The federal fraud and extortion trial of Guttenberg-based businessman Rene Abreu took two bizarre turns over the last week, when two jurors asked to be excused from continuing to serve on the jury, decreasing the alternate jury pool to one.
The trial is expected to carry through the end of the month. It began April 6, has already taken its toll on everyone involved in the daily grind at the U.S. Federal Court in Newark.
The juror dismissed last Monday notified the court that she had been accepted to enroll in a training course that will allow her to continue to receive unemployment benefits while still under training.
Another female juror asked to be excused late last week, because she had planned a vacation cruise several months ago and was ready to set sail.
That juror was presented with a certificate of appreciation by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Greenaway. Both excused jurors were warned by Greenaway not to speak to anyone about the case, especially the media.
According to court reports of the trial, when the jurors were excused, Abreu’s team of attorneys asked Greenaway to put the trial on hold for a week, while the one juror was away on vacation. They argued that testimony could resume when she returned, stating that they believed everyone involved with the case could use a little break.
However, the U.S. Attorney’s representatives prosecuting the case believed that the trial should not be interrupted, insisting that they move forward because the trial is already behind schedule.
Thirty counts
Abreu, the mortgage and real estate businessman who has also been a big political supporter of people like West New York Mayor and State Assembly Speaker Albio Sires and Rep. Robert Menendez, is standing trial on more than 30 counts, including allegedly extorting money from illegal gambling operations in West New York, money laundering, check kiting, filing false loan applications, and structuring bank deposits to avoid paying income tax. Prosecutors say the crimes are connected to a series of financial deals Abreu oversaw through three businesses he owns with his wife, Lourdes Adan-Abreu.
Last December, Adan-Abreu pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud.
Abreu is currently being tried along with four co-defendants who have all maintained their innocence throughout the exhausting trial procedures.
The trial began with 12 jurors and four alternate jurors. One juror was dismissed for medical reasons shortly after jury selection. Twelve jurors are required to reach a verdict, although it is possible to proceed with only 11, if both sides agree to it.
A real page turner
According to a published report, an additional bizarre twist took place Monday when a juror was spotted reading a book, apparently an Anne Rice vampire novel, right in the middle of defense testimony from attorneys Tim Donohue and Dennis McAlevy. Both attorneys were questioning defense witness Mary Homer, an accountant who testified that she spotted something odd with some Abreu loan applications and notified her superiors.
The female juror had apparently brought reading materials into the jury box before being spotted by Greenaway on Monday. She was apparently instructed by the judge to not continue the practice, and the trial proceeded. According to a source in the U.S. Attorney’s office, Mary Homer, a former employee of the accounting firm of Milgrom, Galuskin, Balmouth and Company of Edison, testified Monday that she wrote a letter her superior, Ronald Rosner, after noticing loan documents pertaining to an Abreu business in which a loan secured was for a greater amount than the cost of the property being purchased.
Homer said she was alarmed by the situation because she noticed there were cash deposits just below $10,000, which is the minimum total allowed before having to file a cash transaction report with the Internal Revenue Service.
Rosner and Martin Galuskin, both of Milgrom, Galuskin, Balmouth and Company, have already pleaded guilty to aiding and assisting Abreu and his wife in the preparation and filing of false income tax returns, according to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carlos Ortiz and Deborah Goldklang. The two men are cooperating with the government.
Four other defendants, Kathy Giunta, Anna Martell, Fernando Jimenez and Luis Nieves, also face charges in the case.
Donohue, the attorney for Martell of North Bergen, tried to show that any problem Homer may have seen in the Abreu account was not enough for her to take any serious action. Martell was the bookkeeper for Mortgage Pros, Inc. and other Abreu companies. She is charged with fraud in connection with the filing of false loan applications.
Homer said she continued to do accounting work for Abreu for nearly two years after writing the letter to her boss. During that time frame, Homer admitted to having met with Martell and spoke to her by phone regarding the accounts.
While questioning Homer, Abreu’s attorney, Gerald Krovatin, made a point that although she was called to the witness stand for the defense, Homer had already arranged a deal with the government. Krovatin said Homer was given immunity in exchange for her cooperation in the early stages of the investigation and was then given a formal non-prosecution agreement, unlike Rosner and Galuskin, two members of the firm who have already pleaded guilty to criminal charges.
Another sidelight to the trial took place late last week, when Paul Kukla, a former employee for Hudson United Bank in Union City, testified that he approved more than $1 million in bank overdrafts by Abreu’s three companies.
However, prosecution lawyers used Kukla in an attempt to show that the overdrafts were part of a policy of former Hudson United Senior Vice-President Luis Nieves, another of Abreu’s co-defendants.
Different accounts
Prosecution attorneys say that through the alleged check-kiting scheme, both men continuously drew checks on Abreu’s commercial bank accounts with HUB, even when the accounts did not have sufficient funds to back the transactions.
According to the court reports, the money was apparently used to credit other Abreu accounts, which in turn were used to pay for various business and personal expenses. Kukla testified that he would look over Nieves’ business accounts whenever Nieves was away.
As part of his testimony, Kukla said that he would regularly approve Abreu’s overdrafts and sometimes did so for amounts that were nearly six times greater than Abreu’s $150,000 overdraft approval clearance level.
Krovatin produced used bank records that showed that while Nieves was on vacation in August of 2000, Kukla approved overdrafts by Abreu ranging between $310,000 and $700,000. Krovatin pointed out that Kukla had apparently approved similar transactions in December of the same year. Kukla has never been charged with any wrongdoing as part of the case.
Kukla said that he was just following instructions given to him by his superior officer, namely Nieves, who signed off on all similar overdraft transactions.
In all, 11 people have been charged in the original 43-count indictment handed up in May, 2002. Six of the original 11, including Abreu’s wife, have since pleaded guilty.