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Farnese defense witnesses saw nothing abnormal in alleged $6K bribe

Hannah Feldman didn't think twice when her mother told her five years ago that State Sen. Larry Farnese paid $6,000 to help send her on a study-abroad trip to Kyrgyzstan - a donation federal prosecutors say was a bribe.

File photo: Pennsylvania State Senator Larry Farnese, who was indicted on a vote buying scheme on Tuesday, walks to a town hall meeting with the Center City Residents Association on Thursday, May 12, 2016 at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel.
File photo: Pennsylvania State Senator Larry Farnese, who was indicted on a vote buying scheme on Tuesday, walks to a town hall meeting with the Center City Residents Association on Thursday, May 12, 2016 at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Hannah Feldman didn't think twice when her mother told her five years ago that State Sen. Larry Farnese paid $6,000 to help send her on a study-abroad trip to Kyrgyzstan - a donation federal prosecutors say was a bribe.

"I didn't think it was unusual," the 24-year-old told a jury Friday. "That's kind of what constituent service is in general."

As the senator's defense opened its case on the fourth day of his federal fraud trial, his lawyers sought to prove that not only was the payment the type of service local politicians often provide for deserving constituents, but was also an act of generosity that was not unusual for Farnese.

"What I saw in Larry the first time I met him was that he was a decent, honest, caring individual. He had a sense of grace and openness," said constituent Avi Eden, one of a string of defense witnesses to offer glowing assessments of Farnese's character.

Feldman was the first witness to testify for her mother, Ellen Chapman, who has been charged along with Farnese with counts of conspiracy and fraud.

Prosecutors allege that Chapman, while serving as a committee member of the city's Democratic Eighth Ward, accepted the $6,000 payment from Farnese's campaign fund in exchange for promising the senator her vote in a 2011 election that cemented him as the ward's leader.

But defense lawyers have balked at the suggestion that Farnese bought Chapman's vote, insisting that the payment had nothing to do with whom Chapman was supporting in the ward race and that it was perfectly legal under state campaign finance law.

In fact, Feldman told jurors, her family had turned to Farnese's office for help throughout her life.

When she graduated from high school, she said, her father - LGBTQ activist David Feldman - asked Farnese for help in landing her a summer job.

And when she lost her health insurance as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, Farnese's office helped enroll her in a government health-care program for children.

So when she was accepted in 2011 to a prestigious program to study in central Asia and realized she couldn't afford travel expenses, it was natural that her family would turn to the senator's office for help closing the financial gap.

Previous witnesses have testified that Farnese gave Chapman a list of foundations and other elected officials who might be willing to kick in funds, but when none came through, Farnese cut the check from his own campaign fund.

Feldman would later explain what happened in an email to another of the study-abroad program's cash-strapped students in Florida looking for assistance.

"The money itself came from a political action committee that supports people doing things," she wrote in a 2011 email, explaining that such contributions might not be available depending on Florida's campaign finance laws.

Throughout Feldman's testimony, Chapman lawyer Elizabeth Toplin stressed Feldman's credentials as an exceptional student - from her extracurricular activities in groups where she took tests "just for fun" to the summer she spent outside Moscow studying Russian while in high school - in an effort to convince jurors she was a worthy candidate for Farnese's aid.

The senator's lawyers attacked the case from a different direction. Since the trial began, they have argued that Farnese had no need to buy Chapman's vote, since he enjoyed overwhelming support from his fellow Eighth Ward committee people.

Four committee people who took an informal poll days before prosecutors say Farnese and Chapman struck their alleged deal told jurors Friday that the outcome of the election was clear from the start.

"He had the majority of the votes, and could probably - even with opposition - get all but 10 votes," said Sam Hopkins, who has been a committeeman in the ward for the last two decades. "That was without Larry making a single phone call."

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kravis asked each of the four whether they had asked Farnese for money for their votes, eliciting laughs from some.

But the question touched a nerve with Hopkins, whose response echoed an argument shared by Farnese's defense - that the senator's prosecution constitutes an overreach by Justice Department lawyers in Washington trying to meddle with small-scale ward politics.

"Where are you from, young man?" he asked Kravis. "Don't be silly. It's just not done."

Pointing his finger and raising his voice, Kravis, who was raised in the Philadelphia region, shot back.

"I grew up in -," he began to respond before thinking better of it.

Testimony is expected to resume Monday.

jroebuck@phillynews.com 215-854-2608 @jeremyrroebuck