Phillippe Hababou-> Ex-Convict Describes Odd Role in Senate Race
By TIM GOLDEN and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKIIn June of 1995, Philippe V. Hababou was just out of jail in hisnative France, broke and depressed and glancing occasionally overhis shoulder for the mobsters with whom he'd gotten mixed up in ascheme to fence stolen checks.Then an old customer from Mr. Hababou's bankrupt jewelry business,Marc A. Rousso, asked whether he might not like to start a new lifein New York City.Within months, Mr. Hababou was being chauffeured to businessmeetings in Mr. Rousso's limousines and jetting to Atlantic Citywith his new boss to bet tens of thousands of dollars at thebaccarat tables. Months after that, he was also sitting on thefinance committee for Robert G. Torricelli's 1996 Senate campaign,getting his picture taken with President Bill Clinton and rushingfrom one fund-raising event to the next."I didn't realize how easy it was to buy or get close to anAmerican politician," Mr. Hababou said. "When money is involved,they don't check anything."Mr. Hababou, 45, told his story publicly for the first time in aseries of interviews in Paris, where he has lived quietly whileawaiting a new trial in the stolen-checks case. He was extraditedto France last September after pleading guilty in a Newark federalcourt to helping Mr. Rousso launder millions of dollars in profitsfrom fraudulent stock deals, as well as making illegal donations toMr. Torricelli's Senate campaign.With the Senate now locked in debate over how it might change thecampaign-financing system, there is nothing so striking about Mr.Hababou's tale as the ease with which he and Mr. Rousso insinuatedthemselves into the privileged circle of Mr. Torricelli'ssupporters even as they were wanted on criminal charges inFrance. One fund-raising dinner led to the next, Mr. Hababou said,and suddenly there were invitations from prominent Americans he'dnever even met.For Mr. Rousso, he said, the pictures of himself with the Americanpresident and a friendship with the future senator were not merevanities; they were excellent advertising with the Europeaninvestors to whom Mr. Rousso was trying to sell high-risk stocks inobscure American companies."In Europe, nobody can imagine that a president would take apicture with you just because you went to a fund-raiser," Mr.
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Hababou said. "If you have a picture like we had, that's because heis close to you."According to court transcripts and other documents that wereunsealed yesterday in Federal District Court in Newark, Mr. Hababouadmitted in his September plea to having conspired with officialsof Mr. Torricelli's campaign and others to make donations that wereillegal on several grounds: they exceeded the $2,000 limit ongiving to a candidate by an individual donor; they were made byforeigners; and at least $4,000 was channeled through people whodid not actually give the money.The documents indicate that chief among those unindictedco-conspirators was the senator's primary campaign fund-raisingaide, Adam C. Crain, who was notified by the Justice Department inJanuary that he might be indicted in the case. In his plea, Mr.Hababou stipulated that he tried to donate $10,000 in checkshimself, but that Mr. Crain told him that at least four of the$2,000 donations would have to come through other people. Thephrasing of the plea does not make it clear whether Mr. Crainexplicitly told Mr. Hababou to reimburse others for thesecontributions, but in an interview, Mr. Hababou said that Mr. Craindid not."He never said clearly, Do this' or Do that,' " Mr. Hababourecalled. "He said, We need five different checks from fivedifferent people.' But the implication was clear."A lawyer for Mr. Torricelli, Robert F. Bauer, asserted that thenew documents exonerated Mr. Crain. He described Mr. Hababou andMr. Rousso as unscrupulous con men who had fabricated stories aboutthe senator and his aides in return for leniency from prosecutors.Mr. Bauer and Mr. Torricelli have repeatedly criticized theinvestigation of the 1996 campaign as the work of overzealousprosecutors bent on finding anything that might incriminate thesenator.A spokesman for Mr. Torricelli said Mr. Hababou was just one ofthousands of people he had met during the campaign. "If he walkedinto a room today, he wouldn't recognize him," the spokesman, DaleW. Leibach, said of Mr. Torricelli. "There are a lot of people thatyou wine, dine, meet with in the course of a campaign."Mr. Hababou has far more vivid memories, which is perhaps notsurprising given his sudden arrival into the world of Americanpolitical campaigns. Mr. Hababou agreed to be interviewed againstthe advice of his American lawyer because of what he said wereunfair attacks on his credibility by Mr. Torricelli's aides andwhat he believed was his outrageously long detention in the UnitedStates.
