Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 23, 1992 TAG: 9201230342
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BECKLEY, W.VA LENGTH: Long
CUCCI TRIAL BEGINS DEFENSE CLAIMS ENTRAPMENT
A federal jury in this coal town will continue listening today to secret recordings that prosecutors say will reveal that a Covington, Va., pizza parlor owner arranged with underworld figures to smuggle 50- to 100-kilogram loads of cocaine to West Virginia.What prevented the coal-rich mountains of West Virginia from booming with illegal white powder was that Victor Cucci made the mistake of arranging the deal with a federal drug informant, prosecutors said.
Cucci's attorney, Gregory English of Alexandria, readily agreed to virtually everything federal prosecutors said. But there was one major difference, he said.
Cucci, 39, was not a cold calculating criminal. He was just stupid.
Cucci, English said, didn't want anything to do with cocaine. He was simply trying to help a drug dealer who had tried to become his friend.
"What Victor did was stupid. . . . Victor didn't think it was a crime for him to introduce two people so they could do something wrong," English told the jury in his opening statement at the trial Wednesday.
Cucci is a victim of illegal government entrapment, English said. It was a government informant who, by "worming his way" into Cucci's life, persuaded him to do something he had no intention of doing and had never done before. And, English said, Cucci didn't plan to make any money from the deal.
"The government can't manufacture a crime" and then try to convict people for it, he said.
In one of the secretly tape-recorded conversations between the informant and Cucci, Cucci says, "I want you to know one thing, Bob, once this thing takes off, I'm not going to be involved. I just do for you . . . . Once, you know, I do that, I wash my hands."
Hunter Smith, the assistant U.S. attorney directing the prosecution, told the jury the case is a simple conspiracy in which Cucci was the well-connected middleman who handled all the arrangements and price negotiations for a drug deal.
Cucci was so well-connected to people from New York City and Sicily that when the government informant talked about possible one- or two-kilogram cocaine deals Cucci told him, "You know, there's 50 there, a hundred if you want it," Smith said.
And, Smith said, Cucci told the undercover informant if anything went wrong the person he was dealing with was the type who would break his legs.
English said he will show that the government informant is a sleazy career drug dealer willing to do anything so the government will let him out of a 20-year drug sentence.
The informant, Robert Seidman, is a 51-year-old former Philadelphia gas station owner and car parts dealer who has been a lifelong failure at everything except his marriage, which has lasted 28 years.
Much of his life since 1969 has been lost in drug addiction and drug dealing, he admitted. However, Seidman said, his drug dealing days ended in 1990. That was eight years after he moved to West Virginia and was caught by federal and state drug agents.
Seidman then quickly agreed to work for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as an informant. He still could get 20 years in prison, but was told he might get leniency for cooperation.
DEA agents soon sent Seidman out to get Cucci, who federal and Virginia authorities have suspected of organized crime involvement for the past 10 years.
Seidman told the jury how he started visiting Cucci's Covington restaurant regularly to strike up a friendship. But he said, he didn't really know how to get to Cucci until he learned Cucci was buying a Toyota dealership in Covington.
He said he had a Toyota and figured he could use that as a good way to stop in and talk with Cucci.
After several weeks of occasional conversations about everything from sex lives to washing dishes, Seidman decided on April 22 to see if Cucci would help him arrange a drug deal.
"I basically told him I'd been a dealer for 18 to 20 years and was looking for a local source and if he knew how I could obtain drugs," Seidman said.
He told the jury Cucci seemed unfazed by what he said. Cucci replied that drug dealing "wasn't his thing" but he "had a partner from Sicily that was handling that part of the business." And, Seidman testified, Cucci agreed to see if he could get them together.
On July 25, Cucci arranged the deal at his cabin near Covington. Seidman said he was only prepared to buy one kilo of cocaine, but the contact showed up with two. He paid $30,000 for one of the kilograms and agreed to pay the rest the next day.
He said he also paid Cucci $15,000 in cash for a car from Cucci's dealership.
Government prosecutors agree that Cucci tried to keep from being directly involved in the drug deal and repeatedly said he wanted no money from it. But they contend he stood to make a good profit by selling cars at $15,000 to Seidman and hiding the fact that it was drug profits.
Cucci was arrested shortly after the sale. And Joseph Corvello, 52, who is on trial with Cucci, was arrested by federal and state police at a roadblock on a bridge near Covington. Police found about $40,000 in a paper bag on Corvello's lap. An agent found $6,000 more when he pulled down the sun visor of Corvello's van and the money fell out. Much of the money was the prerecorded cash agents gave Seidman to use in the buy.
A search of Cucci's house turned up more than $16,000, some of it also used in the buy.