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Newspaper denied FBI affidavit

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A federal judge has barred the Providence Journal Co. from access to a 64-page affidavit the FBI used to obtain a federal court order to bug criminal lawyer John F. Cicilline's office in 1980.

U.S. District Chief Judge Francis Boyle said Thursday it would be wrong to release the document to the newspaper because numerous persons implicated in wrongdoing have not been indicted.

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He said there is no indication the government can prove the allegations against the other people named in the affidavit. He said printing those allegations might subject the people to unwarranted embarrassment.

The affidavit is a sworn statement by FBI agents that includes allegations of wrongdoing by targets of a federal organized crime probe.

The targets of the probe included alleged organized crime figures including reputed New England mob leader Raymond L.S. Patriarca and Cicilline himself, according to documents already released.

A federal court judge in New Hampshire who read the affidavit as part of a civil rights case filed against the FBI by the bugging targets called the affidavit 'a detailed, prolix, 64-page document reciting a litany of alleged malfeasance which is mind-boggling to the neophyte not conversant with organized crime.'

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Cicilline's law offices in Providence were bugged in July and August of 1980 with an order issued by U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Pettine. The only criminal case that has resulted from that bugging is a bank fraud case brought last year against Frank L. Marrapese of Cranston and three other people.

Cicilline and his law associates, in order to prepare a defense, requested the tapes made from the bugging and any documents related to the bugging before the case went to trial.

The Providence Journal Co. filed a motion requesting the affidavit but not the tapes.

Boyle released the affdavit and later the tapes to the defense but reserved decision on the newspaper's request.

Lawyers for the Journal argued that the affidavit should be made public because of the newspaper's First Amendment interests in covering a newsworthy court proceeding and to disclose any alleged wrongdoings.

The U.S. attorney's office, which had to request the court to unseal the records, did not object to the newspaper's request to obtain the affidavit, but Cicilline and other defense lawyers did.

They argued that privacE rights of the people named in the affidavit would be violated if the newspaper printed the allegations.

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