"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
- Abraham Lincoln
Watching him slink into federal court on Tuesday, it was hard to imagine anyone being afraid of Fred Rosetti.
He's not a big man. He is short, slight and balding. The 64-year-old looks like a cranky librarian in search of someone to hush. Even the pinstripes on his black suit seemed faint as he took his seat before U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani.
Not all bullies are physically imposing, but every one of them is a fraud.
Fred Rosetti, Ed.D., was a quintessential bully. For 12 years, he ruled the Northeastern Educational Intermediate Unit like a divine-right despot, ripping off taxpayers and threatening the livelihoods of anyone who questioned the red-carpet life he lived at the expense of the students he was lavishly paid to serve.
Fred Rosetti's charmed life of parties, travel and other perks ended in Courtroom 4 of the federal courthouse in Scranton. The carpet there is red, too. Judge Mariani sentenced him to 33 months in prison and ordered him to pay $137,000 in restitution and $30,000 in fines. The wood paneling behind the judge was crowned with a mural of laborers bringing in the harvest. We reap what we sow.
The bulk of the hearing was eaten up by obstruction of justice charges that contributed to Judge Mariani's decision to reject a plea agreement that would have jailed Dr. Rosetti for 12 to 18 months. Rather than risk a trial that could send him to prison for 10 years if (when) he was found guilty, Dr. Rosetti opted to let Judge Mariani decide his fate.
This is the same judge who put Dr. Rosetti under house arrest after he violated a court order by contacting witnesses.
In one instance that could have been a scene in a B-grade mob film, he asked a witness to meet him in the parking lot of Rossi's market in Old Forge. After climbing into the car, he asked, "Are you wearing a wire?" The witness responded, "Are you insane?"
Nope. Just guilty. When his web of lies began to unravel, Fred Rosetti did what all frauds do: He desperately tried to tie up the loose ends.
William DeStefano - one of two Philadelphia lawyers hired to defend Fred Rosetti from objective reality - argued that his client may have been imprudent when he tried to manipulate the memories and testimony of witnesses, but he wasn't really trying to manipulate the memories and testimony of witnesses. Honest.
Clearly growing weary of Mr. DeStefano's clumsy two-step, Judge Mariani asked, "What credible argument can you advance to convince me that Mr. Rosetti did not initiate these contacts for an unlawful purpose?"
He may as well have asked the solicitor to pull a singing bullfrog from his briefcase and take requests for show tunes. There is no credible argument that Dr. Rosetti didn't attempt to obstruct justice, just as there is no innocent reason to ask a guy to meet you in the parking lot of a supermarket and break the ice by asking if he's wearing a wire.
Such things simply don't come up in normal conversation.
The NEIU is paying its own price for Dr. Rosetti's crimes. He didn't commit them in a vacuum. People there knew he was ripping off taxpayers and children, but they feared his wrath more than they felt a duty to stand up. He threatened the livelihoods of anyone who dared question him, and he had a powerful cousin - former Senate Democratic Leader Bob Mellow, who is now serving a 16-month sentence for public corruption - he could wield as a hammer over the heads of his enemies.
It wasn't until he was walking out the door that anyone dared challenge Fred Rosetti. Louise Brzuchalski, an NEIU board member, questioned his obscenely lavish retirement payout of $623,000, mostly for unused sick and vacation days. It was a key moment in the eventual fall of Dr. Rosetti, but by then, epic damage had already been done.
In a statement to the judge, Clarence LaManna, Ed.D., the current exective director of the NEIU, quoted Lincoln in noting the stain left by Fred Rosetti, which he said his staff is dedicated to wiping away.
"The defendant, Fred Rosetti, is our shadow of the past," he said.
Maybe, but that shadow could have been shortened if someone on the inside had opened a window and let in the sunlight, rather than wait for outsiders to pry off the shutters.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, never met a bully who could beat the truth. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter