Fed Ed Had No Idea He Was Surrounded by Criminals

I took a powder and attended Allentown Mayor Edwin "Fed Ed" Pawlowski's political corruption trial in Allentown yesterday. The first time I was there, I had to amputate a few frost Ed bitten toes at the end of the day. Yesterday, I suffered heat stroke. The courtroom was also a lot more crowded than the first time I was there. I had to settle for the last seat left. We were packed in like sardines because defense lawyer Jack McMahon has rolled the dice and called Fed Ed himself to the stand. Supporters and friends of his wife were sprinkled throughout the room. She was in the front row, sitting next to her mother. Joyce Marin, the City's former DCED Director, also sat with Fed Ed's wife. Local attorneys dropped by to see defense lawyer Jack McMahon perform, and he lived up to his billing. Some of Fed Ed's critics and victims were also in the audience. I expect that McMahon will continue his direct examination all day Thursday, which will give his client a three-day breather before cross-examination. After that, it's closing arguments, jury instructions and verdict. I expect to see Fed Ed convicted on a substantial number of counts. Though the case against Allinson is weaker, he is a lawyer and nobody likes lawyers. Also, he's been splashed by some of the mud coming up from the case against Fed Ed.

The Morning Call's Peter Hall and Emily Opilo have provided excellent play-by-play on pay-to-play. Peter is quite familiar with the court system while Opilo understands the inner workings of Allentown, so they have provided superior coverage.

Judge Juan R. Sánchez continues to run a very tight ship, and has been sparring quite a bit with McMahon. At one point, while McMahon was slightly confused about a defense exhibit he wanted to introduce, he noticed a juror drinking water and asked, "Anyone else need water? Now's a good time." Then he turned to McMahon and joked, "Not you."

McMahon has been masterful. I do think he turns jurors off when he plays the same tapes over and over and then goes through them, sentence by sentence. But his defense is one of obfuscation. He is attracting attention away frommore damning evidence by focusig in statements that fFd Ed made when he began to suspect he was being recorded.

The United States is represented by Anthony Wzorek and Michelle Morgan. Wzorek sporadically objected to McMahon's more absurd questions, but the prosecutors kept a mostly low profile. And why not? The more that Fed Ed speaks, the more ammo they will have when it's their turn.

Fed Ed's defense is that he he had no idea the city was being sold under his nose. He flatly denied that he had directed his finance Director Garret Strathearn, to rig the bids for a delinquent property tax contract. Though he traveled to New York with Ranmzi Haddad and shook him down for money repeatedly, he had no idea that Ramzi expected something in return. He was shocked when Ramzi showed him a text message claiming that the purchase of the Banko building had been lined up. He insisted that he played no role in fixing a bid for LED lights throughout the city.

So he had no idea that Fleck, Ruchlewicz, Francis Dougherty and Garrett Strathearn were fleecing city taxpayers.

His tone on the stand was friendly and conversational. It's the same way he often acted in his four mayoral campaigns. As he grew more relaxed in his testimony, he began volunteering information. At one point, he finished a sentence with "blah, blah, blah, blah."

When Wzoek objected, Fed Ed began to laugh at him. And that is his fatal flaw - hubris. He will stop being friendly and conversational once the hard questions start coming. And that's when the jury will see the real Fed Ed. Today he could ride around the walls of the federal courthouse. But his blissfully unaware that a Trojan arrowisheaded his way.

He thinks he's doing great. I think he's digging a hole.