A self-employed chiropractor since graduating chiropractor college in 1958, Nicholas Cicco is of a rare political breed: as mayor of Guttenberg, he was charged in 1989 in a 12-count federal indictment – but he was eventually exonerated by a federal appeals court.
Still doing business in the city where he was born, he still ponders the circumstances that led to the demise of his political career, and sees history repeating itself in both local and national politics, where political figures have become subjects of dubious undercover sting operations in the last year.
“I believe I was a good mayor.” – Nicholas Cicco
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A well-entrenched political figure at the time of his arrest, Cicco served on the Guttenberg City Council for 12 years before being elected mayor.
“I believe I was a good mayor,” he said during a recent interview. He decided to talk partly because he is troubled by the rash of questionable investigations that ruin people’s careers, often based on minimum evidence.
The sting that caught Beldini, Elwell, and Cammarano involved a Monmouth County developer, Solomon Dwek, becoming a government informant in order to reduce his sentence for bank fraud. Last year, he went to various local politicians, wearing a wire, and offered to donate money in exchange for their help on future development projects that actually didn’t exist.
So far, Beldini has stood trial; Elwell and Cammarano have pleaded not guilty and haven’t stood trial yet.
Chiappone’s indictment came from a shaky allegation that he unfairly used his legislative aides’ checks for personal and campaign funds.
Cicco was also snared by a federal investigation. He survived a trial in which he and Councilman Vincent Tabbachino were initially convicted, before he appealed. So Cicco knows how terrible accused political figures feel – and perhaps more importantly, how they fail to get their lost reputations back even when pronounced innocent.
Lost respect
Perhaps the most famous example of a tarnished reputation was Ray Donovan, who was put through the ringer of political scandal in the early 1980s when President Ronald Reagan nominated him as Secretary of Labor. Accused of being associated with underworld elements, Donovan was later exonerated, but asked, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?” (Donovan had also once operated a business in Secaucus.)
In 1989, then-mayor of Guttenberg Nicholas Cicco and Councilman Vincent Tabbachino were charged in a federal indictment with 12 counts of fraud, bribery, and other related crimes.
The charges ruined their political careers, but both men were later exonerated by a federal appeals court.
However, the court did prove that two town employees were punished, possibly for their political views.
The case that fell apart
The federal government tried to prove that Cicco and Tabbachino had deliberately devised a scheme to collect money for political patronage over a time span from Nov. 8, 1988 to April 24, 1989.
Both men were charged with threatening part-time municipal employees with the loss of work if they didn’t provide political services and loyalty to the established Democratic Party in Guttenberg.
While some of the charges were dropped during the trial, a jury eventually convicted Cicco and Tabbachino of theft and bribery and depriving employees of their livelihood. Some of the federal charges were based on the fact that several programs for which the employees worked received federal grant money. Federal law protects federally-funded employees from political retribution or forced contributions to political campaigns, a legal argument that may be relevant to a recent lawsuit filed by Bayonne Councilman Ted Connolly against the Hudson County sheriff.
But in his appeal, Cicco said there was no fraudulent scheme. He pointed to other flaws in the original case that eventually won him an appeal.
The investigation made use of audio tapes that were designed to try to get Cicco to incriminate himself, which he said he never did. A court said the tapes were illegally made.
Two part-time special police officers met with their friend, an unsuccessful Republican candidate against Cicco and Tabbachino’s slate, who arranged a meeting with detectives at the office of the Hudson County Prosecutor, where the two men agreed to secretly tape Cicco and Tabbachino. But this taping was apparently done without the permission of the prosecutor at the time.
The federal case attempted to prove that Cicco and Tabbachino were trying to extort future favors from the employees, not merely punish them for disloyalty to the Democratic organization. This point became a fatal flaw in the prosecution’s case, leading to the eventual reversal of the charges, since the evidence appeared not to show extortion for future services, a necessary element in their conviction. In other words, the appeals court did indeed find that the two political figures punished two special police officers for not supporting the Democrats, but not that they asked for anything in the future.
In September 1992, both men were sentenced to modified charges that resulted in one year probation each. An appeal was filed within a week. The conviction was upheld in an appeals court ruling in November 1992. But the conviction was overturned in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1993.
Cicco and Tabbachino argued that the tapes did not provide enough evidence to sustain the conviction. The court agreed and did not rule on the second perhaps more potent argument: that the federal law concerning political intimidation was too broad.
His head held high
To this day, Cicco denies doing anything wrong.
“Because of political reasons, the [Guttenberg] governing body chose not to reappoint two special police officers,” Cicco explained. “That is what I’m accused of, and I accept responsibility for those actions. I did not seek out either of these two individuals. They sought me out. One visited me in my office the other came to my automobile, both wearing recording devices. I was honest with them during my conversation with them. Basically, I informed that that they would not be reappointed by the board because the board was upset with their attitudes, political and otherwise.”
Cicco, 58 at the time he was charged, lives his life with quiet dignity knowing that in the end a court appeal vindicated him. But like Ray Donovan – who was denied confirmation as Labor Secretary after being nominated by President Reagan – that doesn’t mean he hasn’t suffered.
Donovan’s post-vindication question – “What office do I go to to get my reputation back?” – is something Cicco says is a problem for any politician proven innocent.
“You don’t get the same kind of headlines in the newspapers,” he said. “And not everyone will believe you’re innocent, even when a court says you are.”