It took a jury in Little Rock, Ark., an hour to convict Fred Celani of fraud recently, swiftly ending the latest scam by a baby-faced bear of a man described by authorities as among the nation's most persuasive, inventive and irrepressible crooks.
But for the U.S. Justice Department officials who prosecuted him, the strange--and potentially embarrassing--saga of former FBI informant Frederick George Celani is far from over.
When Celani was arrested Oct. 14 on the fraud charges that led to his conviction last week, the blustery paralegal with the long criminal record was operating a legal center in North Hollywood representing hundreds of clients. Most were federal prison inmates and their families, who say they were victimized by Celani and his false promises of an overturned conviction or early release.
Federal authorities, responding to such complaints, are investigating in hopes of tracing what could be millions of dollars the defunct Center for Constitutional Law and Justice received from clients across the country. The State Bar of California also is investigating and has tried to help arrange counsel for the clients left in legal limbo when the center shut down with Celani's arrest.
And, in a strange sidelight to the case, some elected officials and lawyers are wondering if Celani's activities may have harmed the defense of Damian Monroe Williams, accused of beating trucker Reginald O. Denny in the Los Angeles riots last year. The legal center briefly represented Williams, whose trial began Wednesday in Los Angeles. After Celani's arrest, he said he tried to sabotage Williams' defense but a judge ruled that Celani and the center had not tainted the case beyond repair.
As disturbing as the allegations of defrauding inmates and their families are, some of Celani's former associates and clients say they went to authorities as early as 1989 to allege that the ex-convict was masterminding a nationwide scam.
"What blows me away is, why didn't anyone do anything?" asked paralegal Robert Richman, who complained to the FBI while working for a legal center Celani directed while imprisoned in Wisconsin in 1989. "They've been trailing him for years but letting him go about his business."
Despite years of FBI investigations that followed him from state to state, federal authorities said Celani somehow continued a life of crime that appears to have escalated in scope and destructiveness even after he was imprisoned for fraud and racketeering in 1986.
