The trial of Mack and two co-defendants is scheduled to begin four months before Trenton's mayoral and council elections next year.
TRENTON – Mayor Tony Mack and his co-defendants in a federal corruption case have a new trial date scheduled for Jan. 6, 2014, Mack’s lawyer Mark Davis said today.
The trial date, four months before the next mayoral election, was set by Judge Michael A. Shipp during a status conference today attended by Davis and lawyers for the other defendants, the mayor’s brother Ralphiel Mack and his campaign supporter Joseph “Jojo” Giorgianni.
The trial had been expected to start this summer, but Davis said he pushed for a later date so that he and the other attorneys could sort through the wiretaps, documents and video that make up a large part of the government’s evidence.
“It’s the best-case scenario for everybody,” Davis said on the steps of the federal courthouse in Trenton this afternoon. “As much as we would like a speedy trial, we have to go through the discovery, which is voluminous.”
Davis also said that Shipp and the attorneys discussed the budget for the attorneys to pay for the processing of the evidence. All the attorneys are now court-appointed and being paid out of federal funds.
The status conference was held in Shipp’s chambers and none of the defendants were required to appear. Giorgianni attended briefly, entering and leaving in a wheelchair pushed by an attendant, while trying to use two canes to block his face from news photographers.
Mack and his brother were indicted in January on six counts of extortion, bribery, and wire and mail fraud. Giorgianni faces seven counts in the case. The government alleges the three men worked to extort money from developers in a downtown parking garage project. The developers were actually FBI informants.
Giorgianni faces an additional six counts in a drug case, in which Mack and his brother are not charged. The court has delayed hearing that case until at least late September.
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