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October 25, 2006

Update: Plunder Dome witness shows up in Senate race

PROVIDENCE -- U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee continued criticizing his Democratic opponent Sheldon Whitehouse today, charging the former attorney general with incompetence and a "continuing pattern of putting his ambition over duty."

The press conference late this morning was the second called by the Chafee campaign to attack his opponent in the last seven days. Two separate polls released yesterday showed Chafee trailing his opponent by at least 5 percentage points, with the election less than two weeks away.

At last week's event -- held on the federal courthouse steps -- Chafee claimed that Whitehouse failed to pursue criminal charges in the Roger Williams Medical Center corruption case.

Today's press conference was held outside the Providence office of JKL Engineering, owned by Antonio Freitas, undercover informant and star witness in the FBI's Plunder Dome case that targeted City Hall corruption.

Journal photo / Kathy Borchers
Chafee, at a press conference outside JKL Engineering, owned by Plunder Dome star witness Antonio Freitas, displays a 2002 Providence Journal photo of Whitehouse and former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. at the dedication of an assisted-living facility.

Chafee said that Whitehouse has improperly taken credit for the Plunder Dome prosecutions that really came under the watch of Whitehouse's successor, U.S. Attorney Margaret Curran.

Chafee's campaign displayed a 2002 Journal photo showing a smiling Whitehouse next to former Providence Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci Jr., who is now serving time in prison for corruption. In the picture, Whitehouse points to an old Cianci campaign button similar to his own.

Later, Freitas told reporters that he distrusted Whitehouse, and only agreed to work undercover for the FBI in 1998 if his identity was kept a secret from Whitehouse to avoid leaks to Cianci.

But Freitas’s news conference veered off into his domestic-abuse convictions in 2000-01, including unsubstantiated allegations that his subsequent imprisonment was the result of a political deal between Whitehouse and Cianci.

Journal photo / Kathy Borchers
Sheldon Whitehouse holds a press conference outside the Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Warwick after the Chafee press conference.

After the Democratic party operative filming the Chafee news conference told the Whitehouse camp what was said, Whitehouse held his own hastily called news conference outside the Warwick offices of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“For Senator Chafee to minimize this man’s criminal record, this man’s record of violence against women, is truly atrocious," Whitehouse said. "It is a measure of how desperate Senator Chafee has become and how low he and his campaign will stoop to execute the Republican smear strategy that we are seeing across the country.’’

-- projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples with reports from Journal staff writers Katherine Gregg and Mike Stanton

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 6:51 PM | Permalink

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