Thursday, March 17, 2011

Last updated: Thursday March 17, 2011, 1:21 PM

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Fairview_mans_plea_hearing_set_in_corruption_case.html

An April 25 plea hearing was scheduled Thursday to resolve the remaining money-laundering counts against a Fairview man who was convicted last year of passing a bribe to Ridgefield’s mayor on behalf of a corrupt developer.

Anthony A. Kress, the lawyer for Vincent Tabbachino, said the hearing had been set during a private status conference Thursday in the chambers of U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares in Newark.

Kress said a formal plea agreement has yet to be finalized on the three money-laundering charges against Tabbachino that were severed from the corruption trial. He said prosecutors had offered a deal and he has requested modifications, and negotiations are continuing.

“If there is to be a plea it will be on that date,” Kress said outside the courtroom.

Linares severed the money-laundering counts before Tabbachino and Mayor Anthony Suarez went on trial in October to avoid unfairly prejudicing Suarez, who had no involvement in those alleged crimes.

Suarez and Tabbachino were tried on charges of conspiracy, attempted extortion and bribery in a plot to take $10,000 from an FBI informant posing as a developer seeking favorable action on his projects.

Suarez, a two-term Democratic mayor, was acquitted on all counts on Oct. 27 after a three-week trial, but the jury found Tabbachino, a former Guttenberg police officer and councilman, guilty of attempted extortion and bribery.

The severed counts allege that between February and May 2009, Tabbachino laundered three checks totaling $100,000 from the informant’s purported counterfeit handbag business, returning cash, minus his cut of nearly $10,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark McCarren, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment on the upcoming plea hearing or the status of negotiations.

Kress said Tabbachino’s health has not been good, and he continues to suffer from diabetes, heart arrhythmia, and severe back and leg pain, among other complaints.

Tabbachino could be facing more than five years in prison, Kress said.