Saccomanno pleads guilty
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
6/27/2009

Anthony Saccomanno, the former director of the Cherry Hill Department of Code Enforcement and Inspections, admitted to taking bribes from Building Inspection Underwriters Inc. in exchange for municipal contracts last week in court, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

In front of U.S. District Judge Renee Marie Bumb on Tuesday, June 16, Saccomanno pleaded guilty to accepting bribes on two separate occasions from a BIU official. In total, Saccomanno pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe of $2,500 from a BIU official on Sept. 20, 2007, and a $2,000 bribe from an official in July 2008.

Bumb scheduled Saccomanno’s sentencing for Oct. 5 at 10 a.m.

The charge to which Saccomanno pleaded guilty carries a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. In determining an actual sentence, Bumb will consult the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which provide appropriate sentencing ranges that take into account the severity and characteristics of the offense, the defendant’s criminal history, if any, and other factors. The judge, however, is not bound by those guidelines in determining a sentence, officials said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Saccomanno last March with soliciting and demanding corrupt payments, namely $4,500 in cash, to be influenced to reward BIU with municipal contracts. BIU President Russell B. Mclaughlin is charged with corruptly giving cash payments totaling $9,500 to Saccomanno to influence and reward an agent of the township in connection with municipal contracts.

The charges also claimed Mclaughlin, 56, authorized a cooperating witness to make a corrupt payment to Saccomanno. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also said Mclaughlin personally bribed Saccomanno sometime from July 2007 to December 2007.

McLaughlin pleaded guilty before Bumb on April 22 to one-count of bribery. Bumb continued McLaughlin’s release on a $50,000 bond pending sentencing, which is scheduled for Aug. 10, according to a Department of Justice press release. In 2008, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said BIU collected approximately $240,000 in fees from Cherry Hill for the inspection services it performed.

In one of several examples, on Sept. 20 of 2007, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that Saccomanno met with the cooperating witness at an Italian restaurant in Cherry Hill. After the meal, Saccomanno and the cooperating witness left the restaurant and walked to the parking lot, where Saccomanno allegedly took an envelope containing $2,500 in cash from the cooperating witness.

Saccomanno’s attorney, Jeffery Zucker of Zucker, Steinberg, Sonstein, and Wixted, could not be reached for comment.

Saccomanno was a tenured employee when Mayor Bernie Platt and his current administration took office.

“First and foremost the mayor applauds the work of the U.S. Attorney on this case. As for Mr. Saccomanno, this individual has broken the public’s trust and compromised the integrity of his office,”

Communications Director Dan Keashen said.

“When any individual prostitutes a public office for personal profit it is a heinous crime that should receive swift justice and jail time.”

Since Saccomanno’s arrest, the township has had a complete audit of the code enforcement department done by the state Department of Community Affairs, Keashen said.

The department has been restructured and the services of BIU have been replaced with new in-house employees, he said.

Furthermore, the operations in the office have been streamlined.