by Mike Stanton
In late February Cianci stood on the courthouse steps after a pretrial hearing and cut off reporters’ questions, announcing that he had to go to the Purim parade, a Jewish festival on the East Side. He turned to Journal columnist Charlie Bakst, who is Jewish, and said: “Why don’t you follow me? Come on, Bakst, it’s your kind of day.” The veteran political columnist had followed Cianci’s career from way back, and been one of his most persistent critics. “Buddy Cianci is bright, energetic and funny,” Bakst wrote after Cianci announced his 1990 comeback. “So why is the prospect of his return as mayor—even his running for mayor—so troubling? Perhaps it is because elections should be appeals to the conscience and ideals of the community, to the best within us, not to the dark side of society that makes celebrities of criminals and embraces as heroes those who abuse the public’s trust.”
Though Cianci would privately, and sometimes publicly, curse Bakst—using him as a foil in his populist-tinged attacks on The Providence Journal—he also believed in the dictum that you kept your friends close and your enemies closer. The irascible mayor and the curmudgeonly columnist were like an old married couple, often kibbitzing at various events. Every Rosh Hashanah, Bakst gave the mayor a challah, which he looked forward to receiving. Cianci told Bakst that he wanted to find someone willing to open a kosher restaurant in Providence.
Bakst was sitting in the Journal’s newsroom, after the court hearing, when his phone rang. It was Cianci, offering him a ride to the Purim festivities. The mayor’s police-chauffeured limousine already was outside the Journal building on Fountain Street, which Cianci had often threatened to rename Cianci Way. Bakst got in. Joining the mayor in the backseat, Bakst was surprised to see him studying briefing papers on Purim. The holiday celebrates the Old Testament story of how the Jewish queen of Persia, Esther, saved the Jews from being massacred by the evil prime minister, Haman, who was hanged instead. Cianci and Bakst discussed the finer points of Purim; for instance, the three-cornered pastries, hamantaschen, which represented Haman’s three-cornered hat. Bakst asked Cianci what he knew about Purim. “I know that every year I go,” the mayor replied. “I know that you remind me of Haman.” As Cianci rustled his briefing papers, Bakst said, “You don’t have to tell them the story. They’ll know the story.” “Yeah,” replied Cianci, “but they have to know I know it!”
The parade had already stepped off when the mayor’s limousine arrived at the Jewish Community Center, across from Brown Stadium. Cianci bounded out of the car and joined in the merry scene—clowns, noisemakers, klezmer music, people dancing in the street, someone in a duck suit, another person in a rabbit costume, a group of young boys in yarmulkes. The mayor shook hands with a rabbi outside the Providence Hebrew Day School. People smiled and posed for pictures with Cianci, hugging and kissing him. An old man taking pictures rushed up to greet him; Cianci had appointed his son “Mayor of Taft Avenue” many years ago. “You’re still that!” Cianci declared, beaming. “No one can ever take that away from you!”
After the parade Cianci addressed the crowd. He spoke eloquently about how the Jewish people, through the years, had shown “tremendous bravery, determination, and strength in the face, by the way, of great adversity.” In farewell, he shouted, “Shalom.” To loud cheers, the mayor climbed back into his limousine, Bakst in tow. As they returned downtown, the mayor elated from the warm reception, Bakst steered the conversation back to Plunder Dome. He asked if Cianci felt ashamed for being in court that morning. The mood was shattered. “Charlie, happy Purim,” the mayor said abruptly, ending the conversation.
As his trial approached, Cianci was waging two campaigns—one aimed at the jury pool, another for his reelection in November. He spoke confidently of being acquitted, then going on to win a record seventh term. After that, he would leave City Hall on his own terms, to travel, write his memoirs, host a radio talk show, and oversee the Vincent A. Cianci Jr. Library & Archives. Even with the baggage of a criminal trial in an election year, Cianci would be hard to beat in November. A host of civic leaders and would-be mayoral candidates who felt privately that it was time for a change dared not say so publicly, fearing retribution. Instead, they waited to see what would happen. Many doubted that the prosecution could convince a jury in Providence to convict the irrepressible Cianci.
