Prosecution and defense rest their cases in the federal corruption trial of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack.
TRENTON - After calling only one witness to testify for the defense, testimony came to an abrupt conclusion in the federal corruption trial of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack and his brother Ralphiel Mack.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Moran advised the jury he had finished making his case as soon as the jurors took their seats this morning.
Robert Haney, the attorney for Ralphiel Mack, called Mack's friend Terry Birchenough up to the stand.
Haney asked Birchenough about a June day when he and Mack were riding ATVs and Mack asked Birchenough for a loan.
"Were you able to give him a loan?" Haney asked.
"I was not," Birchenough said.
"I did not have the money," he said. "He did not specify the amount. He gave me a generalized amount but I did not have it."
Birchenough said he believed the loan would have been to help Mack, who works for the school district and is unemployed during the summer months, pay his mortgage.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skahill asked Birchenough if he ever thought to tell police or the FBI about the conversation where Mack asked him for a loan.
"What would be the point of that?" Birchenough said.
Skahill asked Birchenough if Mack asked him to be in court today.
"You wouldn't want to see him go to jail, correct?" Skahill asked.
"I wouldn't want to see a friend go to jail." Birchenough responded.
As quickly as Birchenough was asked to step down from the witness stand, both Haney and Mack's attorney Mark Davis stood to tell the judge they had no further witnesses to call.
"We have provided all the testimony that there is to provide," said Judge Michael A. Shipp. "Both sides have rested."
Shipp excused the jurors until Monday, when he said both the government and the defense will present their closing arguments before sending the jurors back to deliberate.
Davis said yesterday after court was adjourned that the defense feels "relatively confident."
"Because the evidence was not there," he said.
"I don't think the government has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt," he said.
Davis said although he and Tony Mack discussed Mack taking the witness stand in his own defense, Mack made the decision not to do so. Davis admitted that it is highly unusual for a defendant in a corruption case to testify.
"It is always the client's decision," he said.
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