For a while, Robert A. Weygand got the same joke all the time. A fellow state representative would come up to him, shake his hand and ask, “Are you wired today?”
Weygand, now vice president of administration at the University of Rhode Island, laughs off the comment. But even now, he said he remains proud of what earned him his reputation.
As a landscape architect and state representative in 1991, Weygand had dealings with the city of Pawtucket. The mayor at the time, Brian J. Sarault, offered him a bribe, looking to score money off one of Weygand’s contracts.
Weygand didn’t let him get away with it. Instead, he worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the following months, taping conversations with Sarault as he exchanged cash with him.
Weygand’s work helped get Sarault convicted of soliciting bribes and sent to federal prison. Yet as big as the Pawtucket corruption scandal was, it was only one of several that have rocked the state in the last 20 years.
All three branches of government have been affected, along with businesses and even the nonprofit sector. Several of the culprits have been elected officials such as Sarault, but even people appointed to uphold the state’s laws have been forced to resign – as was the case with former R.I. Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua, who resigned after an investigation revealed he had misused public funds and employees.
And then, of course, there is the “Prince of Providence” – the toupee-wearing, flashy Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci.
As the chief executive during much of the city’s renaissance, Cianci became hugely popular, holding power from 1991 until 2002 despite a widespread perception of corruption at City Hall and an assault conviction that had forced him to resign from an earlier term as mayor in 1984.
The city would come into its own under Cianci’s reign, with milestones such as the opening of the Providence Place mall and the creation of WaterFire. But even as the city continued to flourish in the late 1990s, Cianci was being investigated by the FBI.
Dubbed “Operation Plunder Dome,” the probe looked into a wide array of corruption allegations involving City Hall staffers, city board members, the Police Department, the School Department and the Department of Planning and Development.
On April 2, 2001, Cianci was indicted, along with five others, on charges of bribery, extortion and other criminal conduct under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). In 2002, he was convicted – though only on a single count of conspiracy – and sentenced to five years in federal prison.
The now 64-year-old Cianci was last seen by Rhode Islanders in an artist’s rendering from a re-sentencing hearing last year, where he sat in a New Jersey prison cell, toupee-less.
Scandals have also reached the state’s highest office.
Edward D. DiPrete, a Republican governor who oversaw a dramatic economic rebound, had as much as a 75-percent approval rating when he was in office, Brown University political scientist Darrell West noted in a 2001 interview with the Providence Business News.
“In the 1980s he was one of the most popular governors we ever had. … [But] everything came crumbling down, both for the state’s economy and for DiPrete personally,” said West, who was unavailable for comment.
As if foreshadowing what was to come, DiPrete told PBN in its May 5, 1986, inaugural issue that “a little accountability can prevent a lot of scandal.”
After leaving office, DiPrete himself became the center of a scandal, eventually earning the distinction of being the first Rhode Island governor to ever serve prison time for acts committed in office.
DiPrete and his son, Dennis, were indicted in 1994 for bribery, racketeering and perjury.
The former governor eventually admitted to taking $250,000 in bribes in exchange for contracts while he was in office.
One of the more recent scandals in the state has involved a state legislator and three of the most powerful health industry players in the state.
In August 2005, former Sen. John A. Celona pleaded guilty to federal counts of mail fraud, admitting that he wrongfully accepted money and gifts from CVS Corp., Roger Williams Medical Center and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.
The North Providence Democrat acknowledged that in exchange for lucrative deals from the companies, he used his power as chairman of the Senate Corporations Committee to advance their legislative interests.
This past Jan. 5, Roger Williams Medical Center was indicted by a federal jury for its dealings with Celona. The nonprofit hospital, its then-president and CEO Robert A. Urciuoli and other Roger Williams officials were charged with 36 counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy. The hospital has since accepted a deferred prosecution agreement; Urciuoli, who pleaded not guilty, awaits trial on the charges.
The indictment put a blemish on a 128-year-old community hospital named after the state’s founder. Laws limiting the gifts that legislators could receive were passed in the wake of the Celona scandal; additional reforms are being considered this year.
H. Phillip West, executive director of watchdog group Common Cause, said other positive steps have been taken in the effort to eliminate political corruption.
The R.I. Ethics Commission has been strengthened, he said. In addition, “separation of powers” legislation was passed by voters in 2004, limiting the influence of what had been viewed as an excessively powerful General Assembly.
While parts of the latter reforms are still being enacted by the General Assembly, West said that 10-year process of getting the law passed was crucial to cutting down on conflicts of interest at the State House.
“It was more important than I could ever explain to you,” said West, who is stepping down from his post this year.
But for Weygand, who after the Sarault case went on to serve as lieutenant governor and U.S. representative before losing a bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 2000, the key to curbing corruption is not legislation or threats of prison time – it’s proper education and training in good civics.
Weygand said the situation he encountered with Sarault was the exception, not the rule. Most of the politicians he has encountered, whether on Smith Hill or Capitol Hill, have been honest individuals.
The public’s perception of them, however, has been damaged by a “few bad apples,” he said. “I think because of the size of Rhode Island, everything is amplified.”