Only one man dared enter the ring against Cianci. In February David Cicilline, a wealthy criminal-defense lawyer and liberal state representa-tive from the East Side who drove a Rolls-Royce, announced his candidacy for mayor. Promising “no more business as usual,” Cicilline pledged not to accept campaign contributions from city workers and to address the ills behind the Renaissance—corruption, unsafe neighborhoods, poor schools. Cicilline was an intriguing candidate. A short, cherubic man in his early forties, he had many of the demographic bases of the old and new Providences covered—he was half Jewish, half Italian, conversant in Spanish, openly gay, and the son of a prominent mob lawyer, Jack Cicilline, who had been Mayor Joe Doorley’s chief policy adviser in the 1960s. As a college student at Brown University, the younger Cicilline had cofounded the College Democrats with two classmates—John F. Kennedy, Jr., and William Mondale, son of the former vice president. Cicilline also was friendly with Plunder Dome prosecutor Richard Rose; the two men cotaught a class, “Advanced Criminal Procedure,” at Roger Williams University Law School.
Cicilline vowed to run a grassroots campaign and not to be intimidated by Cianci. With Cicilline expected to make a strong showing on the East Side and Cianci likely to do well in the Italian wards, both men saw that the campaign could hinge on the growing Hispanic vote. Cicilline spent a lot of time walking the city’s Hispanic neighborhoods and put his campaign headquarters in South Providence. Cianci, using the power of his office, appointed Hispanics to city posts, including a liaison to the Latino community, and steered city funds to Hispanic community groups. Cianci, who had learned since his narrow upset of Joe Doorley never to take an election for granted, was clearly bothered by Cicilline’s criticisms. A few weeks before his trial began, Cianci and Cicilline met at a ribbon cutting for new, lead-free housing in a blighted South Providence neighborhood. Cianci threw his arm playfully around Cicilline’s shoulders and told his photographer to take their picture. A few days later, sitting in his office, Cianci pulled out the photo of himself and Cicilline and showed it to a reporter. “That was a good event,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Cicilline says I’m not doing enough in the neighborhoods.”
Privately, Cianci predicted that Cicilline wouldn’t even win the gay vote. Gays didn’t respect him, Cianci contended, because he had been slow to come out. Actually, Cicilline was well regarded in the gay community, which took pride in having an openly gay candidate for mayor; if he won, Providence would surpass Tempe, Arizona, as the largest city in the United States with a gay mayor. But Cianci had also done a lot to support the gay community. Since the mid-1990s, he had employed a gay liaison, supported health insurance for city workers with same-sex partners, and been visible in Providence’s vibrant gay community—marching in the Pride Parade, flying the pink flag atop City Hall, and showing up at other events. The mayor, who had been accused of making homophobic remarks about past opponents and even Carol Channing’s stage manager, also recognized the value of gays to the city’s Renaissance image as a trendy arts community. And the sizeable gay community, estimated at 10 percent of the electorate, voted. Girlfriends magazine rated Providence as a gay-friendly city. A few weeks before his trial, Cianci appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, a national conservative talk show on Fox Television, and defended his decision to order reluctant firefighters to send a truck to the Pride Parade; some firefighters had balked, fearing that people would think that they were gay, and had hired the ACLU to sue the city. Afterward Cianci received hate mail for his defense of gays—“from a ring of trailer parks around the country,” he joked.
Beyond his political motivation for embracing the gay community, Cianci also seemed to enjoy the support that he found
there, especially as the shadow of Operation Plunder Dome grew. A few weeks after his indictment, on the night of his sixtieth birthday, Cianci stopped by a gay nightclub, Pulse, near Rhode Island Hospital. It was late, and nearly naked men danced around poles. Patrons stuffed dollar bills in their waistbands. Lady Chablis, the female impersonator from Savannah, Georgia, who was made famous by the best-selling book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was the featured performer. The mayor, who arrived alone except for one of his advance men, invited Rudy Cheeks, a columnist from the alternative weekly Providence Phoenix, and his wife, Susan, to join him at his table up front. Cheeks, who had known the mayor for years, thought that he seemed more subdued than usual. He sat there, smoking and drinking, trading quips with Lady Chablis, and basking in the adulation of patrons who shook his hand and offered their unqualified support.
