The owner of Lawrence-based Fuessel Pump & Tank recounts conversations about a city park project and an alleged kickback request from 'The little man from the steak house', Joesph "JoJo" Giorgianni.
LAWRENCE — Rudy Fuessel could tell what the man on the other end of the phone wanted.
Fuessel heard the key phrases, such as “help out,” coming like code through the receiver as the man talked about a job at a Trenton park for R. Fuessel Pump & Tank Co., he recalled.
“The little man from the steak house,” as Fuessel called him, poured it on thick.
“JoJo just asked me if I’d be interested in moving soil for the city,” Fuessel said. “Oh, I knew where he was going, because there was a question asked of me.”
That’s when Joseph “JoJo” Giorgianni said he would expect a $2,500 kickback in exchange for guaranteeing Fuessel’s Lawrence-based company the city job.
“I said, ‘No dice,’” Fuessel recalled.
Fuessel said he refused even though Giorgianni told him, “This is for the mayor,” in reference to Trenton Mayor Tony Mack.
The conversation between Fuessel and Giorgianni early last year, recounted by Fuessel during an interview last month, has not resulted in any charges against Giorgianni or Mack, though Fuessel said he was later notified his phone lines had been tapped by the FBI.
But Fuessel’s account recalls details from one of the charges Giorgianni faces in an unrelated federal corruption case. Mack, Giorgianni and the mayor’s brother Ralphiel Mack were indicted last year on several corruption counts for allegedly seeking to extort payments from city developers.
Giorgianni also allegedly obtained kickback from the owner of a power-washing company in exchange for a cleaning job at a city park.
The federal case, which has yet to go to trial, implicated the three men in a parking garage scam that was monitored by the FBI and resulted in their indictment last December.
But Fuessel said Giorgianni claimed to exercise some control over other city government operations.
In the end, the dirt pile at George Page Park on North Clinton Avenue was disposed of — not by Fuessel, but by a small outfit that bid an undisclosed amount at the 11th hour.
That company, Clean Green Industries, did the removal in late April 2012 and was paid $22,400, nearly $10,000 more than the lowest bid.
What sealed the deal for Clean Green was a $2,000 kickback paid to former city employee Charles Hall III, Hall admitted in federal court in February. Hall, who at the time was in charge of the city’s park projects, said he kept $1,000 of the money.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not ask him to disclose where the other $1,000 went.
Attempts to obtain comment from Clean Green were unsuccessful.
Fuessel said that about three weeks after he turned down Giorgianni’s offer, Hall stopped by his Lawrence office for a talk, taking a seat next to Fuessel’s desk.
“Mr. Hall sat in the chair right there, and I said, ‘Charlie, what do you want?’” Fuessel said. “Charlie just said, ‘You know what I’m here for.’”
Fuessel understood Hall to be talking about the dirt removal project and that he was there as Giorgianni’s emissary, Fuessel said. Once again, he refused the job.
“Maybe I smelled a rat,” Fuessel said. “And I wasn’t going to get trapped in that.”
Hall never mentioned Mack during his visit, directly or indirectly, Fuessel said.
Reached last week, Giorgianni’s attorney Jerome Ballarotto countered that Fuessel’s claims may be completely false.
“It’s very easy for someone to say bad things about another,” Ballarotto said.
“Would I be shocked if there was no truth to this, if someone came forth just to kick (Giorgianni) around?” he said. “No, I wouldn’t be shocked at all.”
Hall’s attorney, Alan Bowman, did not respond to a request for comment.
Fuessel said he sought legal advice and also called John Duggan, the head of USA Environmental, a company Fuessel does subcontracting work for.
“John said, ‘Don’t do it, bud. Don’t touch it,’” Fuessel said.
Duggan confirmed he advised Fuessel not to go near Giorgianni. Though USA Environmental put in a bid to remove the dirt pile, Duggan said he was never approached by Giorgianni, Hall or anyone else who tried to shake him down.
Booming business
Environmental remediation is big business in a former industrial center such as Trenton, where companies truck out tons of contaminated soil to clear the way for new projects and neighborhood revitalization.The pile of dirt in George Page Park was dug up when a new playground was constructed. Whether the contract for the removal job was legitimate or not, the work was done correctly, Department of Environmental spokesman Bob Considine said.
“The excavation went down about 15 inches,” Considine said. “It apparently was stored, handled and disposed of in a proper manner.”
Fuessel, who has been in the business for more than 50 years, said kickbacks to clients from companies seeking jobs are “common.”
“People always try to offer you something,” he said.
But that kind of activity happens more often with private projects, he said. If a proposed deal is not completely honest, it’s not hard to see, Fuessel said
“There’s always something there. I can read if you’re good or bad,” Fuessel said. “I’m 76 and I’m not going to get my family hurt over something like this.”
Shady companies can get around bidding regulations with the help of clients who deliberately underestimate the work involved in exchange for a kickback, he said. The contractor gets the project and later bills the client for the true amount of work, hiking his profit.
“You can estimate to me, and say there’s five tons there and I give you a price on five tons, I get there, there’s 250 tons,” Fuessel said.
At George Page Park, there was a roughly 30 percent discrepancy between the estimated amount of dirt in the pile and the final removal weight, but it is unclear if that was a mistake or intentional. City bidding documents sought bids to move 200 tons of dirt, but the official measure of truckloads of soil delivered to the disposal site, Clean Earth in Philadelphia, shows a total of 292 tons.
Scott Miller, a Trenton resident who spent 27 years as an engineer for environmental companies and now works as a consultant, said the discrepancy is not necessarily a sign of wrongdoing.
“That doesn’t seem fishy to me. I know I’ve been off by more than that on the weight,” Miller said. “You don’t know what the final haul is until the trucks go over the scale.”
Making a case
Hall had a close relationship with both Mack and Giorgianni, making him an ideal cooperating witness for the FBI in the corruption case against both men.Last August, Mack said during an interview that he had never heard of Clean Green Industries and had no idea they had done work for the city. But he was familiar with the dirt removal job at George Page Park, according to an e-mail written by J.R. Capasso, the city’s brownfields coordinator in the Housing Department, who described an April 5, 2012 meeting with Mack and other officials.
In the e-mail, which was released as part of an Open Public Records Act request, Capasso wrote to Hall that the mayor “brought up the pile. He is receiving complaints directly and this issue could create problems.”
There is no evidence Mack knew of any kickback scheme orchestrated by Hall or Giorgianni. Fuessel said he has not had any contact with Mack during his time as mayor of Trenton.
However, Fuessel knew Giorgianni from North Trenton, where Fuessel’s pump and tank company has a base of operations a block away from JoJo’s Steak House.
Fuessel said he was not sure if Charles Hall was working for the FBI when he came to the office to talk about the project. But several months ago Fuessel was notified by the FBI that the government had tapped his cell phone, two work lines, two home phone lines and fax machine last year during their investigation, he said.
Despite all the scrutiny, Fuessel said FBI investigators never actually paid him a visit.
He said he is glad he turned down the alleged offer of a kickback.
“I’m so happy,” he said, clasping his hands together in front of him. “I’m so happy it was ‘no.’”
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
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