Sunday, December 31, 2000

By JOHN CANIGLIA

PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

A few days before Christmas 1980, three friends picked up Sheriff-elect James A. Traficant Jr. of Mahoning County and took him for a ride.

In a Cadillac, they drove until they approached a house with driveway lights in the Youngstown suburb of Poland. When they pulled in, Traficant grew uneasy. He begged his friends to drive on.

"No, no. Keep going," Traficant said. "I don't want to go in. I don't want to be seen."

The car stopped, and Traficant reluctantly went inside the house. In the basement recreation room was mobster Orland Carabbia, in tears. He demanded that Traficant listen to a tape recording.

Traficant refused.

"If you don't want to listen to this tape, you [expletive], you bring back my brother who is dead," Carabbia yelled.

Carabbia's brother, Charlie, had been killed days before the meeting in a mob war. Worried about whether Traficant was still on their side, the Carabbia family wanted the sheriff-elect to know they had something to hold over him: tape recordings of the brothers and Traficant discussing $100,000 in bribes paid to him before the election.

Twenty years later, this frank discussion of political corruption is so shocking that Traficant, now a congressman, still feels compelled to talk about it as he defends himself against a federal investigation.

This month, he challenged the FBI's version of how the tapes were discovered and attacked the credibility of the agent who found a copy of the tapes in a breadbox in 1981.

In the current investigation, the FBI is looking at allegations that Traficant has used his job to solicit gifts and bargain-priced labor and materials to improve his Green Township horse farm.

Investigators also are trying to determine whether he used his influence as a congressman to aid friends and businessmen who gave him gifts and whether he cheated on his taxes.

Traficant has said he is certain he will be indicted by a federal grand jury in Cleveland. He did not respond to requests for interviews for this story.

As he did in his first go-round with the FBI, Traficant has taken the offensive. He says he will again represent himself, as he did in 1983 when a federal court jury acquitted him of bribery and tax charges even after hearing the Carabbia tapes.

He has sparred with Ted Koppel on "Nightline," blasted the Justice Department in speeches from the floor of Congress and taken his case to radio listeners by serving as a guest host of talk shows on WTAM in Cleveland and WKBN in Youngstown.

"It's time for the government to cease and desist from its illegal behavior," he said this month in a statement. "I've had enough!"

Once again, James A. Traficant Jr., the son of a truck driver, is a blue-collar town's favorite son taking on the feds.

Prosecutors won't say what they have on Traficant this time around. But a review of 1,800 pages of testimony, dozens of records and interviews with several key figures in his first trial shows that the sequel to the 1983 case of U.S. v. Traficant is unfolding much as the original did.

Caught on tape

In April 1981, five months after Traficant refused Orland Carabbia's demand to listen to the tapes, FBI Agent Robert Kroner walked into the Pittsburgh apartment of Patty Packard. She was the girlfriend of Joseph DeRose Jr., a mob hitman who had disappeared.

As Kroner gathered information on DeRose's disappearance, he searched the kitchen and peeked into the breadbox. Inside was a copy of the tapes the Carabbias had secretly made to ensure that Traficant would not renege on his promise to help them after he was elected.

After two months of devising a plan, Kroner called Traficant and asked for a meeting. At 1 p.m. on June 15, 1981, the sheriff of Mahoning County walked into the FBI's small office in Austintown.

They talked football, about how Kroner grew up in Pennsylvania and idolized the way Traficant played quarterback for the University of Pittsburgh. Agents Mark S. Swanger and Millard Roberts, the office superviser, also chatted along.

Then the conversation turned. Kroner asked Traficant whether he knew of or had an investigation into the Carabbias or their Youngstown mob rivals, Joseph Naples and James "Brier Hill" Prato.

Traficant shook his head.

No.

Kroner then hit a button on a small recorder on Roberts' desk. It played the tape of Traficant meeting with the Carabbias in their mother's home in the Youngstown suburb of Struthers. Within 10 seconds, Traficant pleaded with Kroner to turn off the machine.

"I don't want to hear any more. I've heard enough," Traficant said.

The sheriff drooped, and exhaustion drained his face, FBI agents later testified. Swanger walked out of the room, wrote out a confession and brought it back for Traficant to read and sign.

"During the period of time that I campaigned for sheriff of Mahoning County, I accepted money from Orlando Carabbia, Charles Carabbia, Joseph Naples and James Prato. This money was given to me with the understanding that certain illegal activities would be allowed to take place in Mahoning County after my election. I would not interfere with those activities. I have read this statement consisting of this page, and it is true and correct."

After reading the document, Traficant refused to sign it, saying the statement wasn't true.

Kroner told Traficant that he would play the tapes to refresh the sheriff's memory and to make sure the statement was correct. Traficant didn't want to hear the tapes.

"No, I want to sign it," Swanger later quoted Traficant as saying.

The conversation lasted about an hour; the agents tried to get Traficant to help them root out the mob. Traficant said he had money from the Carabbias he would turn over as evidence.

In the next few weeks, Traficant met with Kroner and other agents to discuss how they would set up a sting to catch the mob paying off politicians. In exchange for giving Traficant immunity, federal prosecutors and the FBI wanted him to wear a recording device and meet with Prato and Naples.

Traficant said he would cooperate under four conditions: that he kept his job; that his friends avoided arrest; that the FBI never disclosed how he began cooperating; and that he directed the investigation.

The FBI scoffed.

Later, the agents would recall Traficant's final words to them: "Well, you have to do what you have to do, and I have to do what I have to do.

Traficant on the attack

On Aug. 9, 1982, a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Cleveland handed up a two-count indictment against Traficant alleging bribery and tax evasion. The sheriff insisted he was innocent.

Slowly, residents of the Mahoning Valley began to wonder whether Traficant - by then something of a populist hero - was right. Perhaps the federal government was out to get him.

Traficant, they knew, was one of them. He played quarterback at Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown and at Pitt, the most popular major-college football team in the area. He had been a drug counselor who fought to rid the streets of addiction and a sheriff who refused to foreclose on the homes of laid-off steelworkers.

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