Federal prosecutors allege the Mack brothers accepted bribes to facilitate the construction of fictional parking garage on city-owned property.
TRENTON — Following closing arguments set to begin tomorrow, the fate of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack and his brother Ralphiel Mack will soon be in the hands of the jury.
In testimony over the past month in the federal corruption trial, the mayor’s attorney, Mark Davis, did not call any witnesses to the stand, but merely cross-examined the six witnesses called to the stand by the prosecution.
Ralphiel Mack’s attorney called only Terry Birchenough, an apartment manager, who in his testimony last Thursday described Ralphiel Mack as his best friend and told the jury about a time Mack asked him for a loan in the summer of 2012, presumably to help pay his mortgage. Birchenough said he didn’t have any money to give at the time.
The testimony by Birchenough, the sole defense witness, came at the conclusion of 13 days of testimony by prosecution witnesses in which three FBI agents, two former city officials and the caretaker of an admitted co-conspirator testified.
Federal prosecutors allege the Mack brothers accepted bribes to facilitate the construction of fictional parking garage on city-owned property, a project that was actually an FBI sting. Two others have pleaded guilty: Joseph “JoJo” Giorgianni and Charles Hall III, a former city meter reader.
Giorgianni pleaded guilty in December, saying he coordinated the collection of cash bribe payments on behalf of Tony Mack in exchange for the mayor’s official action to assist developers seeking to build the downtown parking garage. The Mack brothers and Giorgianni were arrested Sept. 10, 2012.
In court last week, Carmen Melendez, formerly the city’s acting housing director, testified that Giorgianni and Mack often met at JoJo’s Steak House in Trenton to discuss city business and at times Giorgianni told workers to go through him rather than the mayor.
Melendez said Giorgianni gave out copies of Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” a book about power and influence, to workers, though Melendez said she only pretended to read it so she could fit in with the City Hall regime.
Melendez also described herself as an unknowing pawn in a letter scheme to sell a city-owned lot. Melendez said she got the okay from Tony Mack before sending a letter to the supposed parking garage developer Harry Seymour setting the sale price for the land at less than half its assessed value.
“When I saw the mayor I went inside the office, walked down the corridor into his office, I showed him the letter,” Melendez said. “He read the letter and said ‘okay.’”
Melendez said she was in a rush that day, late for a meeting and putting up with Charles Hall, who was working in the recreation department and who has admitted to accepting some of the cash from the bribe payments. Melendez said Hall was rushing her around, asking her to sign the letter as soon as possible.
“This was all just happening so quickly,” Melendez said.
Melendez also said Hall, whose activity at City Hall expanded well beyond meter reading under Mack’s administration, was always a bother, but she would do things to help him and often did his work.
“He would call me and talk about whatever else he wanted to dump on my lap to take care of him,” Melendez said. “Yeah, he was a pest,” she said.
Mary Manfredo, local steak shop owner and operator and long-time companion to Giorgianni, concluded her four days of testimony last week. Manfredo testified that she saw Giorgianni give Tony Mack cash in the back room of JoJo’s Steak House.
Manfredo, who owned and managed JoJo’s Steak House, testified also that Giorgianni, a man with some physical mobility who prefers a wheelchair, typically threatened her with physical violence, without going through with it.
In one FBI recording played for the jury during Manfredo’s testimony, she is heard pleading with Giorgianni during a telephone conversation from prison, where he had sought a medical evaluation to avoid standing trial.
“Joe, I told you last night, I’m so weak and so sick,” Manfredo said in the November call.
“I’m sick, too, but I’ll still smash your teeth in,” Giorgianni said.
The defense repeatedly tried to insist that Manfredo had coordinated her testimony with Giorgianni, whom she sees and speaks to almost every day. The defense argument has been that Giorgianni and Hall have attempted to shift blame from themselves to the Macks.
With all the evidence laid out for the jury, the attorneys will have one final chance to lay out their versions of events in closing arguments tomorrow before deliberations begin.
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5717.
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