Veteran journalist Ralph
Cipriano offers a piece at Bigtrial.net on the late South Philly politician, former federal
prisoner and newspaper publisher James “Jimmy” Tayoun.
He was, at various stages of
his long life, a Daily News sports writer, a restauranteur, a state
representative, a City Councilman, a felon, a newspaper editor, a raconteur,
always a true character, and above all else, an old-school politician.
Jimmy Tayoun died yesterday
at 87, after collapsing in front of his home, apparently after suffering a
heart attack.
As a reporter for The
Philadelphia Inquirer, I visited Tayoun back in 1993, when he was a guest at
the Federal Correctional Institute, Schuylkill, in Minersville, PA. It's a
sleepy minimum security prison located on a foggy mountaintop where the deer
run free, about a 2 1/2 hour drive northwest of the city. At the time, Tayoun
was doing 40 months after he got nailed by the feds for paying and taking
bribes.
There was a basic honesty
about Tayoun that shown through his prison whites, and his circumstances.
"OK, I'm not going to
say I'm innocent," he told me. "I'm obviously guilty. I pleaded
guilty and I'm here." Tayoun told me how the prosecutors got him to plead
guilty. They did it by showing him the indictment they planned to file against
his wife.
Tayoun demonstrated how he
stuck out his two arms, as if voluntarily agreeing to be handcuffed. "You
got me," is what he told the feds.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
Note: I ran into Jimmy Tayoun
many times over the years while covering South Philly in my column for the
South Philadelphia American and earlier while freelancing for the South
Philadelphia Review. I agree with Ralph Cipriano’s view of the late politician. He was a character.
You can read my Crime Beat
column on crooked Philly politicians via the below link:
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