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Abseam prosecutor accus RALPH SODA nett News Service ASHINGTON — A highly regarded, nationally cir- culated legal magazine has accused former chief Abscam prosecutor Thomas Puccio of revealing secret grand jury proceedings related to the FBI operation. The charge is contained in-an article in the current issue of The American Lawyer, a prestigious monthly magazine for the legal fraternit with a circulation of, more than 25,000 subscribers, most of them lawyers and judges. . The article, written by Steven Brill, editor and pub- lisher of the magazine, accuses Puccio of prosecutorial abuses_in 1_with other federal undercover Onneys * “Stings as well. He notes specifically the cocaine arrest of ‘automotive entrepreneur John DeLorean and the charges of theft of electronic trade secretsdy employees Japan's Hitachi Ltd. The celebrated Abscam investigation into political : corruption produced the conviction on bribery and con- : Spiracy charges of 19 persons, including seven members .. .-of Congress. ‘ : While he was interviewing Puccio in connection with ” Abscam, Brill charges, the former prosecutor confided to him details of the secret grand jury proceedings that "It's not a major transgression, but arguably, in the ¢'= in the bulk of the Abscam indictments. hands of an able, eager prosecutor, enough tobe a viqla- tion of rule 6E of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procee- dure — which constitutes criminal contempt of court,” Brill writes. : “Thomas Puccio has successfully been stung, though only in print.” so . In explanation, Brill told Gannett News Service (GNS) that, if he had approached Puccio as an adversary. instead of as an agreeable luncheon companion with mutual professional interests, he might not have gotten Puccio to be so indiscreet as to reveal the grand jury proceedings. That Puccio was luiled into revealing them by Brill's friendly approach shows clearly how e iy someone can be tric sting operations, Brill suggests in his article. |. Puccio told GNS he had only “skimmed the article”. and would reserve comment until be inquired further into the matter. He said the suggestion that be may have divulged secret grand jury testimony in violation of the law was “ridiculous.” . . wo But Brill stuck by his story. a __ “The story is true,” he told GNS. “He discussed grand jery proceedings.” : cts into doing somethin, wi d not orsdi- : narily do, Brill said. Te 4 kod just such trickery might have been used by the government in developing its case in Abscam asd other te is basins . At aia mer Sta. Hafrison A. Williams Jr., D-NJ., a convicted Abscafi defendant, had been called to testify before the grandjwry that indicted him on bribery and conspiracy \ “Puggio told me he (Williams) did not testify,” Brill “1 alk asked him how the members of the grand jury react to the showing of the video tapes (of public offi- cials aecepting bribes from FBI undercover agents) and Pucciftold me, ‘Oh, they loved them.” “-Thiags like that are secret,” said Brill, “and shouldn't said hemade a point of reporting Puccio’s discus- sion of-oonfidential grand jury proceedings because it demositrates how the enthusiasm of some prosecutors on their part that might compromise the integ- ment of Justice and “might be unsettling to those who Bele e that prosecutors should care as much about justicfand the integrity of the system as they do about gi) cells.” : ect disclosures concerning the conduct of the of abusing office mple, Brill wrote that be asked Puccio if for- tors as for the defendants.” . — is now strong evidence,” Brill says, “that the | diine-grabbing investigations could blind them to. COURIER-POST, Friday, January 14, 1983 SA CAPITAL NEWS . 7, vincing proof tAbseam was.as much a scandal for the: tors in charge of Abscam — Philip Heymann (former chief of the criminal! division at Justice), Irvin Nathan (assistant U.S. attorney general in the criminal division) and Thomas Puccio — ruined the life of at least. one innocent defendant (former New Jersey CasinoCon- tro’ mission vice chairman Kenneth MacDonald), - unfairly convicted several other utterly urisympathetic but not appropriately prosecutable public off icials (such as Sen. Williams), and then stained the reputations of those professional prosecutors who had the guts to say. in interna! memos of dissent, that the simple integrity of the system was more important than a sexy indictment’ or conviction.” . ‘ _ Brill told GNS that, since publication of his article, he: has received “numerous letters" {rom readers critical of the conduct of the FBI and federal prosecutors in the Abscam, DeLorean and Hitachi sting operations. He said he has received one call complaining about his article from Puccio, and_a “friendly” letter from FBI | Director Willi i before he. wrote his article. . inion in one of th scam cases finding tha ho entrapment. Brill said he had read the opinion cited by Webster. .