Earlier this week, and unremarked at the time (at least by me), Charles Hall III – the Trenton Water Works employee who spent his time working in City Hall with the Recreation Department – pleaded guilty in Federal Court to charges of extortion and conspiracy to distribute drugs. Mr. Hall will be sentenced in June.
Mr. Hall was introduced to us all as “CC-1,” the un-named co-conspirator mentioned throughout the criminal complaint filed in September by the FBI against the Indicted Occupant of Trenton’s Mayor’s Office, his brother Ralphiel Mack, and Joseph Giogianni. This is the same complaint, later incorporated into Federal criminal indictments, that also introduced Trentonians to “Honey Fitz,” “the Little Guy,” “Mr. Baker,” “Napoleon,” and last not least, “Uncle Remus.”
Hall pleaded guilty to the same charges of extortion on which the other three gentlemen will stand trial later this year. In the Trenton Times article by Alex Zdan published yesterday, we read that Mr. Hall also admitted “also admitted in court yesterday that he steered city contracts to a Franklin Township power washing company and city environmental firm in exchange for kickbacks.”
These are not charges that the IO and the other two face, but we know about this case. The FBI investigated this incident last summer, and Mr. Zdan wrote an article about it on August 9, 2012. Published along with the article was a copy of a City of Trenton Purchase Order to a company called Five Star Auto Detailing that looked awfully squirrelly. I noted in a piece at the time that the PO looked very irregular, and the manner in which the transaction was calculated looked “very suspect” to me. Since Mr. Zdan’s article included a quote from the owner of the auto detailing company saying she had paid a “finder’s fee,” the whole matter seemed criminal to me. I finished by saying “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”
We now know it was, in fact, a duck. The recipient of the “finder’s fee” was Mr. Hall. The “fee” was $1300 of the $4,911 job in cash, of which he kept $600, presumably passing along the remaining $700 to one or more of the co-conspirators, although that part is not described in yesterday’s piece.
So Mr. Hall’s side of this business is resolved. Since his appearance in Court the other day was not announced in advance, came without trial and centered on a swift guilty plea, we can reasonably suppose that his judgment is part of an arrangement that will bring Mr. Hall back to the courtroom in the summer to testify against his other co-conspirators. I guess Mr. Hall and his lawyer looked at what the Feds had in evidence against him, concluded the case was too strong, and made the best deal he could.
What can we conclude from Mr. Hall’s appearance and plea this week?
I think the main lesson for this week is that we now see that, apart from the very narrow specific charges concerning the State Street parking garage sting for which the other 3 will stand trial, the Five Star Auto Detailing purchase order proves that there was other crimes committed in and around City Hall during the Administration of the Current Occupant, committed by other criminals. Charles Hall is only the first to be convicted in Federal Court.
We don’t know yet how the current prosecution against the IO and the others will play out this summer. We don’t know if the FBI and Department of Justice have any other investigations under way, and other individuals in their sights. And, although we haven’t heard much from Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini or the NJ Attorney General’s office lately, at least as recently as three months ago we heard that they may have some things in the works. Mr. Bocchini’s office is currently prosecuting on fraud and forgery charges another city employee, union head Dave Tallone, but Tallone has not been connected to the IO and his inner circle.
Will there be others? I don’t know. We know all too well that too much of what we have seen over the last three years has been outrageous. Mr. Hall’s example this week has proved that a lot of it is criminal.
Criminals are being brought to justice, and justice is now being done.
To Be Continued, later this year.