Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

September 10, 2012

NJ mayor arrested in bribery case

Federal agents arrested the mayor of New Jersey's capital early Monday, alleging he agreed to accept tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.

TRENTON, N.J. — Federal agents arrested the struggling mayor of New Jersey's capital Monday on corruption charges, alleging he agreed to accept bribes in connection with a proposed parking garage — actually a fake project created by authorities trying to snare him.

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, his brother Ralphiel and convicted sex offender Joseph Giorgianni, a Mack supporter who owns a Trenton sandwich shop, were each accused of a single charge: conspiring to extort the undercover informants who pulled them into the scheme.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said at a news conference Monday that the city-owned land a few blocks from City Hall for the garage was assessed at $271,000. He said Mack and Giorgianni agreed to accept $100,000 for the land for the city coffers — as long as the purported developers paid a bribe of $100,000 to be split between the two alleged conspirators.

A federal magistrate Monday ordered Mack released on an unsecured $150,000 bond — the same as his brother — but ruled that he cannot leave the state while free on bail. Mack left the courthouse Monday without commenting.

But his lawyer, Mark Davis, said he believes his client is innocent, as the mayor has professed since his home was raided in July. "I believe that the evidence, as far as I can tell, appears to be insufficient to prove the charge," he said.

The charges against Mack, a 46-year-old Democrat, did not come as a surprise in the city.

He's been accused of hiring unqualified cronies to city positions, made deep cuts in the police department and overseen a chaotic City Hall as officials fled their jobs soon after he took office in 2010.

Things got so bad that the state government threatened to withhold $6 million in aid unless he agreed to hire only department head candidates cleared by the state.

He avoided a recall election last year after opponents fell about 1,000 signatures short of getting a measure on the ballot.

Federal agents began working with an informant to gather information on Mack and the other suspects in September 2010, just two months after Mack took office. Fishman would not say when the investigation began or why. They also tapped the phones of Giorgianni and the mayor.

Fishman said investigators quickly understood the relationship between the mayor and the sandwich shop owner: "It became clear he was a bagman for the mayor."

The defendants received $54,000 — in envelopes stuffed with cash and in one case, including $100 casino chips — and anticipated accepting an additional $65,000 from a cooperating witness who purported to be a developer, according to court documents that laid out the sting.

The criminal complaint portrays Giorgianni as a boastful man who did most of the talking with two FBI informants, making Mack sound eager to accept bribes. Authorities would not identify the informants, other than to say one was cooperating to get a better deal in his own criminal case and the other was paid.

The sting was similar to a massive sting known as "Bid Rig" that resulted in criminal charges against 46 people — many of them local officials — in 2009. Then, bribes were attached to fictitious development projects. Prosecutors have had mixed success in winning convictions.

Giorgianni complained at one point that Mack, 46, could not take bribes because he was being watched so closely amid the recall effort, the documents said. "It's sickening," he told one of the informants, according to the court papers.

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