DiCicco Too Sexy For This Federal Indictment

All the names of people not being charged on federal indictments — like, say, oh I don’t know, the Vince Fumo one — are redacted due to policy. However, there are explanations of the businesses, positions, what have you, of the unidentified people. But if a politician is indicted, reporters usually figure out who the important unidentified people are. (Yesterday, for example, the Inquirer named Fumo’s girlfriends.)

The Daily News discusses two of the now-identified politicos named in the indictment today. Your lucky couple? City Councilman Frank DiCicco and state Turnpike Commission Chairman Mitchell Rubin, come on down!

Rubin won’t comment, but DiCicco will. The indictment alleges Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods — Fumo’s nonprofit — employees spent two weeks installing hardwood floors at a rehab DiCicco and his son bought. It also alleges that, when it snows, Citizens Alliance would remove snow from that DiCicco house and other places before clearing its own property. (Meanwhile, the indictment says Rubin and Fumo went to Cuba.)

Talking to the DN’s Bob Warner, DiCicco says he thought employees were working on their own time, not on Citizens Alliance’s. And he denies getting any favors:

“I’m not saying, if we needed help carrying an appliance up the stairs at 2 in the afternoon, and one of those Citizens Alliance guys was around, we wouldn’t say, ‘Give us a hand,’ ” DiCicco said. “They were around all the time; their place is just a block away.”

Oh, did I say deny? I meant admit. And what better use for a nonprofit meant to improve the neighborhood than by carrying a City Councilman’s washer up the stairs?

DiCicco, of course, isn’t charged with anything. (And it wasn’t his nonprofit. What’s he going to do, turn down good help?) He says he was only mentioned in the indictment, for… well:

“I think if I did anything wrong, I’d be a target like the others,” he said, speculating that federal prosecutors had mentioned him in their indictment “to make it look more sexy.”

Yeah, adding a City Councilman to these federal indictments really sexes it up. Everyone is abuzz over Frank DiCicco being mentioned in a federal indictment. Yeah, everyone’s paying attention to it now just because of Right Said Frank!

2 friends tainted, but not charged [Daily News]