Cianci, Cicilline later joked, “spent more time in gay bars than me.”
Another night shortly after his indictment, after the Gay Ball at the Biltmore, the party spilled over into the mayor’s Presidential Suite. Twice after midnight Cianci summoned an aide to bring cases of champagne for him and his guests, including a group of transvestites in dresses. That summer the mayor showed up at a gay nightclub downtown owned by his City Hall gay liaison, for the Ocean State Leather contest.
The emcee, Village Voice sex columnist Tristan Taormino, was impressed by the solidarity of Rhode Island’s community. “How many leatherpeople can there be in the smallest state in the country?” she later wrote. “The answer is plenty, and what they lack in numbers, they more than make up for in passion.”
Shortly after the leather sashes were draped on the winners, Cianci showed up to make a speech. The mayor was surrounded by whip-toting dominatrixes and a sea of leather jockstraps, chaps, and bizarre props (a Dunkin’ Donuts box, a Star Wars light saber). When he finished speaking, Cianci giddily asked one of the drag queens to do a special number for him, and she obliged.
Rudy Giuliani would never show up at such an event in a million years, let alone be as gracious as Mayor Cianci, marveled Taormino. “Racketeering, schmacketeering, his recent indictment has yet to overshadow his gay-positive attitude,” she wrote. “The mayor used the word ‘transgendered’ so many times that I wanted to marry him.”
In the weeks leading up to his trial, in the spring of 2002, Cianci was invited to a drag queen’s dream—Liza Minnelli’s star-studded wedding in New York. Cianci had met Minnelli’s fiancé through Anthony Quinn.
As the mayor emerged from the Waldorf, amid the throng of celebrities, he suddenly heard people chanting, “Bud-dee, Bud-dee!” Cianci looked over to see a group of drag queens from the weekly Sunday brunch at Intermezzo in Providence. They had driven down to New York to stand outside the Waldorf for a glimpse of Liza.
Despite the frenetic pace, there was also a pathetic, almost tragic quality to Cianci’s rambles. He was like Frank Sinatra in his later years, still capable of brilliance but unable to hit the high notes consistently. There were also signs that the mayor was using cocaine, according to a former aide who spent a lot of time with him during that period.
A few days after Cianci’s indictment, the aide said, he was in the Presidential Suite at the Biltmore, packing the mayor’s cologne and other toiletries for his trip to the U.S. mayors’ conference in Washington, when he noticed a white plastic bag containing three narrow clear-plastic bags with white powder. The bag was at the bottom of the mayor’s black carry-on travel bag. The aide, who said that he was familiar with cocaine from college, said that he tasted the powder, and it was cocaine.
The aide said that he held up one of the plastic bags to show another Cianci aide and asked, “Hey, what’s this?” The other aide smiled and replied, “Oh, that’s the mayor’s special foot powder.” (The second aide confirmed the incident, but said that he didn’t know what was actually in the bag, and that he had never seen Cianci use cocaine.)
The first aide recalled other occasions when he would brush white powder off the lapels of the mayor’s suit as he stepped out of the Presidential Suite. A month or so after Cianci’s indictment, the aide said, he was at the Black Heritage Ball at the Westin Hotel. Upstairs, near the piano bar, the mayor went into a small men’s room that was empty and ordered the aide to guard the door. When the aide stood outside, Cianci told him to stand inside the door. The aide complied. As he stood there, he said, Cianci went into the stall and the aide listened to him snorting. The mayor was quick and nobody tried to come in, the aide said.
Other former aides said that they had never seen Cianci use drugs. They dismissed the rumors as false, emanating from the mayor’s energetic lifestyle and late nights on the town.
At times Cianci’s drinking become more evident.
Cianci had always been a heavy drinker, but for the most part he wasn’t sloppy. He had an amazing tolerance for alcohol. During morning press conferences he would have brandy in his coffee, at lunchtime a few glasses of wine. He often sipped what appeared to be ice water from a clear glass with his name inscribed in gold letters; it was actually chilled vodka or tequila. When he showed up at the Civic Center, an official was ready with his “apple juice”—a glass of Jack Daniel’s.
