How Fumo aide went from in-law to outcast

In the beginning, Christian Marrone adored Vince Fumo as much as he did his old football coach, Joe Paterno. He would jump at Fumo's commands all week and pal around with him on weekends. Marrone even married Fumo's daughter.

By the end, he was secretly stashing evidence against his father-in-law.

Now Marrone has taken the stand, for four days so far, as a key prosecution witness in Fumo's federal corruption trial. He's portraying the Democratic power broker as a lawbreaker who led him and other aides to blow past all manner of legal and ethical limits.

"That was the culture of the office," Marrone, 33, told jurors. "You did what Vince told you to do. There were no boundaries."

In just a few short years, Marrone went from a Fumo acolyte to enemy. Last week, he called Fumo "an evil individual."

Once he wrote Fumo to thank him for "introducing me to your daughter." Now he and the daughter, Nicole, 36, no longer speak with the 65-year-old state senator.

His testimony is the climax of an ugly intrafamily feud that is by turns heartbreaking and petty. At one point, Marrone acknowledged, he even tried to sabotage a surprise party for his father-in-law.

On the stand, Marrone portrayed himself as a kind of South Philly Candide, a naif disillusioned by the cynical Fumo, or "the senator," as he unfailingly called him.

By Marrone's account, his feelings for Fumo began to sour when the relations between Nicole and her father grew more bitter. At the same time, he began having doubts about Fumo's handling of his office and his political tactics.

But the defense has a different portrait: Marrone, Fumo's lawyers say, is an ambitious toady who ingratiated himself with the boss, dated the boss' daughter, and is repaying his generosity with venom.

It was all so different in 1997 when Marrone, a recent graduate of the Pennsylvania State University who had played football there, first trod down the steps to "the Bunker," as Fumo's basement legislative office in South Philadelphia is widely known.

Marrone's father had been a committeeman in the city, and about the time that Marrone went to work for Fumo, the senator arranged for Marrone's father to go to work for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

With a political-science degree, Marrone became Fumo's "special assistant." He said he had wanted to focus on "public service."

Instead, he told jurors, Fumo had him spend most of his taxpayer-paid time overseeing the carpenters, electricians, tile workers, cabinetmakers, painters and other contractors engaged in the complicated renovations of the senator's 33-room mansion in Spring Garden.

Marrone said he had done this even though he "hated anything dealing with tools." At times, he said, he crossed paths with another legislative staffer at the house - the one detailed to clean it.

He and other aides also engaged in partisan politics on state time, Marrone said.

Fumo's use of the employees in these ways was criminal, prosecutors say.

Marrone began dating Nicole in 1999 when both were getting law degrees at Temple University.

In pursuing this particular young woman, one of two children from Fumo's first marriage, Marrone was venturing onto dangerous turf. Nicole's parents divorced when she was 12, and her relationship with her father had been troubled for years.

As her clashes with Fumo deepened, Marrone was caught in the middle. "I often had to take the brunt of that," he testified.

About the same time, Marrone said, he began to have questions about Fumo the public official. One issue was his boss' use of Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a nonprofit organization funded with millions through Fumo's efforts.

In the fall of 2000, Marrone sent a detailed e-mail urging Fumo to hire a professional manager for the nonprofit.

According to an e-mail that Marrone kept and later gave to the FBI, Fumo rejected the entire idea.

In his message, the senator said: "CONFIDENTIALLY (only because I trust you), if we had such a person and tried to do some of the things that are political that we do, we would now have someone else 'in our tent' and we would be subject to his blackmail."

Fumo's indictment says he illegally used the nonprofit as a personal piggy bank and a way to fund his political machine.

On the stand, Marrone, a bear of a man, choked up when he recalled Fumo's reply.

"I felt betrayed," he said. "It hurt his credibility with me at that point. I didn't really trust him as much as I had before."

Even so, as the defense pointed out to jurors, Marrone kept working for Fumo for nearly two more years.

Fumo wrote letters commending him, such as one nominating his son-in-law for a Philadelphia Business Journal "40 Under 40" feature, about professionals younger than 40 who were on the rise.

After 51/2 years, Marrone quit the office in the summer of 2002. By then, his salary was $45,857. He and Fumo hugged as he left.

And just about the time that Marrone departed, Nicole's split with her dad widened. The flash point was her approaching wedding to Marrone.

According to a September article in Philadelphia Magazine, the fight escalated into all-out war after Fumo and his first wife and her husband fought over several people he wanted to invite to the wedding.

Fumo was incensed. According to the magazine, he sent them this e-mail:

"I have invited the people I chose to invite. Look, if you all want me involved, I come with my baggage or I don't come at all!!! I WILL NOT BE INSULTED LIKE THIS!!!"

Fumo wouldn't give up on the guest list. He later contacted Marrone's father, who held the turnpike patronage job, about the matter. He also put the screws directly to Marrone, who had just started working for then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, a Republican. Marrone said he had gotten a call demanding that he meet with Fumo about the wedding. Marrone refused, and Fumo held up his final paycheck.

With this blowup, Nicole ceased communication with her father. Since 2002, they have spoken only once - when Nicole gave birth to her first child. They did not speak to each other in court last week.

As the perhaps bemused jurors heard on Thursday, 2003 was the year of dueling parties.

On the one hand, Marrone was planning his serenade of Nicole, a South Philadelphia tradition in which the fiance sings to the bride-to-be.

Trouble was, Fumo's friends scheduled a surprise 60th birthday party for him for the same night. On the stand, Marrone said this had posed an untenable scheduling conflict for "my little sister-in-law," Fumo's daughter from his second marriage.

He sent an e-mail to his old mentor alerting him about the "surprise" birthday party.

"Before I forget," Marrone wrote, "happy birthday."

The marriage finally took place in March 2003. Fumo did not attend.

In 2004, Marrone landed his current job, working as a high-level lawyer in the Pentagon, and with his wife moved out of Philadelphia.

"My wife and I along with our family made the decision that the best way to move forward in life," he said, "was without Vince in our life."

Eventually, federal prosecutors reached out to him. Marrone said he had no choice but to talk to them - to return to his years in the Bunker with his old boss.

"I treated him as a mentor. I looked up to him, never thinking once he was doing something that would in any way, shape or form harm me," Marrone told jurors.

Yet in the end, Marrone said, he was a casualty, "the victim of Vince."