Vince Anello appeared Tuesday in two federal courtrooms, where the former Niagara Falls

mayor faces two different sets of charges filed by the U.S. attorney's office.

First, he appeared before U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, who said he will wait

until at least July 7 before setting a date for a trial on public corruption charges filed

against Anello in 2008.

Anello then stood before Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr., where the former mayor

pleaded not guilty to a new set of charges that he embezzled more than $94,000 from an

electrical workers union pension fund.

"He's going to fight all these charges," said Anello's lead attorney, Joel L. Daniels.

"We'll go to trial on the case before Judge Skretny, and after that, we'll try the other

case."

Anello, who declined to comment, faces these allegations:

In the case filed in 2008, prosecutors accuse him of failing to provide taxpayers

"honest services" from a public official. Prosecutors say Anello acted illegally when he

accepted $40,000 from businessman Joseph M. "Smokin' Joe" Anderson shortly before taking

office in 2004. A few months later, Anello recommended that the city grant vending rights to

Anderson for a city-owned pedestrian mall in downtown Niagara Falls.

Anello, 64, denies any wrongdoing, and he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will find the

federal "honest services" law to be unconstitutional.

In a new case filed late Monday, the government contends that, after leaving the

mayor's office at the end of 2007, Anello received pension payments based on false information

that he gave to Local 237, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The union allows pensioners to do no more than 40 hours of electrical work each month while

receiving their pensions, and the feds contend that Anello worked many more hours than that

— at companies owned by Anderson.

Anello, who was a union electrician long before he became mayor, was investigated by the

FBI, the U.S. Labor Department and other federal agencies.

In the "honest services" case, Skretny is awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court that

could affect the charges against the former mayor.

In that case, Anello finds himself in the company of former Enron President Jeffrey K.

Skilling and other prominent people who were either convicted of violating the "honest

services" law or are accused of breaking it.

Skilling and two other defendants have challenged the constitutionality of the provision, a

28-word amendment to federal mail-fraud law that makes it illegal to deprive the public of the

"intangible right of honest services." The law has been criticized as too vague and too broad.

The Supreme Court's decision could have wide implications for a long list of high-profile

cases prosecuted under the "honest services" law — from the trial of former Illinois

Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the conviction of former New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph

L. Bruno.

"Within the federal criminal law community, it's being watched intensely," said Daniel C.

Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School.

Anello's trial, initially scheduled to begin Tuesday, has been delayed in anticipation that

the high court will rule on the statute before its term ends this month.

Two of the four counts of an indictment against Anello fall under the "honest services"

law.

"It's probably the most controversial statute in the federal criminal code, and many

lawyers and judges believe that it gives the government too much of a free hand and that it

could lead to abuse," said Daniels, who represents Anello with Cheryl Meyers Buth. "The

problem with the statute is you don't know what conduct it punishes. It's too vague. It's

uncertain. It's unclear."

If the law is struck down, Anello would still face two charges of extortion "under color of

official right," which occurs when a public official receives money with the understanding

that it is in exchange for a future favor.

"Mr. Anello is charged with multiple violations of federal law, and whether or not a

particular count — the "honest services' count — gets ultimately ruled

unconstitutional or struck down by the Supreme Court would not affect our prosecution of Mr.

Anello," U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. said.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul J. Campana and Edward H. White are prosecuting the "honest

services" case. Anello has pleaded not guilty and has said the money was a loan from Anderson

to help his struggling electrical business.

Marie P. Grisanti is prosecuting the case involving the pension benefits.

Skilling has challenged the "honest services" law as part of his appeal of his 2006

conviction for his role in the collapse of Enron, a Houston-based energy company. The court

also heard arguments against the statute in December in cases involving Canadian media magnate

Conrad Black and former Alaskan Legislator Bruce Weyhrauch.

As in Anello's case, the "honest services" statute is often used in conjunction with other

corruption charges.

Bruno, however, was convicted solely on the "honest services" law. He has remained out of

prison, despite a two-year sentence imposed last month, until the Supreme Court rules on the

statute.

There already have been hints that at least some of the Supreme Court justices think that

the law is too broadly defined.

Justice Antonin Scalia last year wrote that "the statute has been invoked to impose

criminal penalties upon a staggeringly broad swath of behavior." He noted that, taken to "its

logical conclusion," the law would make it illegal for a mayor to use his prestige to get a

table at a restaurant without a reservation.

Without defining "the intangible right of honest services," Scalia wrote, "this expansive

phrase invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state

legislators and corporate CEOs who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically

questionable conduct."

As it did when the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version of the law in 1987,

Congress could quickly rewrite the law if the high court rules that it is too vague, said

Richman, the Columbia law professor.

While some pending cases could be complicated, Richman said, prosecutors likely would move

on to other legal tools.

"There are a whole number of other statutory vehicles for going after corruption," Richman

said. "This one is easier to use than many others just because it relaxes the need to prove in

detail precisely what the harm was to the employer or to the state, and it doesn't require

that you actually prove precisely what was bought and sold when an office was bought and

sold."

The statute, he said, has received a lot of attention from scholars and judges who consider

it too expansive and vague.

"It's not just a broad statute, but

it's one that, without a real legal

background, it's hard to figure

out precisely what they're talking about," Richman said. "And

that's an odd thing for a criminal law to have going for it."

However, he believes that in

most cases, the statute has been

used appropriately.

"By and large," Richman said,

"the kinds of cases that actually

are pursued under these statutes have been cases where,

when you read the facts, you understand why a federal prosecution was pursued."