TRENTON, N.J. - Federal authorities turned to a familiar method to build their case against Trenton Mayor Tony Mack: They used a government informant to try to bribe a public official over a fake land-development deal.
Mack, his brother Ralphiel and convicted sex offender Joseph Giorgianni, a Mack supporter who owns a Trenton sandwich shop, were each accused Monday of a single charge of conspiring to extort the undercover informants who pulled them into the scheme.
The plan to turn a downtown Trenton lot into a parking garage was concocted solely for the bust. Officials said there was no intent to put up the garage. At a news conference Monday, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman joked that he didn't know whether there was a shortage of parking in the area.
The case has echoes of "Bid Rig," a massive New Jersey corruption case that netted 46 arrests three years ago.
In that case, Solomon Dwek, a disgraced real estate speculator and admitted Ponzi schemer, agreed to wear a wire for the government in a plea deal after his arrest in a $50 million bank fraud.
While most of those implicated were convicted, the government's case was not a slam-dunk against each of them.
About three-quarters of the defendants pleaded guilty. But two were acquitted by jurors and four had charges dropped by a judge.
Authorities have not named the two informants who were at the heart of the Mack case, but said that one was cooperating to try to get a better deal in his own criminal case while the other was paid.
