By Ronald Smothers, The New York Times
NEWARK, N.J. -- The former president of the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association pleaded guilty today to federal charges of defrauding the organization.
He is the third former official of the group to admit to a scheme that investigators said defrauded the association of $1 million over eight years.
The former president, Frank Ginesi, 80, of Clark, N.J., entered the plea in Federal District Court here before Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh, a month before he was to go on trial on a 36-count indictment unsealed in 1999. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
Mr. Ginesi, a former state corrections officer, headed the benevolent association from 1978 to 1996.
The two other association officials who have pleaded guilty are William Saksinsky, 70, a former executive vice president, and Edward Rappleyea, 73, a former administrator of the group’s insurance fund. Mr. Saksinsky’s plea was in August 2000, just before his trial, in which Mr. Rappleyea was scheduled to testify for the prosecution. Mr. Saksinsky and Mr. Rappleyea were scheduled to testify against Mr. Ginesi under their plea agreements.
The United States attorney, Christopher J. Christie, had sought $400,000 in restitution from Mr. Saksinsky, a former Perth Amboy police officer, in the plea agreement, and the prosecution is expected to seek a similar amount from Mr. Ginesi.
Mr. Saksinsky and Mr. Rappleyea are awaiting sentencing.
The indictment charged that Mr. Ginesi and others siphoned money from the dues paid by the association’s 35,000 members, from premium payments into a voluntary insurance fund and from fees charged to members for conventions.
The association is made up of local unions representing police officers, corrections officers, parole officers, sheriffs’ investigators, prosecutors’ investigators and forest rangers.
Besides using the dues of its member groups to lobby for their interests, the state association maintains a voluntary insurance plan.
Investigators said that Mr. Ginesi and the other men funneled the money into personal accounts and used much of it to buy real estate, jewelry and cars.