While being called to the witness stand to testify in the fraud and extortion trial of North Hudson real estate businessman Rene Abreu, former West New York Police Chief Alexander Oriente admitted in federal court in Newark last week that he tried to gain evidence that current West New York Mayor and State Assembly Speaker Albio Sires was the recipient of kickbacks that were allegedly passed weekly from Oriente to Abreu throughout a five-year period in the 1990s.
Oriente, who spent three years in prison after pleading guilty in 1998 to extorting money from gambling and prostitution operations in West New York, insisted in his testimony that Sires was the recipient of the kickbacks, although Oriente never dealt with Sires personally and conducted all monetary transactions through Abreu, whose real estate and mortgage finance companies are located in Guttenberg.
Oriente spent two full days on the witness stand last week, including one heated day where he was bombarded with interrogations from Abreu’s attorney, Gerald Krovatin.
In information obtained from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark, Krovatin asked Oriente, in a cross-examination, whether Oriente intended to bring Sires down with him after pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the authorities in return for a lesser sentence.
“Was one of your goals to get to the mayor?” Krovatin is reported to have asked Oriente.
“If [Sires] is doing something, then yes,” Oriente answered. “If he’s not, no. The mayor never gave me a complaint about gambling and prostitution. I never dealt with the mayor directly. That was Rene’s job.”
Throughout both the investigations of Oriente and later Abreu, his former friend and political supporter, Sires vehemently stated he had nothing to do with any of the criminal activity that Oriente and Abreu allegedly engaged in.
Krovatin stated that Oriente had very little to offer the investigators in the case, considering that when Oriente was indicted, along with 20 other West New York police officers including Oriente’s son Alexander in the largest police corruption scandal in New Jersey state history, there were only two officials in the town that were above Oriente in the chain of command: Commissioner Sal Vega, who was in charge of Public Safety, and the mayor.
“You couldn’t even cooperate down because they already indicted all these other cops?” Krovatin asked Oriente. “You understand the value of getting the mayor?”
Oriente simply replied, “Of course.”
On the stand, Oriente said that there were at least two intermediaries between himself and Sires – Abreu and Manuel “Manny” Mier, a friend of Abreu who was also named in the original indictment against Abreu, and has since pleaded guilty to his involvement in the scandal.
Oriente said that he regularly passed $2,000 in cash kickbacks to Mier, who then gave the money to Abreu. Oriente then said that he believed the money was then passed on to Sires.
However, there has never been any official evidence or information presented in either trial or indictment that point to Sires receiving the kickbacks.
The highlight of Oriente’s testimony centered on a tape recording that Oriente apparently made secretly, a conversation he had with Mier in Oriente’s home in February, 1998.
On the tape, Oriente apparently tried to convince Mier that he needed to talk directly to Abreu concerning the kickbacks. Mier didn’t bite, and just told Oriente to “hang tough.”
“You won’t do 10 [years in prison],” Mier tells Oriente on the tape. “Maybe three. This is part of the agony. Don’t stress out.”
Mier tells Oriente to tell investigators that he made a couple of mistakes.
“You loaned a friend money,” Mier tells Oriente on the tape. “It’s not black and white. There are a lot of gray areas. Tell them you made a couple of mistakes.”
When Oriente tried to get Mier to admit that the kickbacks were going directly to Sires, Mier didn’t say anything. “That’s $2,000 a week up to [Abreu] and to the [expletive] mayor,” Oriente says at one point on the tape. “What’s [Abreu] going to do? Deny it, if it’s [expletive] true?”
In the cross examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Eicher asked Oriente what he meant by “hanging tough.”
“It meant to keep my mouth shut and don’t say anything about what’s going on,” Oriente told Eicher.
Then, the testimony turned very bizarre on the second day, when Oriente admitted to stealing money and jewelry from dead bodies and rolling drunks during his four decades as a member of the West New York Police Department.
“If there was a DOA on the job, you and the guy you were with would take his stuff and split it with the guy you were with,” Oriente said. “Once in a while you would take money from a drunk. Once in a while, if we had a chance at it.”
Oriente said he committed his crime as a member of the police department within the first month he was made a patrolman, when he began accepting tips from tow truck operators that he called to tow away illegally parked cars.
By the time Oriente became a detective in the 1960s, he was told by his superiors which bookmakers to stay away. The superior officers also allegedly told Oriente to make visits to the bookies during Christmas time for tips.
By the 1980s, illegal gambling machines were all over the town and Oriente testified that he and fellow officers had several deals that enabled the illegal gambling machines to go unnoticed around town, provided there were kickbacks involved.
“You have to hit something once in a while to make it look good,” Oriente said, talking about making staged raids. “They would put in old machines to get broken down or confiscated. I would sell the electronics to the gambling operator.”
Oriente said that in its heyday, there were as many as 200 gambling locations in West New York. Oriente said that he also took kickbacks from bars that remained open after legal hours.
Oriente also admitted to extorting protection money from a madam who operated at least three prostitution houses in town, finally overseeing the merger of five brothels into one larger prostitution house. Oriente admitted that he not only accepted protection money, but also sexual favors.
On the third day of the trial last week, it was Mier’s turn to take the stand and he admitted to taking the kickback payments and delivering them to Abreu’s office.
“I took the money to Rene’s office and put it on his desk,” Mier said, admitting that the payoffs lasted for more than a year.
Mier, who pleaded guilty last year and also agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, said that he introduced Abreu to Oriente in 1995 and that started the association with the police and the illegal payments.
“Rene asked how much was being collected,” Mier told Eicher. “Oriente said $4,000 and he said he would share about $2,000. Rene and I would keep about $2,000.”
Eicher asked Mier what Oriente wanted in return for the kickbacks.
“He said that he wanted to stay chief and he wanted a raise,” Mier said.
In one taped conversation between Oriente and Mier, Mier tells Oriente that if they got into trouble for the kickbacks, they had a perfect person to blame – the late Anthony DeFino, the long-time mayor who preceded Sires.
“You know who would be the perfect guy to fall on this?” Mier is heard telling Oriente on the tape. “DeFino. If it came to us having to give somebody up, he’s perfect because he’s dead.”
Abreu is also charged with money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and a host of other crimes in connection with what prosecutors say was a series of financial schemes he operated through three businesses he owns with his wife, Lourdes Adan-Abreu, who has pleaded guilty to tax related charges.
Also facing charges related to Abreu’s companies is Ana Martell of North Bergen, an employee at Mortgage Pros., Inc. and RLA Homes, two of the real estate companies owned by Abreu and his wife; Luis Nieves of Leonia, a senior vice president for Hudson United Bank; North Bergen resident Kathy Giunta, an employee of Mortgage Pros; and Fernando Jimenez, who works for Mortgage Pros.
Eleven people, including Abreu and his wife, were originally charged in the 43-count indictment that was handed up in July of 2002. Six of those originally charged, including Mier, have already pleaded guilty to charges. Some of those, like Mier, are expected to testify in the trial, which is expected to last at least another month.