Boca Snowbird Embroiled in Salacious Philly Political Scandal

In federal court testimony, Stephen C. Marcus, a direct-mail magnate from Philadelphia who kept a summer home in Boca Raton, has emerged as something of a sugar daddy to Vincent Fumo, the powerful Pennsylvania state senator currently being tried for corruption charges.According to today's Philadelphia Inquirer, the two met on...

By Thomas Francis

February 23, 2009

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In federal court testimony, Stephen C. Marcus, a direct-mail magnate from Philadelphia who kept a summer home in Boca Raton, has emerged as something of a sugar daddy to Vincent Fumo, the powerful Pennsylvania state senator currently being tried for corruption charges.

According to today's Philadelphia Inquirer, the two met on a plane bound for South Florida, where they both had summer homes. Fumo's is on Jupiter Island.

Marcus died in 2005 at the age of 73, but prosecutors in Fumo's case allege that before that, the wealthy retiree showered the state senator with gifts, including a $1 million gift that Marcus took out of his daughter's trust fund, as well as a half-million dollar boat. The two also allegedly invested in a $4 million jet ostensibly because, "No one that I love is going to fly commercial," according to an e-mailed message Fumo wrote to Marcus.

Fumo, who is divorced, maintained in court that the two men had an "emotional" love that never became physical.

The Inquirer website has a handy special section on the Fumo case.

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