03/22/2014
Investigators search home, office of N.H. House Speaker Gordon D. Fox
PROVIDENCE — A dark cloud of uncertainty hung over Gordon D. Fox’s four-year reign as speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives on Friday after state and federal investigators swooped into his State House office and home with a search warrant, and then left hours later with armloads of boxes.
Investigators search home, office of N.H. House Speaker Gordon D. Fox
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Sandor Bodo/The Providence Journal
State Police Lt. Eric LaRiviere stands guard outside the State House office of Speaker Gordon D. Fox while federal agents work inside Friday.
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PROVIDENCE — A dark cloud of uncertainty hung over Gordon D. Fox’s four-year reign as speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives on Friday after state and federal investigators swooped into his State House office and home with a search warrant, and then left hours later with armloads of boxes.
The FBI and IRS investigators spent hours at both locations. Fox’s whereabouts remained unknown all the while. He returned home shortly before 2 p.m. after 14 federal agents left his whitewashed brick house at 11 Gorton St. carrying boxes secured with red “evidence” tape. Fox declined to talk to reporters before closing the door.
While the nature of the investigation remains undisclosed, Jim Martin, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said his office, the FBI, the state police and the IRS are engaged in a law-enforcement action that included the execution of a federal search warrant Friday.
As the federal agents pored through documents in Fox’s third-floor office in the State House, House Majority Leader Nicholas Mattiello paced a Federal Hill sidewalk outside Joe Marzilli’s Old Canteen Restaurant, a cellphone to his ear. He said he was trying to arrange a caucus of House Democrats for Friday evening to discuss a possible successor to Fox.
Asked the reason for the caucus, Mattiello said he expected the lawmakers will be “talking about the leadership of the House and how we move forward.”
As the House majority leader and “number two in charge of the House,” Mattiello said, “I’m not sure what the current status of the speaker is, in light of the events that surprised me today, so I want to make sure we are prepared to move forward” on Tuesday, when the House is next scheduled to meet.
Mattiello said he was “absolutely” prepared to step in as speaker if necessary. And “I am confident I have the votes,” he said. “Absolutely.”
“It’s a difficult day for the state of Rhode Island, I would suspect,” Mattiello said. “I’d prefer to be talking about economic development and moving us in the right direction than having to discuss a subject of which … seems to be negative and very concerning.”
But Mattiello infuriated fellow Democrats — and revealed deep fissures within the Fox leadership team — by inviting some Democrats to the caucus at the Marriott Hotel, and not others. He also set off the political equivalent of a feeding frenzy among lawmakers hoping to moving up the leadership ranks.
“Many of us weren’t even called,” said House Majority Whip Stephen Ucci, D-Johnston, in a telephone interview. “No one knows what we are caucusing about.
“And quite frankly, it seems like an Al Haig moment — ‘I am in charge’ — when clearly we still have a speaker of the House,” said Ucci, suggesting the caucus was a transparent effort by Mattiello “to box in members to make it appear some people have more votes than others.”
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL VIDEO BY FRIEDA SQUIRES AND STEVE SZYDLOWSKI
The 5:30 p.m. caucus capped one of the most dramatic days at the State House in recent history.
The joint effort by Rhode Island state troopers, and investigators from the FBI, the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s office, began in mid-morning, when troopers took up positions outside Fox’s office.
The troopers would not answer questions about why they had closed off access to the speaker’s State House office. They referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which provided no further details. Soon after, FBI and IRS agents arrived.
Larry Berman, Fox’s spokesman, said he was in the speaker’s office, working, when the troopers showed up unannounced around 10 a.m. He said he had no idea why they were there. The troopers asked him and everyone else in the office, including Fox’s executive assistant Ruth Desmarais, to leave.
Asked if Fox planned to resign, Berman said: “Not that I am aware of, but I don’t know. I am not aware of any plans.”
“I feel for Gordon because he’s a great guy,” he added. “I’ve known him dating back 20 years … . He’s had a lot of great accomplishments. And he’s been a great speaker.”
