The employee has not been charged with a crime and was not arrested, Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson said.
TRENTON — Law enforcement officers were back at City Hall today, questioning a city employee as part of an investigation, Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson would not identify the employee, but he said the person had not been charged with a crime. The employee was interviewed or questioned outside of the building, he said.
The FBI staged a full-fledged raid of City Hall in July 2012 as part of its investigation into Mayor Tony Mack. Agents had searched Mack’s home the previous day.
That investigation led to Mack’s arrest in September 2012, his indictment that December, and a federal corruption trial that began early last month. Mack was convicted on all counts Feb. 7, but still remains in office.
A spokesperson for the FBI said agents did not arrest anyone at City Hall, but did not offer further information.
The investigators did not appear to be from local law enforcement agencies, officials attending a meeting at Trenton Police headquarters said.
Mercer County First Assistant Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said today he was not notified any county detectives were going over to City Hall. The prosecutor’s office has, however, began investigations of witness tampering at the Trenton Water Works and funding for the city’s 2013 Thanksgiving Day parade within the last three months.
Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. and Lt. Steve Varn, head of the department’s detective bureau, said city police were not involved in the investigation. Police officers had investigated a theft of $2,000 from a safe in the inspections department barely three weeks before the unrelated FBI raids in 2012.
FBI agents twice subpoenaed records connected to five housing development projects began during the administration of former Mayor Douglas Palmer — once in late 2010 and again in late December 2012.
Members of the city’s housing department were interviewed by the IRS last July as part of that investigation, days before developer Robert Kahan was indicted on 25 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud and false loan applications.
Kahan’s trial is scheduled to begin in September.
Meanwhile, Mack has filed for a new trial in federal court, and will fight his ouster from office in the wake of his federal conviction in Superior Court today.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
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