A timeline of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack's time in office from inauguration to indictment
Trenton Mayor Tony Mack speaks to City Council in their chambers on Tuesday, April 3, 2012.
July 2010
• Tony Mack takes office as mayor. His campaign donors include convicted child molester Joseph “Jo-Jo” Giorgianni.
• The independent library board announces plans to close the city’s four branch libraries.
August 2010
• Mack nominates friend Carleton Badger as housing director. Badger drops out after his past indictments for forgery and theft are reported.
• Mack administration calls in police and sheriff’s officers to oust deputy clerk Cordelia Staton from City Hall.
• Mack’s Berkeley Square home falls into foreclosure for at least the second time.
September 2010
• Municipal courthouse developer sues after Mack cancels the project, demanding $7 million in rent, plus damages.
• Records show Mack received a $20,000 mortgage loan from a Burlington County woman in April 2010 and deposited the same amount in his campaign account. The sum exceeds contribution limits; loans disguised as campaign contributions are illegal.
October 2010
• Mack is criticized over delayed notifications after a Trenton Water Works water contamination scare.
November 2010
• About 72 city workers are laid off in response to the city’s budget deficit.
• Municipal Judge Renee Sumners, a Mack friend and appointee, resigns over bounced checks and unpaid debts.
• Acting business administrator Andrew McCrosson, a Mack appointee, quits and pleads guilty to stealing from a congressional campaign.
January 2011
• Mack administration proposes selling city properties for $1 to a developer whose parent company contributed $6,000 to Mack’s campaign.
• The Department of Community Affairs rejects two of Mack’s director nominees as unqualified.
• Mack half-brother Stanley Davis and two other water utility employees are indicted for doing side jobs with city equipment on city time. Guhl says Mack ordered an overtime policy change that benefited his brother. Davis eventually pleads guilty.
• Acting police director Ernie Williams quits after learning from the press that Mack intends to replace him.
• Mack arrives mid-way through a council meeting in his sweat pants, berating council members for “conniving” against him and accusing Council President George Muschal of spying on his staff.
• Campaign finance reports show that Cooper Levenson, a politically connected law firm Mack hired, donated $7,200 to Mack’s campaign through the Partners for Progress PAC, violating the city’s pay-to-play law, acting law director Marc McKithen said.
• Cooper Levenson agrees to terminate its city contract.
February 2011
• A laid-off park ranger supervisor sues, saying civil service rules were violated when he was replaced by a Mack political ally.
• Partners for Progress’ treasurer says the FBI is interviewing the PAC’s officers.
March 2011
• Under DCA pressure to improve his staff, Mack hires former county freeholder Paul Sigmund as chief of staff.
• Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg calls Mack aide Anthony Roberts “completely unqualified” to evaluate contract bids, rejecting the city’s effort to cancel an information technology contract.
• Paul Sigmund is charged with speeding and driving without a valid license.
Trenton Mayor Tony Mack addresses city council in their chambers on Thursday, March 15, 2012.
May 2011
• Sigmund is found wandering in a neighborhood near City Hall with heroin in his pocket and assaults an officer, police say. Police Director Joseph Juniak demands Sigmund be fired. Sigmund resigns.
• Records show park rangers hired under Mack, including political ally Robert Mendez, accumulated significant overtime. The DCA says it is “extraordinarily concerned with what appear to be doctored time sheets.”
June 2011
• The Committee to Recall Tony Mack begins collecting signatures.
• Law director Marc McKithen quits, reportedly after clashing with the administration over public information requests.
• Mack’s brother Ralphiel Mack is rehired as Trenton Central High football coach after an assault charge was dismissed.
August 2011
• Layoff notices are sent to 149 city employees, including more than 100 police officers, about a third of the department.
• Judge Feinberg rules the administration violated open public records laws by not releasing financial records to two civic activists.
• Municipal court director Nathaniel Jones is found to be serving despite a past assault conviction and never receiving council approval. He goes on paid leave and is later shifted to the law department.
September 2011
• Just before the police layoffs, Mack unveils a $4,000 portrait wall in City Hall of himself and preceding mayors.
• Business administrator Eric Berry, the seventh person to serve in the position under Mack, quits after six months.
• Mack names Harold Hall acting public works director despite DCA criticism of his qualifications.
October 2011
• Acting housing director Carmen Melendez owes more than $50,000 in taxes and $90,000 on two business loans.
• Mack orders police drug and anti-crime units disbanded in favor of more foot patrols. Four council members rebuke Mack for his hiring missteps and policing plans, with two endorsing the recall effort.
• The Mercer County prosecutor intervenes and Mack compromises on policing, agreeing to preserve the specialized units.
• A judge orders the reinstatement of two Water Works employees who said they were demoted and then suspended for providing evidence in the criminal case against Mack’s half-brother. The decision is later reversed.