“Whatever’s happening here,” Berman said, “I don’t think it reflects on his legislative” career.
As to the nature of the documents the investigators took, Berman said: “Business-related. They looked like files, but I am not sure.” When asked if that included legal files, Berman noted that Fox has “a separate law office on Dorrance Street where he practices his law.”
“They weren’t asking, from what I understand, for legislative documents, which are all on line and available anyway,” Berman said.
While investigators searched Fox’s State House office, more than a dozen FBI and IRS investigators were searching his East Side home. (A Fox confidante said the investigators asked Fox to leave, but allowed his spouse, Marcus LaFond, to remain behind to look after Fox’s 91-year-old mother.)
The investigators emerged from the house shortly before 2 p.m. in single file, carrying boxes and navigating a gauntlet of media. As a few of the investigators in dark suits watched, others wearing windbreakers emblazoned with “Evidence Response Team” quickly loaded the boxes into a white unmarked truck parked across the street and drove off.
At about 3:40 p.m., Fox’s chief of staff, former North Providence state Rep. Frank M. Anzeveno Jr., arrived at Fox’s house. Asked why he’d been summoned, he said, “I’m coming to see how a good friend is doing.”
Fox has had past legal troubles, though there is no evidence at this point that any are related to the current probe.
In January, Fox agreed to pay a $1,500 fine for violating the state’s code of ethics by failing to disclose nearly $43,000 he earned preparing loan documents for a city economic development agency.
The fine centered on work Fox did as a loan-closing lawyer for the quasi-public Providence Economic Development Partnership, which operates through the city’s Department of Planning and Development and oversees a federally financed loan program for city businesses.
State ethics law requires public officials to file financial disclosures for work they do for public agencies.
Fox’s lawyer said at the time that the speaker didn’t believe he had to report the income because he was working as a subcontractor for another lawyer, Joshua Teverow, whose firm was paying him directly. Complicating the situation, the PEDP said it had no record of the payments.
It was the second time Fox, who represents Providence’s East Side, was fined by the Ethics Commission. In January 2004, Fox, then the House majority leader, agreed to pay a $10,000 fine for voting on a $770-million lottery deal for GTECH that assured his law firm, at the time, would get work from the lottery giant.
While Fox’s plans remain unknown, the widely-publicized raid on his home and office led to calls for his resignation and an I-told-you-so from his 2012 opponent for reelection in House District 4, Mark Binder.
At one extreme was Allan Fung, Cranston’s mayor and a Republican gubernatorial candidate, calling on Fox to resign as speaker while the investigation is pending. “It would be impossible for him to govern while being investigated by the FBI, the IRS, the U.S. Attorney, and the Rhode Island State Police,” Fung said.
Rep. Charlene Lima, D-Cranston, suggested Fox merely “step aside until this is addressed because it is such as distraction … a major distraction.”
She said “there was a lot of concern” voiced during Friday night’s caucus about how do we function … . How do we keep doing the people’s business with this on the table?”
But Binder, while once again pointing to the ethics issues he raised in his campaign, urged caution. “Rather than rushing to close the book on the Speaker Fox era, we need to wait and see what kind of issues federal investigators are looking at, and who else on the House leadership team may be involved,” he said. “The last thing Rhode Island needs is a new speaker who may be implicated in the very problems which led to Speaker Fox’s downfall.”
Democrat Fox, a 52-year-old lawyer, was first elected to the House on Nov. 3, 1992. He became the House majority leader in January 2003, and succeeded William Murphy as speaker in February 2010.
As rumors swirled, Fox texted a House colleague in early evening: “No resignation.”
Governor Chafee was in Big Sky, Mont., Friday, attending the Democratic Governors Association’s 2014 weekend.
His spokeswoman Faye Zuckerman said: “The governor has been briefed on the situation, and he continues to be updated by R.I. State Police’s Col. Steven O’Donnell.” Beyond that, “the governor does not comment on ongoing investigations.”
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