Reporter Who Shielded Source Will Serve Sentence at Home

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec. 9 - A Rhode Island television reporter was sentenced on Thursday to six months of home confinement for refusing to reveal who gave him an F.B.I. videotape that was evidence in a investigation of government corruption in Providence.

The reporter, Jim Taricani, could have received a sentence of up to six months in a federal prison, and in a lengthy and pointed ruling, Judge Ernest C. Torres of Federal District Court said he believed that Mr. Taricani deserved to go to prison.

Judge Torres said the main reason he was allowing Mr. Taricani to be confined at home was that the reporter, a 55-year-old heart transplant recipient, had health problems that could worsen if he went to prison.

"Except for his health and history of a good record, all of the factors call for a meaningful prison sentence," Judge Torres said.

The judge said that Mr. Taricani would be unable to leave his home except for medical treatment, could have no Internet access, give no media interviews, hold no job and would have other strictures "designed to mirror as closely as possible the conditions in prison."

Mr. Taricani's case comes at a time when several reporters around the country are involved in court battles because of their refusal to reveal confidential sources. And while making his ruling, Judge Torres was clearly cognizant of the potential implications it might have for other cases.

The judge mentioned the most high-profile of those cases, which involves the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame. Two reporters in that case, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote an article on the subject, and Judith Miller of The New York Times, who has not written anything about the case, have been held in contempt and ordered jailed by a federal court judge. Their sentences were suspended while they appeal.

Mr. Taricani, an award-winning reporter for WJAR-TV, an NBC affiliate, was convicted of criminal contempt last month for violating a court order to disclose the identity of the person who gave him the videotape in 2000, which showed an aide to Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. taking a $1,000 bribe.

At the time, lawyers, investigators and others involved in the corruption investigation, known as Operation Plunderdome, were under a court order not to release any surveillance tapes.

In an unusual turn of events, a week after Mr. Taricani's conviction, his source identified himself.

But the confession of the source, Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., a lawyer who represented the city tax assessor in one of the Plunderdome trials, did not persuade the judge to soften Mr. Taricani's sentence. Indeed, in testimony on Thursday, Mr. Bevilacqua, trying to minimize his own culpability, served mostly to reveal the volatile and unpredictable nature of Mr. Taricani's relationship with his source.

Mr. Taricani was ordered to begin his sentence immediately. His lawyers were considering whether to appeal.

Before his sentencing, Mr. Taricani told the judge, "I do not consider myself above the law," but he added that he had "a different view of the law than the court does."

NBC said in a statement: "We are relieved that he has been spared a potentially life-threatening prison sentence. Nonetheless, it is a sad day for journalism. The facts here do not justify punishing a journalist who did nothing illegal in receiving and airing a videotape."

In his ruling, Judge Torres, speaking for nearly an hour, said he wanted to dispel what he called five "myths" that he said Mr. Taricani's supporters and some of his colleagues in the media had propagated about the case.

Among the myths, the judge said, was the idea that Mr. Taricani's refusal to reveal his source was protected by the First Amendment, and that Mr. Taricani's criminal conviction would have a chilling effect on the willingness of whistleblowers or other vulnerable people to speak to reporters.

"A reporter should be chilled from violating the law in order to get a story" and "from making ill-advised promises of confidentiality in order to encourage a source to do so," Judge Torres said.

The five-hour sentencing hearing lasted much longer than Mr. Taricani's trial and featured dueling testimony by Mr. Taricani and Mr. Bevilacqua.

On Thursday, Mr. Bevilacqua admitted he had committed perjury by previously denying to the prosecutor that he was Mr. Taricani's source. But he said he had only done so because Mr. Taricani wanted him to keep quiet because Mr. Taricani was "enthrilled with the notoriety" resulting from his court battle.

Mr. Taricani disputed that, saying that if Mr. Bevilacqua had given him permission to reveal his name "I would have been the first one to scream that name from the top of the tallest building in Providence."

By the time the two men had finished testifying, Judge Torres had reached another conclusion. "There are," he said, "no heroes in this soap opera."

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