TRENTON—Joseph "JoJo" Giorgianni called it "good corruption."

Just two months into Trenton Mayor Tony Mack's administration, a parking garage development deal emerged in the city. Bribes were offered and accepted. Money changed hands. And the FBI recorded all of the details over a two-year span with the help of two cooperating witnesses, authorities said yesterday.

“One thing about the Mack administration, when I say that, it’s me and Mack, we’re not greedy,” Giorgianni was recorded telling an FBI witness. “We’re corruptible. We want anybody to make a buck.”

Federal authorities arrested Mack, Giorgianni and Mack’s brother Ralphiel Mack yesterday after a corruption probe that has spanned nearly the entire Mack administration. The 31-page criminal complaint charging them with extorting bribes provided extensive detailed conversations regarding $119,000 in cash payments the trio conspired to receive as part of the parking garage deal.

If convicted, Mayor Mack and his brother Ralphiel, who is the Trenton Central High School football coach, face up to 20 years in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said. Giorgianni, who also charged separately with trafficking prescription pills, faces up to 50 years if convicted of all counts.

Mayor Mack, shackled at his hands and feet, made his first appearance in federal court and was granted $150,000 unsecured bail. He and his brother were both released, while Giorgianni was ordered under house arrest with electronic monitoring.

The FBI built its case against Mack with the help of two cooperating witnesses, who recorded dozens of conversations many involving code names and code words, authorities said.

Mack, a 46-year-old first term mayor, was referred to by the aliases “Napoleon,” “the Little Guy,” and “Honey Fitz,” while Giorgianni was called “Mr. Baker” and “the Fat Man,” according to the federal complaint. Giorgianni called the cash payments “Uncle Remus,” authorities said.

Between October 2011 and June of this year, a total of $54,000 in corrupt cash payments was transferred seven separate exchanges to pay for the land deal that would make the parking garage possible, authorities said. An additional $65,000 was promised as part of the bribe, but had not been paid at the time FBI agents raided the homes of both Mack and Giorgianni on July 18, authorities said.

The complaint details Giorgianni acting as a middleman, setting up deals with a developer looking to build the garage on a city-owned lot on East State Street, along with a consultant working on the project. Both were cooperating with the FBI.

Also involved was a person identified only as another co-conspirator, a city employee who was an associate of the three men and is described as Giorgianni’s right-hand man. That co-conspirator was identified as recreation department employee Charles Hall III by Carmen Melendez, a mayoral assistant who until last week served as the city’s acting director of housing and economic development.

A MEETING

The complaint details a May 2012 meeting between the co-conspirator and a person only identified as “Trenton Official-1” where a letter setting the price for the parking garage property was discussed. Melendez said she was the official who spoke about the letter with Hall, and remembered minor details about the conversation and the text of the letter.

Federal law enforcement agents drafted the letter and handed it off to the would-be developer, authorities said. He sent it to Giorgianni, who had it personally approved by Mack during a meeting on Giorgianni’s front porch, authorities said.

Melendez identified as North Bergen-based Seymour Builders as the developer for the phony parking garage project used as a sting. According to the complaint, the witness was paid by the FBI for his time and expense in the investigation.

Complete coverage of the FBI arrests:



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• Public officials call for Trenton Mayor Tony Mack to step down following FBI arrest in corruption probe



• FBI corruption suspect in Trenton Mayor Tony Mack case seeks inspiration from 'The Godfather,' Machiavelli

• Fate of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack's brother, also charged with corruption, remains unclear

• Trenton Mayor Tony Mack corruption scandal's three main players

• Excerpts from criminal complaint filed against Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, two others

• Joseph 'JoJo' Giorgianni ordered under house arrest in Tony Mack case, separate drug charges

• Trenton Mayor Tony Mack is released on $150K bail on corruption charge

In a recorded conversation in May, the other cooperating witness, identified by Giorgianni as former attorney Lemuel Blackburn, told the steak shop owner he had two $25,000 envelopes for Giorgianni and "the Little Guy" and an additional $15,000 payment would be forthcoming if the city offered the developer the East State property for $200,000.

Giorgianni proposed the city instead set the property price at $100,000, with another $100,000 going to Giorgianni, Mack and the co-conspirator, according to the federal complaint.

Money for the project changed hands in Giorgianni's steak shop, as well as a casino and restaurant in Atlantic City, in amounts from $3,000 to $25,000, the complaint states. Physical surveillance by agents and a camera set up on a pole outside JoJo's Steak House in Trenton provided additional evidence cited in the charges filed yesterday.

