The jury is expected to review the charges against Mayor Mack and his brother Ralphiel before closing statements from the government and two defense attorneys.
By Alex Zdan and Jenna Pizzi
STAFF WRITERS
TRENTON - With all testimony concluded in the federal corruption trial of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack and his brother Ralphiel, the court is preparing to hand the case to the jury today.
Before jurors begin deliberation, they need to be instructed on the legal parameters by which they will determine the guilt or innocence of the defendants, This charging the jury should take about 90 minutes.
With one day lost yesterday to a court closing for snow, the jurors need to be charged and hear three separate closing statements: from the government, the mayor's attorney Mark Davis and Ralphiel Mack's attorney Robert Haney.
Judge Michael A. Shipp may also rule on two defense motions, one an acquittal, the other a mistrial because the government did not call admitted co-conspirator Joseph "JoJo" Giorgianni to testify. Giorgianni pleaded guilty in December.
Giorgianni said in his guilty plea he acted as a buffer; or go-between for thousands of dollars in bribe money given by two representatives of a developer who wanted to build a parking garage on a city-owned lot. The two men - former attorney Lemuel Blackburn and North Jersey developer Harry Seymour - were cooperating with the FBI and recorded audio and video from phone calls and meetings.
While the government alleged the bribes were given in exchange for Mack's official action as mayor, the defense said the Mack brothers knew nothing of the payments. Haney said the parking garage was on its face a legitimate public project and that Giorgianni and former city water meter reader Charles Hall III used government surveillance to entrap the Macks. Hall spent a month as a government informant and later pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy.
The trial began Jan. 6 with jury selection. Jurors heard a total of 14 days of testimony: 13 days from the prosecution, and roughly ten minutes from one defense witness last Thursday.
Check back here for live updates as court continues today.
4:27 p.m.: Moran said later that day, Hall comes into Melendez' office asking her to put the commitment letter on city letterhead.
But she didn't take his word for it and called the mayor to get his approval. But when Melendez asks about the letter, Mack cuts her off and tells her to meet him in his office.
"He cut her off the way he always cuts people off when they begin to talk about corrupt deals," Moran said.
Moran said Melendez, a cautious person, knew she had to get Mack's approval.
"She testified she got Tony Mack's approval," Moran said. "She did get Tony Mack's approval."
4:15 p.m.: Giorgainni tried to get in touch with Tony Mack to ensure that they met the May 30 deadline set by Seymour to get a commitment letter on the property, Moran said.
"On May 29, 2012 he got his chance," Moran said.
Mack went to Giorgianni's house for a meeting that morning. After Mack left, Giorgianni called Hall.
"He directed Hall to tell Melendez to get that letter out right away," Moran said.
"Without Tony Mack this co-schemers could not sell the property," Moran said. "They needed Tony Mack at this juncture. They did not control Carmen Melendez. She was not an insider."
4:08 p.m.: In May 2012, a new aspect is added to the scheme, Moran said.
"A goal to defraud the city of $100,000," Moran said.
Giorgianni proposed the developer buying the property for $100,000 rather than $200,000 -- as had been proposed by Seymour and Blackburn. And taking the remaining $100,000 to "spread it around."
"And where does it go -- to the pockets of Joe Giorgianni, Charlie Hall and Tony Mack," Moran said.
"Giorgianni raised the steaks," Moran said. "The new deal was to take the money out of the pockets of the City of Trenton and put it in the pockets of Giroganni, Tony Mack and Charlie Hall."
4:04 p.m.: Especially after an FBI investigation into then-Hamilton Mayor John Bencivengo, Ralphiel Mack becomes involved int he scheme as an extra buffer, Moran said.
In the weeks after the Atlantic City meeting, Ralphiel Mack becomes the contact, Moran said.
3:46 p.m.: Eight days after Tony Mack visited the steak shop, Mack, Giorgianni and Hall have dinner together with Seymour at Boby Flays in Atlantic City.
Moran played a call between Giorgianni and Mack where Mack says "no pictures."
"If this was a good project, if it was good for the city, why would Tony Mack not want to take pictures with this developer?" Moran said.
"This is done all the time," Moran said. "Why not take pictures? 'No pictures.' What a peculiar thing to say?"
"Its because it was not a good project," Moran said. "This was a corruption scheme."
3:35 p.m.: In a call from later in the day on April 17, 2012 between Giorgianni and Mack, Giorgianni tells him that Blackburn and the developer have agreed to meet Mack in Atlantic City. In the call Girogianni refers to Blackburn as "what-cha-call-it."
