The FBI's Show of Shows

By James Kelly

ABSCAM's first trial reels on, with more to come

The witness entertained the jurors in the Brooklyn federal courtroom last week with reminiscences of how, as a young man of 17, he cruised around Long Island smashing windows with a slingshot to boost sales at his father's glass business. He told of swindling $30,000 from the Attorney General of Bolivia and, by age 50, becoming so adept at devising con games that he franchised them to other swindlers and earned the nickname "the McDonald's of con men." But in 1977, the FBI caught Melvin Weinberg, now 55, trying to fleece Singer Wayne Newton and several other people of $200,000. Faced with a possible three-year prison sentence, Weinberg agreed to carry on his profession, this time for the law. He became one of the principals in ABSCAM,* the investigation in which FBI agents posing as Arabs tried to entice members of Congress and other public officials into taking bribes. The operation so far has led to indictments against 19 people, six of them Congressmen.

Wearing a cream-colored suit, brown-tinted aviator glasses and diamond rings on each pinkie, Weinberg last week began a new role: as the star witness of the first ABSCAM trial. The defendants are Mayor Angelo Errichetti of Camden, N.J., and three Philadelphians: Democratic Congressman Michael ("Ozzie") Myers, City Councilman Louis C. Johanson and Lawyer Howard Criden. All are accused of accepting $50,000 from FBI agents posing as representatives of a fictitious Arab sheik in return for Myers' promise to introduce an immigration bill.

When the trial opened two weeks ago, the defendants, through their lawyers, readily admitted taking the money. But they claimed that they never intended to do anything in return. One of the defense lawyers, Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor, told the jurors: "Keep in mind the only thing that was ever done was to take the fat Arab's money." The defense lawyers insist that their clients were innocent dupes of Weinberg. They claim that he set up the meetings between their clients and the bogus Arabs, coached the defendants on what to say and assured them that they would never have to deliver on their promises. Declared Ben-Veniste: "This man is ABSCAM."

Because much of the prosecution's evidence consists of FBI video tapes and sound recordings of agents' meetings with the defendants, the Brooklyn courtroom looks like a NASA tracking station, with ten television monitors, four loudspeakers and a control panel in the center of the room. The evidence flickers before the jurors, each of whom wears headphones. Weinberg's face never appears on the screens, but his thick Brooklyn accent is heard frequently.

Prosecutor Thomas Puccio started off with a 30-min. video tape of a meeting in August 1979 between Myers and Errichetti and an undercover agent who called himself "Tony Devito" at a motel near New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On the tape, Myers boasted grandly of being able to fix the sheik's immigration problems, then gave some pungent advice: "I'm gonna tell you something real simple and short. Money talks in this business, and bullshit walks." As the agent handed over an envelope bulging with $50,000 in $100 bills, he told Myers, "Spend it well." Replied Myers: "It's a pleasure."

Myers met again with the undercover agents in a Philadelphia hotel room last January and pressed for more payoffs. He grumbled about having to split the $50,000 with his friends, but soon turned philosophical. Said Myers: "Who am I going to complain to? My Congressman?" He promised to help the "Arabs" build a $34 million hotel and coal-shipping operation in Philadelphia by running interference with the city's Mafia bosses, but warned the "Arabs" that they must stick to their word. Said Myers: "I can't go back [to the Mafia] and say, 'Look, I made the deal but here's half the action.' I'd be in the river the same night."

According to testimony at the trial, Errichetti, Johanson and Criden tried unsuccessfully to squeeze even more money from the pseudo Arabs. The trio arranged for a Philadelphia lawyer, Ellis Cook, to impersonate Mario Noto, then deputy commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and demand a bribe for himself. But Cook's memory apparently failed him at the critical moment. Weinberg asked his name. "Nopo," replied Cook. "Nopo?" asked Weinberg in disbelief. "Yeah, Nopo," said Cook. "N-o-p-o. "Suspecting an impostor, Weinberg ordered Cook to leave. As the tape was shown, laughter rippled through the courtroom; even Judge George Pratt cracked a smile.

In an attempt to demonstrate that their clients were only following Weinberg's "script," the defense lawyers played a tape recording of Weinberg supposedly coaching Democratic Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey in June 1979 for a meeting with an undercover agent. Williams, who has not been indicted, has acknowledged that he met with Weinberg and the pseudo Arab, but has denied doing anything illegal. On the tape, Weinberg urged, "You gotta tell him how important you are. You tell him in no uncertain terms: 'Without me there is no deal.' "

Though the tape seemed to show that Weinberg leaned heavily on Williams, the defense lawyers are finding it hard to show that the same possibly improper pressure was applied to their clients. In cross-examining Weinberg, however, they did succeed in shaking his credibility as a witness by demonstrating that he is a con man with unsurpassed chutzpah. Asked if he swindled an uncle out of $50,000, Weinberg quickly denied it. He then added: "It was a cousin." He admitted he received $3,000 a month from the FBI for his services, plus perquisites like limousines and champagne. He said he had received a $100,000 advance from a publisher for a book about ABSCAM. Weinberg was asked if he had once said in an interview that he was "the world's biggest liar." "Yes," he readily admitted, but at the time he had been, well, lying.

The defense also argues that the FBI violated the defendants' right of due process by manufacturing a crime and then publicizing it with a flood of leaks. Judge Pratt will rule on this argument just before the case goes to the jury. No matter what the verdict, ABSCAM trials of four more Democratic Congressmen will begin in September. In October, Republican Congressman Richard Kelly of Florida will go on trial in Washington. His chief witness will be a psychic who plans to testify that she told Kelly to beware of FBI agents and that is why he decided to conduct his own investigation. Part of that inquiry, Kelly claims, involved stuffing $25,000 in cash from an ABSCAM "Arab" into his pocket, as captured by the FBI cameras. --By James Kelly. Reported by Evan Thomas/New York

* ABSCAM it turns out, is not short for "Arab scam," as widely reported. At the request of the American-Arab Relations Committee, Judge George C. Pratt, presiding at the trial, announced that the acronym actually stands for "Abdul scam," after Abdul Enterprises Ltd., the bogus import-export firm that the agents used as their front.

With reporting by Evan Thomas

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