santos information about vendors before January of 1989. 

Dennis DiPrete said he was absolutely certain he had not.

“So for the year 1988, even on an informal basis, you didn’t have any input to Mr. Santos regarding a prospective A&E vendor?” 

“I’m absolutely certain. He never asked, and I never offered.” 

Yesser stroked his stylish chin whiskers. “Did you have any input with anyone in your father’s office or your father regarding the awarding of A&E contracts prior to January 1, 1989?” 

“No.” 

“You’re quite certain of that?” 

“I’m certain,” said Dennis DiPrete. “Your father would never ask you: ‘Gee whiz, I’ve got a list of five. What do you think, Dennis?’ ”

“I don’t recall my father ever referring to a list having to do with selections.” The longer it went on, the odder it sounded. Could anyone believe Dennis DiPrete was telling the truth? 

Finally, the stenographer swore in former Gov. Edward DiPrete. He might have claimed his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself but raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth. Week after week, he had listened to the witnesses. 

Prosecutor John Roney walked him through two executive orders he had issued, and DiPrete affirmed that minor revisions from the first executive order to the second had not altered the actual selection process. 

Roney asked if either document mentioned the fact that the governor would have input on the selections. 

“It’s not specifically spelled out,” DiPrete said. “No.” 

Roney pointed DiPrete to a Providence Journal story where his chief of staff, Norman DeLuca, had declared that there was no favoritism by the governor for any firm. “We are not involved in the selection process,” DeLuca had told the reporter. 

As if to buy time, DiPrete read the paragraph aloud, ending with a tepid denial that the governor’s office had “been involved in” choosing contractors. 

“That wasn’t exactly the case, was it?” Roney asked. “You were involved in the selection process, isn’t that correct?” 

Kelly objected loudly but was overruled. 

DiPrete calibrated his answer, equivocating but not sounding defensive. 

“Of course the statement refers to Norman DeLuca, my chief of staff. He is saying that we are not involved in the selection process and, to the extent of the meaning of the word ‘selection,’ that’s correct, As far as having a say in the recommendation to the director of administration? Yes, I did have input.” 

“And you were certainly part of the selection process. Isn’t that correct?” 

Kelly objected again and was overruled again.

“Not of the selection process,” DiPrete answered coolly. 

Roney would not let him escape. “You had a role in the process pursuant to which the final selection for these contracts was made. Isn’t that correct?”

Cont