Carmen Melendez, the city's former acting housing director is now a witness in the federal corruption trial of Mack and his brother Ralphiel Mack.
By Jenna Pizzi and Alex Zdan
TRENTON — Mayor Tony Mack and Joseph “JoJo” Giorgianni arrived seconds apart for a meeting at a Ewing hotel in December 2011, at which an unusual power arrangement was announced.
Coming in after the wheelchair-using Giorgianni, a dedicated Mack campaign supporter, Mack sat down at the table full of supporters, campaign workers and others. Giorgianni was at the head of the long table and Mack was at his side, Carmen Melendez, who was then the city’s acting housing director, testified today.
Melendez, now a witness in the federal corruption trial of Mack and his brother Ralphiel Mack, told the jury today that Giorgianni gave a clear directive in front of Mack.
“He said that if there were anything that was going on, any problems that were happening, (Mack) didn’t need to be bothered with petty stuff; that they should just go to Mr. Giorgianni and he would take care of it,” Melendez said.
Melendez had no idea what the topic of the meeting would be when she was summoned there by Ralphiel Mack, the mayor’s brother, who is also on trial for his alleged role in the bribery scam centered around a parking garage project. Giorgianni, who has admitted to taking bribes, seemed to control most of the meeting, giving orders to those he had assembled, Melendez testified.
Melendez, who has known Tony Mack since high school, today gave the jury her perspective of the mayor’s relationship with Giorgianni during the 2010 mayoral campaign and after Mack was inaugurated.
“It was like (Giorgianni) was the mayor’s confidant — person he trusted, person he was very close with,” she said.
It would not be unusual for her to go to JoJo’s Steak House in Trenton, owned by Giorgianni, to have meetings about city business.
On Jan. 31, 2012, Melendez set up a meeting at the steak house to talk with Giorgianni and Charles Hall III, a city water meter reader who was working in the city’s department of recreation.
On an FBI-taped phone call among Giorgianni, Melendez and Hall to set up a time for the meeting, Giorgianni asks Melendez how she is doing.
“It’s OK, I think I’ve gotten better after I read your book,” Melendez said, in reference to Niccolò Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” copies of which Giorgianni had distributed for workers to read.
Melendez testified today she knew something was going on in her department when that had happened. She testified she never read the classic treatise on power and manipulation, but only said she had to keep a connection with the group.
“It wasn’t like I was part of the inner circle,” she said today. “I was just doing a job.”
“This was part of me being able to kind of have a connection, to speak their way, and it would kind of make things easier during their conversations,” she said.
Melendez said the meeting, which took place later that same afternoon, was to discuss the proposed project to develop a city-owned lot downtown into an automated parking garage. The proposal had been brought to her attention by Hall, who did so at Giorgianni’s request.
The project was in reality a sting operation set up by the FBI with federal cooperators posing as developers of the project, meeting with Giorgianni to facilitate the sale of the property at a discounted rate in exchange for cash bribe payments for Giorgianni and Tony Mack.
The government alleges that the payments went to Tony Mack in exchange for his official action in approving the sale price for the property at $100,000 and naming the government-backed company as the official developers for the property. That price was allegedly facilitated through a letter Melendez sent on May 29, 2012.
At the Jan. 31, 2012 meeting, Hall and Giorgianni asked her to sell the property to the developers for $1, she testified.
“That was not going to happen under this administration,” Melendez said, explaining that because Mack had come under criticism for selling city-owned property for a dollar, he had given instructions that no other properties should be sold for a dollar.
Melendez, a real estate agent by trade, started her career in City Hall as a mayoral aide after Mack was sworn into office in 2010 and, even though she was tapped to work as acting director of the housing department, she always ran things by her boss.
“I always reported whatever I was working on to the mayor,” Melendez said.
In contrast to the wide range of questions asked of Melendez, longtime Giorgianni companion Mary Manfredo had a final day of cross-examination that revolved around feet, and seconds, and shadowy white figures moving through a door.
The defense has attempted to show that the Macks did not know about the bribery scheme.
Today, Mayor Mack’s attorney, Mark Davis, put Manfredo through a painstaking, frame-by-frame analysis of video taken outside JoJo’s Steak House on April 17, 2012.
Manfredo had testified on Friday that she watched as the mayor walked into the back of the steak shop with Giorgianni that day, pocketed cash, and embraced Giorgianni. In the cross-examination today, Davis asked whether a white blur at the very edge of the video screen could be the mayor entering the steak shop, or Giorgianni’s friend Harry Farsett walking by.
Manfredo directed Davis to stand at places in the courtroom that would mark exactly how many feet away from the mayor she was that day. Davis asked whether people wandering past the open door could observe what was going on.
“The door was locked,” Manfredo said. “No one could see Mr. Giorgianni behind the counter.”
Davis referred to FBI reports that he said showed Manfredo told agents the mayor came by on a day in January rather than April, and asked several questions about whether Giorgianni coached her about giving more incriminating testimony to shift blame to the Macks.
“Not that it’s changed, my memory has remembered that Mr. Mack, Mr. Tony Mack, came in that day,” she said.
Manfredo and Giorgianni’s relationship status is unclear. While Manfredo denied she has ever been known as Mary Giorgianni, she admitted Giorgianni has opened up credit cards in that name, using her Social Security number. Their close relationship includes her presence as an unquestioning third party whenever he needed an observer, she has said.
“Mr. Giorgianni was the type of person that, if he needed me to be a witness for anything that he needed me around to see whatever he was doing,” she said.
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5717.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
CONNECT WITH US:
On mobile or desktop:
• Like Times of Trenton on Facebook
• Follow @TimesofTrenton on Twitter