• Mack appoints his fourth acting police director, removing Sgt. Chris Doyle, who opposed the foot-patrol policing plan.
• Mack threatens to reject $6 million in state aid accompanied by stronger state control of city hiring. He later agrees to an altered agreement.
• Laid-off recreation staffer Maria Richardson alleges Mack gave an aide a no-show job and Harold Hall hired unqualified friends and relatives and sought to bypass competitive bidding laws.
• Records show Hall split up construction project bids; that allowed the city to bypass public bidding requirements.
• A proposed bond measure would help pay for field improvements at Trenton Central High, where Ralphiel Mack is the football coach. The city comptroller says Mayor Mack personally asked for the funding, which a state finance board later bars.
November 2011
• The recall committee fails to collect enough signatures to force an early mayoral election.
January 2012
• Mack unsuccessfully asks council to hike his pay $28,000 to $154,000 and give raises to top city officials.
February 2012
• Council suspends the salary budget for the mayor’s office for four months, citing poor job performance.
• City Hall, the police and senior centers run out of toilet paper after a bidding dispute, drawing international attention.
• The DCA rejects Trenton’s request for a permanent state aid increase, citing the city’s lack of a “sound management structure.”
Trenton Mayor Tony Mack holds his first "Ask the Mayor" question-and-answer session on Tuesday, November 13, 2012.
March 2012
• Mack calls the council’s budget approval “out of order” because of his staff’s salary cuts, but the DCA says the budget is valid.
• Veteran housing department employee Henrietta Owusu sues, alleging she was denied promotion as punishment for reporting inappropriate actions by acting director Melendez.
April 2012
• Mack begins reopening shuttered library branches as “learning centers,” bypassing the library board and state rules on libraries.
May 2012
• Local legislators propose a law change making it easier to recall mayors.
June 2012
• Council rejects employment extensions for Hall, Melendez and acting health director Ruth Carter. Mack ignores the vote.
• Council scrutinizes recreation spending under Hall, who effectively runs the division, criticizing a $17,000 sign installed at Cadwalader Park without landmarks commission approval.
July 2012
• Mack takes direct control of recreation, removing the division from Hall’s control.
• FBI raids Mack’s, Ralphiel Mack’s, and campaign donor Joseph Giorgianni’s homes.
• Warrants show that an East State Street parking garage project is part of the FBI probe.
August 2012
• Electricity and gas to Mack’s home are temporarily shut off due to nonpayment, PSE&G says.
• Public records show Mack owes more than $50,000 to the IRS and has two properties in foreclosure. Mack later puts his home and two other buildings up for sale.
• Two companies named in FBI warrants received no-bid city contracts, records show. Warrants and subpoenas name a long list of individuals and entities, including Trenton Babe Ruth Baseball and a towing company that has had a city contract.
• The owner of an auto-detailing company named in an FBI warrant says she paid an unidentified person a “finder’s fee” for getting her a power-washing contract for Mill Hill Park.
• Figures show crime in Trenton is up 12 percent over seven months, following police layoffs.
• The Cadwalader Park sign erected without landmark commission approval is removed.
September 2012
• The city scraps Mack’s plan to start its own recycling program. Mack was previously the city’s recycling coordinator.
• Mack, Ralphiel Mack and Giorgianni are arrested on extortion charges for allegedly receiving bribes from a developer of a proposed downtown parking garage, who was working with the FBI. They allegedly received $54,000 and expected another $65,000. Mack’s phone was wiretapped for months, according to FBI documents.
• City Council members, county officials and a state legislator call from Mack to step down. Ralphiel Mack is suspended from his school coaching and counselor jobs.
• Police Director Ralph Rivera swears in 15 rehired officers and reorganizes the department.
• Former councilwoman Cordelia Staton is rehired as deputy clerk, after being fired two years earlier.
• The administration proposes a $186 million budget with a 5 percent tax increase.
• Mack’s half-brother Stanley “Muscles” Davis gets six years in jail for defrauding the city.
October 2012
• The Marriott company says it is taking its name off Trenton’s struggling city-owned hotel.
November 2012
• Council votes to cut Mack’s salary in half; Mack vetoes the measure and an override effort fails.
• Trenton request $21 million in state transitional aid.
• Mack begins holding “Ask the Mayor” sessions about every week.
• Council agrees to pay $1.3 million to settle with Westside Plaza, which sued after Mack canceled a deal to build a municipal courthouse there.
December 2012
• Prosecutors tell Mack’s attorney Mark Davis a plea deal would likely yield a 5-year term; Davis says his client is not interested.
• A series of murders rock the city, bringing the homicide count to 24 this year.
• A federal grand jury releases an 8-count indictment of Mack, Ralphiel Mack and Giorgianni.