"At no time in this call does JoJo tell Tony Mack who is 'what-cha-call-it,'" Moran said.
"It's because this was the continuation of a conversation that they were having just 15 minutes earlier," Moran said. "Mack knew what he was talking about because he was fully informed about the scheme."
3:29 p.m.: Moran said the fact that Mack started making calls inquiring about debts he could pay off just minutes after he left Giorgianni's steak shop on April 17, 2012, shows that he had cash.
"It was clear from these calls that Tony Mack had cash burning a hole in his pocket that day," Moran said.
3:25 p.m.: Moran tells the jury to make sure they evaluate the testimony of Mary Manfredo and Hall, both who have cooperation agreements.
"Evaluate it closely, but compare it to the other evidence in this case," Moran said.
He said on April 17, 2012 Manfredo testified she saw Giorgianni hand cash to Mack. Moran said Manfredo's testimony matches up to the pole camera footage and surveillance photos showing that Tony Mack and Manfredo were there at the steak shop that day.
3:08 p.m.: Moran tells the jury that Giorgianni makes it clear that in order to get the assistance of Tony Mack the rule is money.
"You pay the bribe payments and Tony Mack might see things differently," Moran said.
"It was not the law, it was money, it was money that was required to get Tony Mack's influence if these guys ever hoped to get this thing through," Moran said.
3:02 p.m.: Now Moran is telling the jury about Ralphiel Mack's involvement in the scheme.
In a Dec. 1, 2011 call between Gioraginni and Mack, Giorgianni refers to the project as "the thing with Ralphiel" before specifying, saying "parking lot."
"The corrupt parking garage scheme was known to all three -- Gioraginni, Tony Mack and Ralphiel," Moran said.
2:54 p.m.: In another one-on-one meeting between Giorgianni and Blackburn, Giorgianni promised Blackburn that Tony and Ralphiel both know that if they are unable to get the parking garage property sold to Blackburn's developers, they have to pay the money back.
"If you take it you're doing it," Giorgianni said.
"Giorgianni was describing the essence of what the judge described as the quid pro quo in this case," Moran said.
2:45 p.m.: Moran plays another call between Giorgianni and Mack where Giorgianni is following up to remind Mack that "uncle remus."
"This call is effectively a decoder ring," Moran said.
He reminded the jury that Blackburn dropped off the first cash bribe payment in two envelopes. Giorgianni says in the recording that uncle remus "came in two parts" and "the number was good."
"How could a person, even if this was a misunderstanding and uncle remus was an actual person in the real world, come in two parts and be a good number?" Moran asked.
Moran said this was a break from the usual discipline that Gioraginni and Mack had.
Mack responds to Giorgianni saying, "Alright I'll talk to him, I'll talk to both of them."
"This is language of ascent, this is language of acceptance," Moran said.
2:35 p.m.: Moran said after Blackburn dropped off cash payments to Giorgianni on Oct 27, 2011 he immediately called Tony Mack. Mack did not pick up the phone.
"You might wonder what Giorgianni might have said," Moran said. "But you don't have to."
Giorgianni sent a text message to Mack dropping the uncle remus code word.
"The code word is revealed," Moran said. "It's uncle remus."
In a later phone conversation with Mack, Giorgianni says uncle remus again. Moran said Mack never questioned the code, but said "Ok baby."
"What he's saying is I have a bribe payment and I cannot talk to you over the phone about it," Moran said.
"It needs to be in private because this is illegal," Moran said.
2:26 p.m.: Moran said Giorgianni told Blackburn that Mack liked to do projects, awarding contracts to people he knows, and in return getting "little white envelopes."
Moran said in this first meeting Giorgianni claimed to have access to the mayor.
"Did the government take his word for it -- no," Moran said.
The FBI obtained Mack's phone records and found many calls between Giorgianni and Mack.
"A direct line to the mayor," Moran said.
"In short, it was discovered that Giorgianni actually had the contact that he claimed to," Moran said.
2:22 p.m.: Bringing the jurors back to the first day of the trial, Moran plays a tape made by Lem Blackburn in his first meeting with Giorgianni.
"There was no mistake about the terms -- this was a corrupt deal and he laid it out," Moran said.
"At the first whiff of a possible corrupt transaction and Joseph Giorgianni, in that recorded conversation, a conversation he did not know was being recorded, told you about the approach of Tony Mack," Moran said.
2:16 p.m.: Moran said that recording made by Hall, who had agreed to cooperate with the FBI, shows what happened behind the scenes in this conspiracy.
