Ex-Pa. lawmaker leaves prison amid trust fight
PHILADELPHIA — A once-powerful Pennsylvania lawmaker, Vincent Fumo is set to leave prison next month, but his legal woes still mount as his children accuse him of raiding a family trust fund.
Fumo, 70, netted more than $13 million from a family bank and made millions more as a lawyer and state senator. He’s finishing a five-year prison term for using the state senate and two charities as private piggy banks, to the tune of $4.2 million.
Fumo’s assets have dwindled since the days of his four homes, including a 33-room Philadelphia mansion with a basement shooting range, beach homes in New Jersey and Florida and a sprawling farm near the state Capitol in Harrisburg.
His expenses in recent years have included $4 million for defense lawyers, $4 million restitution and $3 million in back taxes and fines. That explains why Fumo, now in federal prison in Kentucky, sought a loan from a trust he created for two of his children.
Vincent E. Fumo, 44, and Allison Fumo, 23, agreed to loan their father $1.4 million from the $2.5 million trust. But in an October legal filing, Allison accused her father of switching the short-term loan to a low-interest note due in 2040, and she said he named his fiancee’s brother-in-law, a turnpike maintenance worker, to be her trustee.
“I don’t trust my father, unfortunately,” Allison Fumo testified this week in Philadelphia Orphan’s Court.
