Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992 TAG: 9201290135
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BECKLEY, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
CUCCI GUILTY OF DRUG DEALING
A federal court jury Tuesday rejected a Covington, Va., businessman's claim that he was illegally set up by a government informant, and convicted him of conspiracy to distribute cocaine from New York to West Virginia.Victor Cucci, owner of Cucci's Pizzeria in Covington, was convicted along with his lifelong friend Joseph Corvello, 52, who was described by prosecutors as the cocaine supplier.
Cucci, 39, has admitted that he arranged for the 2 kilogram shipment of cocaine July 25, but maintained he was pressured into it against his will by Robert Seidman, a government informant. He said Seidman set out to get him at any cost because Seidman is a convicted drug dealer who hoped the government would let him go free from a 20-year sentence hanging over him.
The jury deliberated for nearly four hours following a four-day trial before rejecting Cucci's claim.
Hunter Smith, the assistant U.S. attorney directing the prosecution, said afterward that the verdict exonerates the investigative techniques that federal drug agents have to use in order to get drug dealers.
"The verdict shows that the jury did not believe investigators did anything wrong in this investigation," Smith said.
Both Cucci's and Corvello's attorneys said they planned to appeal.
When the verdict was read, Cucci turned to look at his weeping wife. He blinked tears from his eyes and then wildly stared, as if in disbelief, back and forth between his wife and the judge.
He and Corvello were taken to jail immediately after the verdict. They will be sentenced March 30.
Cucci faces a possible 48 years for drug conspiracy and two counts of illegally using the telephone to arrange a drug deal. Corvello faces 40 years. Both sentences would be without the possibility of parole.
However, under federal sentencing rules Cucci and Corvello could be sentenced to the minimum of five years because they have no prior records.
After Cucci and Corvello were led from the courtroom, Cucci's wife, Janet, wiped tears from her eyes and said, "It's so unfair what they did. . . . How can you have trust in your government when they do this?"
Corvello's son, Lino Corvello, said he believes the jury bought the government's theory and didn't pay attention to the lack of any direct evidence showing that his father was involved in the drug deal.
Under an entrapment defense, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Hallanan told the jury, Cucci should be acquitted if they felt Cucci would never have committed the crime if the government informant hadn't come up with the idea and persuaded Cucci to do it.
Although the government conceded that the informant came up with the idea, prosecutors said Cucci was ready and willing to go through with it. Although evidence showed that Cucci repeatedly said he wanted nothing from the deal and was just arranging it as a favor for the government informant, prosecutors said he never said "no."
Cucci's attorney said Cucci was just stupid and didn't realize that "it was a crime to introduce two people so they could do something wrong."
There was no entrapment, just persistence by the government to get a man who was capable of arranging for 50- to 100-kilogram loads of cocaine to be smuggled into West Virginia, prosecutor Smith told the jury in closing arguments.
"That's what you would want us to do. That's what we should do. That's what we're going to do," Smith said.
Cucci's attorney, Gregory English of Alexandria, accused the government of illegally setting Cucci up with an out-of-control, lying informant who wormed his way into Cucci's confidence for more than a year and pushed him into doing something he never would have done.
Cucci contended in an earlier interview with the Roanoke Times & World-News that he was the victim of a government vendetta to get him just because he is a Sicilian native who became a successful businessman in Covington. "They want to believe that I'm Mafia, because I'm Italian. They don't want to believe that I did it by working hard to get what I have. But that's the truth. I worked seven days a week for 15 years."
The only reason he agreed to arrange the deal was as a favor for Seidman, he said. "I didn't want anything to do with it."
Cucci didn't testify at the trial because he didn't want to implicate the longtime friend who helped him get the cocaine.
That longtime friend is Corvello, the government said. Corvello didn't testify, either, but said in an interview outside that he had nothing to do with the cocaine deal and that he had gone to see Cucci to pick up a cash loan of more than $40,000 to buy restaurant equipment for his Brooklyn pizza parlor, JoJo's.
He was holding that money in a paper bag on his lap when agents pulled his car over and arrested him as he left Covington. More than half of the money was marked money that had been used in the drug deal.
Jurors declined to comment as they left the courthouse.