The complaint has little dialogue from Mack, usually consisting of “um-hmm,” “good,” “okay,” and “okay, baby” responses to Giorgianni’s prompting. None of the cooperating witnesses is recorded as directly giving money to Mack, but federal authorities accused Giorgianni of taking $1,500 cash on Oct. 27, 2011, “with the express understanding that Giorgianni would give one of the envelopes to (Mack).”

Three weeks later, when Mack was in Atlantic City for the League of Municipalities convention, federal officials watched Giorgianni carry an envelope similar the one carrying the cash buried under some papers, authorities said. Agents obtained casino surveillance that showed Mack and Giorgianni having a private meeting, after which Giorgianni handed off the papers to the mayor, authorities said.

THE MONEY CARRIER

Federal officials allege Mack used his brother, Ralphiel Mack, as an intermediary to carry money. According to the complaint, $2,500 in $100 bills with the same serial numbers Giorgianni accepted on June 28 were found inside Ralphiel Mack’s house.

During the raid of his home July 18, Tony Mack told agents his family members assist him in paying his personal bills, and that Ralphiel Mack was paying for his PSE&G utility service, authorities said.

Despite being intercepted and recorded several times speaking with Giorgianni about “Uncle Remus” over the phone, the mayor initially told the agents he was unfamiliar the term. Later in the interview, he said he remembered the title was a phrase Giorgianni would sometimes use.

Photos: Trenton City Hall is raided by FBI in expanding probe of Mayor Tony Mack 40 Gallery: Photos: Trenton City Hall is raided by FBI in expanding probe of Mayor Tony Mack

Fishman would not say whether the parking garage sting is the end of the FBI’s probe into corruption in city government.

"All I'm going to say is the investigation is continuing," Fishman said. FBI agents raided Trenton City Hall the day after the initial search of Mack's house and seized reams of files. Search warrants in the case indicate a more wide ranging probe.

Mack and Giorgianni were taken to the FBI field office in Hamilton immediately after their arrests at their homes yesterday morning, where they were soon joined by Ralphiel Mack and his attorney. Shortly after 10 a.m., a stone-faced and silent Mack emerged from the office. He was dressed in a gray pin-striped suit and white shirt for the trip to federal court, and his hands were cuffed behind his back.

Giorgianni, handcuffed but clutching a white Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup, was wheeled out of the office by FBI agents, including one toting a tank of oxygen for the reportedly ailing 63-year-old, who an attorney said suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“No comment, and you can quote me on that,” Giorgianni said when asked about his arrest.

Later that afternoon, in their initial joint appearance before U.S. Magistrate Douglas E. Arpert, Mack, his brother and Giorgianni said little, only conversing quietly with their attorneys and answering Arpert’s questions with one-word replies.

Arpert set $150,000 unsecured bail for the two brothers. Both must surrender their passports, cannot leave the state without permission and cannot speak with any witnesses, victims or co-defendants in the case. By virtue of their family ties, Tony and Ralphiel Mack may speak to each other without requiring an attorney to be present.

'INNOCENT OF THE CHARGES'

After the bail hearing, attorney Mark Davis said he was hired by Mack yesterday morning and couldn’t comment at length on the case.

“He is innocent of the charges,” Davis said. “I saw a copy of the complaint and the complaint is full of accusations, as they (often) are.”

A grand jury indictment must be handed down in the next 30 days, unless both sides agree to a continuance. Davis and Fishman said they don’t expect a trial against Mack to begin until next year.

Giorgianni, who served prison time in the 1980s on a molestation conviction, faces 30 years in prison on gun possession and drug conspiracy charges. Eight other people were charged in the drug distribution network case.

Deemed a potential flight risk and danger to the community, Giorgianni was ordered under house arrest, with electronic ankle monitoring. His bail was set at $250,000, backed by secured property.

Melendez, who was not charged with a crime and said she only did what she was ordered to do, sat in the front row in court as the mayor appeared, her eyes teary and red-rimmed behind her glasses.

“The documents I forwarded to them, that was under my tenure in the position, but there was no wrongdoing involved,” Melendez said. “It was all in the proper channels of government.”

The idea of a parking garage on the city-owned property on East State Street predated Mack’s administration and was first proposed during the tenure of his predecessor, Mayor Doug Palmer, she said.

For Giorgianni and Mack, federal authorities said they viewed Mack’s administration as a means to enrich themselves.

“We want this,” Giorgianni allegedly told the government informant who proposed the parking garage bribe in September 2010. “What do you think we did all this for?”

Staff writer Erin Duffy contributed to this report.

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