A city councilman was indicted on federal fraud and bribery charges Tuesday, five days after he was talked down from a City Hall observation deck as prosecutors neared the end of a two-year probe.
Rick Mariano gave favors to friends and businesses that paid his personal expenses, helping one business receive a tax break and giving another help on buying city property, U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said.
Mariano and five others were charged with numerous counts of conspiracy, honest services fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Mariano also was charged with bribery and filing a false tax return. Mariano's lawyer vowed the former union electrician would fight the charges.
"I'm going to go look at the indictment, and then I'll begin to fashion what I think is an appropriate defense," Mariano's attorney, Nino Tinari, said earlier Tuesday. "We'll see who's swinging at us and who's not, and I'll go from there."
Tinari did not immediately return a telephone message left by The Associated Press after the indictment was released Tuesday afternoon.
Prosecutors were making arrangements for the defendants to turn themselves in this week. Mariano would likely face 10 to 14 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
Mariano skipped a City Council meeting Tuesday morning, but plans to keep the Northeast Philadelphia seat he's held for 10 years while he fights the charges.
His prior attorney in the probe, James Becker, resigned Thursday, just before Mariano set off an emergency response with his trek to an enclosed observation deck atop City Hall.
Although some feared he planned to harm himself, he later explained that he went to the tower to reflect. He spent two days in a hospital, and seemed a subdued version of his normal self when he spoke publicly Saturday on fellow Councilman Frank Rizzo Jr.'s radio show.
"He's under obviously under a lot of tension, a lot of stress," Rizzo said Tuesday.
Authorities allege, among other things, that Mariano helped officials with a scrap metal company win a tax-friendly designation in a state enterprise zone and helped another defendant get a $225,000 consulting contract with the Philadelphia School District.
Mariano also berated a staffer for not helping one of his co-defendants, who called to offer the staffer cash and a trip to Florida in exchange for certifications from the city's Department of Licensing and Inspections, prosecutors said.
"A tongue-lashing by the boss was this staffer's reward for honesty," Meehan said.
According to the grand jury report, the investigation was aided by a letter from a former bookkeeper at Erie Steel alleging that Mariano had received illegal payments - including a check for $5,873 - in exchange for official acts.
The letter was sent to the City Council president and to Mayor John F. Street. The copy sent to the council president was eventually given to federal investigators, but authorities don't know what happened to the copy sent to Street's office.
"We cannot say that he received that letter," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenya Mann said.
The investigation of Mariano is unrelated to the convictions of more than a dozen people in a far-ranging federal corruption probe that became public when police discovered an FBI bug in Street's office in October 2003. The mayor was not charged.
Mariano makes about $100,000 in his council job and, unlike some colleagues, does not have another job. He has complained to reporters at times about money problems, including the cost of retaining a lawyer after the long-expected indictment. The city's policy is to pay an official's legal bills during investigations but not after an indictment is handed up.
Mariano has two children from a prior marriage and remarried a few years ago.
"I think there was a period of time there when he was under the gun financially," said Rizzo, a friend. "I care about him as a person, but ... if he did something wrong, he deserves to be punished for it."
Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed to this report.
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