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Mr. Hababou, a onetime law student, said he had built a thrivingbusiness as a Parisian jeweler when the Persian Gulf war broke outin 1991 and many of his best customers all but disappeared.Beginning late that year, as he was going bankrupt, Mr. Hababou wascaught up in a series of legal cases involving disputes withcustomers and suppliers.Finally, under pressure from some underworld figures with whom hehad gotten involved through a man he had known during a six-monthstint in jail, he agreed to cash several checks that were laterfound to have been stolen from a Paris lawyer.Mr. Hababou was arrested in the check case on Dec. 23, 1994, andreleased after six months with the matter pending, court documentsindicate. Mr. Hababou said he was living in a tiny studio with anew wife and baby daughter when he was contacted by Mr. Rousso, aformer customer at one of his jewelry stores.Mr. Rousso said he could use Mr. Hababou who speaks fluentEnglish in his business operations in the United States. Mr.Hababou said Mr. Rousso described himself as an investment manager."When I got there, he was like the king of New York," Mr. Hababousaid, recalling his arrival in August 1995. "He had a big office onPark Avenue. Everyone bowed down to him. He had a house in theHamptons. He smelled 100 percent legit."According to court documents, Mr. Rousso, now 51, was in fact afugitive from justice in France, where he had been charged withfraud, accused of inflating the value of an American stock that hesold to European investors; a warrant for his arrest was issued inParis on May 16, 1995.Court documents filed by federal prosecutors indicate that Mr.Hababou was useful to Mr. Rousso not only for his English, but alsoas a front man through whom he could secretly control companieswhose stock he was promoting to unwitting investors. Documents froma sealed hearing on Sept. 8, 1999, show that Mr. Russo pleadedguilty to charges of money laundering and securities fraud andagreed to forfeit $4 million in cash and property.A lawyer for Mr. Rousso, John F. Lang, said he had no comment onMr. Hababou's remarks or on the legal case against his client.While he was learning the stock market in New York, Mr. Hababouwas being tried in absentia in France on the stolen-checks charge.He was convicted in February 1996, fined and sentenced to threeyears in prison. Mr. Hababou asserted that he was never properlynotified about the trial, and he noted that an internationalwarrant for his arrest was not issued until 1997, when he cameunder scrutiny because of the huge amounts of money he was wiring
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into casino accounts in Atlantic City for himself and Mr. Rousso.In the spring of 1996, Mr. Hababou said he and Mr. Rousso, who wascalling himself Marc Armand, were invited to an intimate dinner forMr. Torricelli given by a New Jersey businessman who had been aclient of Mr. Rousso. At the dinner, Mr. Hababou said, Mr.Torricelli asked Mr. Rousso how much he might be able to raise forhis Senate campaign; Mr. Rousso suggested $100,000. That pledge and the $10,000 in checks that Mr. Hababou wrote to Mr.Torricelli's campaign that night at Mr. Rousso's direction led toa flurry of visits, meetings and telephone calls with Mr.Torricelli and his staff, Mr. Hababou said.As a foreigner, Mr. Hababou could not legally contribute any moneyto an American political campaign. And in fact, the checks he wroteto Mr. Torricelli's campaign at Mr. Rousso's behest were quicklyand properly returned, he said. When he was asked to provide aSocial Security number, Mr. Hababou said, he explained that hedidn't have one.Nonetheless, Mr. Hababou was quickly named to the financecommittee for Mr. Torricelli's campaign. The senator's spokesman,Mr. Leibach, said there was nothing illegal about a foreignersoliciting money for a candidate or serving on his financecommittee.Mr. Hababou said Mr. Rousso also pledged to give Mr. Torricelli'scampaign some part of $500,000 in radio advertising time that hehad received in a business deal. He said meetings were held withTorricelli campaign aides about giving the advertising to NewJersey Citizen Action, a political advocacy group critical of Mr.Torricelli's opponent, Richard A. Zimmer, but the plan fellthrough. The group's executive director, Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, saidyesterday that while the group had produced advertisements in thecampaign, she had never before heard of Mr. Rousso or Mr. Hababou.At Mr. Torricelli's invitation, Mr. Hababou said, he and Mr.Rousso attended a May 7, 1996, fund-raiser in New Jersey where theywere introduced to President Clinton. They said they met Mr.Clinton again at a Democratic Party fund-raising event theyattended as guests at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Records suggestthat the event was a $5,000-a-plate dinner held on June 24, 1996."It was like I had become a campaign V.I.P.," Mr. Hababou said.Democratic Party officials said there was no record that Mr.Hababou ever donated to the party himself, but they noted that in1996, neither was there a systematic vetting of guests at partyfund-raising events who did not donate funds. Since January 1997,the officials added, anyone attending an event that included either
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President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore or their wives wasscreened in advance in public databases that include news reports,lawsuits and other legal information. As of 1997, foreigners alsowere barred from such Democratic National Committee events.Mr. Hababou said his and Mr. Rousso's friendship with Mr.Torricelli soon became strained over a dispute having to do withthe high cost of a fund-raising auction they hosted for thecandidate on June 1, 1996, at the Four Seasons in Manhattan. Mr.Hababou said his ties with Mr. Rousso became strained the followingyear, and they were distant by the time Mr. Hababou was arrested atthe Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City on Dec. 23, 1998.After a 21-month detention in which he alternately fought andinsisted on his return to France, Mr. Hababou's extradition wasfinally ordered on Sept. 28, 2000. He was released within days ofhis return, and although he was sentenced on Nov. 22 to 18 monthsin prison and fined 500,000 francs, he remains free while the caseis on appeal.
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