by KYW's Tony Hanson
Testimony in the federal trial of Pennsylvania state senator Vincent Fumo was focusing on Monday on the nonprofit organization he founded and allegations that he looted the organization over several years.
The Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods was ostensibly founded to supplement city services such as trash removal, street and lot cleaning, and graffiti removal.
But on Monday, a former Citizens Alliance worker testified that he and other workers routinely traveled to Fumo's Philadelphia home and his two shore homes to perform all sorts of jobs -- including trash removal, cleaning and painting decks, landscaping, moving furniture, even delivering two truckloads of Christmas decorations and then setting them up.
During questioning by prosecutor John Pease, witness Ronald Guerriero testified that he worked for Citizens Alliance for at least several years:
(Pease:) "How many guys were involved in doing that (delivering Christmas decorations)?"
(Guerriero:) "Sometimes five, six of us."
(Pease:) "And when would you do it? During the workday, for example, or was it on the weekend?"
(Guerriero:) "During the workday."
(Pease:) "Did you have to keep track separately of the time you were spending on these personal tasks?"
(Guerriero:) "No."
(Pease:) "How were you paid to deliver Christmas decorations, for example?"
(Guerriero:) "The same way I always got paid."
(Pease:) "Which was how?"
(Guerriero:) "The check. Citizens Alliance."
Guerriero says they even drove several Citizens Alliance trucks to the senator's farm near Harrisburg, Pa., and left some of Citizens' equipment there. He says he was later fired because he missed too much work because of drug abuse.
The defense contends that Fumo (in file photo above) did a lot for the organization he founded, bringing in millions of dollars, and that Citizens Alliance thanked him with gifts and other benefits.
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