"Pizza -- Tony Mack's code word -- being discussed by two of his co conspirators in the safety of Gioraginni's living room," Moran said.
Moran siad the actions of both Tony and Ralphiel Mack, which have been laid out in evidence, fits the road map that Giorgianni described in the recording when he detailed how the conspiracy worked.
2:05 p.m.: Moran pointed to the June 28, 2012 meeting between Giorgianni and Hall at Girogianni's Ewing home where Giorgianni yells at Hall for taking the cash bribe payments.
"JoJo explained it," Moran said. "He set out the methods and means that you heard the judge describe in count one of the indictment."
Giorgianni reprimanded Hall, who was a member of the administration, for taking the cash and said they need to keep Tony Mack safe by using buffers.
"It was the first, in person, recorded meeting of two co-conspirators in this scheme," Moran said. "There were no code words there because they didn't have to avoid the electronic surveillance that they believed was on the phone."
Moran said this conversation is the first time you can frankly see the corrupt, criminal relationship between those involved int he conspiracy.
"Once you finally got to see behind the curtain, what did you see?" Moran asked.
"'Once you take your part in the administration, you are dead' Jo Jo said," Moran recounted.
"This was the rule that each of these co-conspirators lived by," Moran said. "It was a rule that they all lived by, it was a rule that these defendants lived by."
2:01 p.m.: Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Moran begins his closing arguments.
"First, thank you," he said, adding that they have come in the snow to hear this case.
"What weer the hallmarks of his conspiracy?" Moran asked. "Secrecy. Concealment. Stilted and cryptic conversations."
Above all, Moran said, buffers or surrogates to keep Mack safe from the corrupt scheme.
1:55 p.m.: Jury instructions have concluded. The government will begin its closing statement following a ten-minute break.
1:40 p.m.: Shipp has wrapped up the legal instructions and is going on to talking about what the jurors will be doing when they retire for deliberations.
"First, I need to remind you your verdict is guilty or not guilty, and it must be unanimous," he said.
"It is important for you to reach a unanimous agreement, but only if you can do so honestly and in good conscience," Shipp added.
Any questions or requests must be written and signed by the foreperson and passed to the judge via court staff, and Shipp will get back to them as soon as possible, he said.
1:25 p.m.: Peering down through his glasses onto papers he is reading from, Shipp takes a large gulp of water from a glass and launches into instructions for the mail fraud and wire fraud counts.
In order to convict, the jury must find the government proved the Mack brothers "knowingly and intentionally" devised a scheme to defraud Trenton, or willingly participated in a scheme they knew was fraudulent, Shipp said.
Additionally, the government must have proven the Macks intended to defraud, and used or caused the use of the mails, and conferred any signal or sound over electronic communication, he said.
1:00 p.m.: Shipp instructed the jury that actions by any member of the alleged conspiracy can reflect guilt on the defendants.
12:49 p.m.: Shipp is addressing the situation of those who did not testify in the trial.
"A defendant has an absolute Constitutional right not to testify or provide any evidence," Shipp said. "The burden of proof remains with the government and never switches to the defendant."
Neither Mack nor his brother opted to testify in their own defense. They cited under oath in a hearing Friday that they each reached the decision willingly, independently and fully knowledgeable of what the risks were.
Giorgianni was not called to the stand either, and his absence was the subject of a special directive from Shipp to the jury.
"I hereby instruct you that Joseph A. Giorgianni was equally available to both parties.
Shipp is now reading the six counts of the indictment to the jury. The indictment includes charges of extortion, bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud.
12:35 p.m.: "The defendants are presumed to be innocent," Shipp told the jurors. "They started the trial with a clean slate, no evidence against them."
Shipp told the jurors they should use their common sense, good judgement and experience to determine whether or not they believe what a witness is saying. However, the failure to recall is a "common human experience" and not necessarily evidence of lying, Shipp said.
"You should also consider whether the inconsistency was innocent or it was intentional," Shipp said.
12:20 p.m.: For the first time in the trial thus far, a sketch artist is in the courtroom. Cameras are not allowed in federal court, and whatever sketch the artist produces will be the public's first glimpse inside the courtroom with Mayor Mack at the defense table.
12:15 p.m.: Shipp tells the jurors that "if a reasonable doubt remains in your mind" about the guilt of a particular defendant, they must find that defendant not guilty.
12:05 p.m.: Judge Shipp is again deferring the acquittal and mistrial motions and proceeding with the charging of the jury.
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