As his trial loomed, Cianci could often be found sitting morosely at the bar in Davio’s or Mediterraneo. Laurel Casey saw him a few times in Davio’s in January 2002, and he was drinking quite a bit of bourbon. He was sullen and insular, not gregarious. When she asked him about the trial, he was stoic, saying, “I’ll be fine.”
A few weeks before his trial, the mayor’s timing was off when he ventured into an Aretha Franklin concert at the Providence Performing Arts Center.
Cianci had attended quite a few events that night, from a banquet in West Warwick to something in nearby Seekonk, Massachusetts. At each stop, according to an advance person who accompanied him, the mayor had at least two Scotches. By the time he reached PPAC, the aide estimated, it was up to at least eight to ten. At the theater, as Cianci waited in the wings to give Franklin a key to the city, he had another.
Franklin was wrapping up “Freeway of Love,” toward the end of her set, when Cianci stumbled onstage. “Aretha,” he called out. “I’m the mayor of Providence, and even I couldn’t get a ticket.”
Franklin seemed taken aback. She stopped singing and leaned against the piano, her other hand on her hip. There was an awkward, frozen silence in the crowd as the mayor presented her with the key to the city and a jar of his marinara sauce. Then Cianci told the renowned Queen of Soul that it was great to have “the Soul of Queen” in Providence for such a terrific concert.
Afterward, Cianci asked an aide how he had done. The aide didn’t want to tell him the truth, so he fudged. But the mayor knew.
“Well, she was an uptight bitch,” he snapped. “Her show’s over. She’s seen better days.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Pomp and Circumstantial Evidence
One week before his sixty-first birthday, on April 23, 2002, the reputed godfather of Providence City Hall awoke in the Presidential Suite at the Biltmore. Judgment day had arrived for Buddy Cianci.
The trappings of one of the mayor’s Renaissance pageants were already evident outside his fifteenth-floor windows, from the photographers staking out their positions in front of the gray courthouse to the crowd of spectators lining up for a seat in the courtroom for the opening arguments to the buses emblazoned with ads from a local television station that screamed, OPERATION PLUNDER DOME: CIANCI ON TRIAL.
On the mayor’s bathroom counter, on Styrofoam heads, were the hairpieces that he rotated, depending on the occasion. On this morning, Cianci selected a silvery gray toupee that he had begun wearing in recent months, one that gave him a more distinguished, statesmanlike bearing. There was a backup toupee with longer hair, for when his remaining real hair grew out on the sides and in the back; an older, darker toupee; and a swirly, salt-and-pepper one, which he wore to blizzards, fires, and crime scenes, known as “the t
ousled piece.” The mayor’s hair began life halfway around the globe, on the heads of peasant women in China, where corrupt public officials were executed by hanging. The women wrapped their hair in turbans, to protect it from the oxidizing effect of air and sunshine, then sold it to companies that stripped out the color and recolored it. Low-paid wig makers then wove the strands by hand, mixing in synthetic fibers for white hair, to create luxuriously thatched hairpieces that sold for a few thousand dollars. Cianci sent his toupees by limousine to Squire’s Hair Salon, near Brown University, where the stylists referred to them as BIB—“Buddy in a box.” If Cianci were convicted and sent to prison, he would be stripped of his toupees. Although Cianci’s rugs were famous in Rhode Island—“hair helper,” he called them—in prison they would be considered a disguise.
After the toupee, which was applied with double-sided adhesive tape, came a layer of bronze makeup, to darken Cianci’s ghostly complexion for the television cameras. Downstairs, in a mobile radio studio in a converted camper parked near the courthouse, WHJJ talk-show host John DePetro previewed the trial for Don Imus. DePetro referred to the case as “Operation Thugs and Bad Rugs.” With his makeup-induced tan, Cianci “looks like he should be playing mixed doubles in Boca,” DePetro quipped. Outside the courthouse, the mayor’s court jester, Walter Miller, performed card tricks in a red, white, and blue stovepipe hat that glittered with sequins. “Pannone’s a phony, he’s throwing the baloney,” chanted Miller, riffling his cards. “Four of hearts, Buddy’s innocent.” He turned over a four of clubs. “Well, it’s a four.”