Key government witness Charles Hall III faltered on the witness stand today, confused about dates of events and contradicting himself on earlier testimony.
TRENTON — Key government witness Charles Hall III faltered on the witness stand today, confused about dates of events and contradicting himself on earlier testimony, under questioning by defense attorneys for Mayor Tony Mack and his brother, Ralphiel Mack.
Hall’s tough day on the witness stand started when he said he couldn’t remember what month in 2012 he met with Tony Mack to discuss the parking garage scam that has the mayor and his brother in court on corruption charges. Hall’s day of testimony ended with an admission that he failed to turn on either of the two recording devices the FBI had wired him with when he was sent to meet with the mayor and give him $10,000 in bribe money.
“I don’t know, I thought they was always on,” Hall said.
“You didn’t make an effort to turn them on?” asked Mack’s attorney, Mark Davis.
“No, I did not,” Hall said.
Hall became a government informant in mid-2012, about a month before the FBI raided the homes of Mack, his brother and campaign supporter Joseph “JoJo” Giorgianni, revealing the federal sting operation centered around the phony parking garage project. Giorgianni and Hall have pleaded guilty in the case.
Ralphiel Mack’s attorney Robert Haney’s relentless questioning of every minute detail in Hall’s earlier testimony began to pay dividends today, Hall’s third day on the stand. The Macks’ attorneys have attempted to show that Hall and Giorgianni tried to shift blame from themselves to the mayor and his brother, who the defense claims knew little of the parking garage project or of the bribe money that was flowing through Giorgianni’s hands.
Questioning Hall today, Haney offered alternative explanations for some of the major events discussed in the case, and Hall’s testimony began to differ from his earlier statements during the trial.
The FBI approached Hall about the bribery scam on June 21, 2012, and he agreed to cooperate.
The next day, Hall called Giorgianni on Giorgianni’s home phone line, which was no longer being wiretapped, Haney said. Hall’s purpose was to report everything the FBI had told him, Haney argued.
“I don’t recall sir,” Hall said.
“You don’t recall if you reported everything you knew about the FBI to JoJo?” Haney asked, expressing disbelief.
“You needed to coordinate your story with JoJo Giorgianni now that you had information from the FBI didn’t you?” Haney asked.
“No, I didn’t need to coordinate,” Hall said.
Hall continued to testify he could not recall whether he contacted Giorgianni without the FBI’s knowledge during the time he was supposed to be cooperating with the government.
However, Hall has maintained that Tony and Ralphiel Mack were deeply involved in the scheme to extort money from the parking garage developers.
“The answer is, I knew,” Hall said. “I knew they were involved.”
Questioning Hall, Davis was cordial but firm, raising his voice only for effect during
2½ hours of cross-examination. Hall’s protestations that he did not recall dates, meetings and statements he had made even days before on the stand increased as Davis continued his probing questions.
Davis reminded Hall of the recording of a wiretapped phone conversation that had been played in court just hours before. Even with the frame of reference, Hall said he could not recall the content of the Jan. 31, 2012, meeting with then-acting housing director Carmen Melendez inside JoJo’s Steak House in North Trenton.
“Yeah, I remember the phone call,” Hall said.
“But you don’t actually remember going to the meeting?” Davis asked.
THE ‘PIZZA’ PHRASE
In a contradiction, Hall testified that Tony Mack’s use of the phrase “pizza,” which he had initially said was an established code word for cash, was unfamiliar to him when he first heard it in a June 9, 2012, wiretapped phone call.
“‘Pizza’ was out of nowhere as far as you’re concerned?” Davis asked. “You never heard him say that before?”
“No,” Hall replied.
The date that Hall received $1,500 in cash from Giorgianni, and whether it was the first payment of his cut of the parking garage bribes, became unclear, as Hall cited first one month for the payment and then another.
Hall at first said he went to JoJo’s steak shop for his first payment after receiving a coded “Uncle Remus came by” message. When questioning moved to the time frame from February 2012 to March 2012, a well-documented April 25, 2012, payment in Atlantic City revealed the first time Hall received the cash. A videotape of the Atlantic City meeting shows Hall and Giorgianni dividing up the cash.
“So the first payment now becomes Atlantic City?” Davis asked Hall, who agreed.
“So we’re going to wipe all that out?” Davis asked.
“Yes,” Hall said.
“Got you,” Davis said.
FBI agents first confronted Hall in the driveway of his parents’ house in Ewing on June 21, 2012, Hall testified. They showed him some of the evidence they had against him, and Hall agreed to cooperate, he said. Hall said he told no one of his decision to cooperate with the FBI. Davis questioned whether that statement included Hall’s father, who is a former Trenton detective.
“He didn’t ask you why the FBI just stopped you in the driveway?” Davis asked
“I told him it was about some other business,” Hall said, adding that his father was not convinced.
“He said, ‘I been doing this for a long time, they’re here for a reason,’” Hall said.
“So you’re maintaining that you told no one,” Davis asked Hall, who agreed.
During cross-examination earlier in the day, Haney suggested that Hall’s cooperation was all part of an elaborate, preconceived plan by Hall and Giorgianni to mislead the government into believing the mayor and Ralphiel Mack were involved in the parking garage scam.
“No, it wasn’t part of the plan,” Hall said.
“You and JoJo never discussed the possibility that you would have to cooperate in order ... to evade your drug charge?” Haney said, in reference to a separate, prescription painkiller-selling scheme that both Hall and Giorgianni have pleaded guilty to.
“You began cooperating immediately for the purpose of snagging Tony Mack,” Haney pressed.
“I agreed to cooperate because I was guilty,” Hall answered. “Because I had a lot of evidence against me.”
Six days later, when Hall was carrying the $10,000 for Tony Mack, he met the mayor at a baseball field while Hall’s son played a game. The money from the FBI was in two thick envelopes, but Hall could not remember where on his person he carried it or what he was wearing. Though Hall’s instructions were to give the money to the mayor, Hall said he did not try to at the game.
“Then why didn’t you?” Davis asked.
“It was just not an appropriate time,” Hall said.
Hall said he tried to give Mack the money at a pizzeria later, but Mack told him to take it to Giorgianni. The day after the meeting with the mayor, Hall met with Giorgianni at his Ewing home. The two discussed the possibility that the $10,000 bribe payment, which Hall brought with him, was a trap.
“For me and you?” Giorgianni asked.
“Um, um, uh, the boss,” Hall said in a video recording of the meeting.
Haney asked if this was an opportunity for Hall again to falsely link the mayor to the garage project while Hall knew the FBI was listening in.
“And you are able to insert ‘the boss’ into it,” Haney said.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
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