COURT HOUSE – Trial dates for Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. and Commissioner Steve Mikulski were once again pushed back after the latter retained a new attorney ahead of a hearing scheduled for March 10.
Both Troiano and Mikulski have turned down plea offers and say they will go to trial on charges they unlawfully accepted health benefits while serving in public office.
Both men maintain their innocence and have said they worked well over the 35 hours per week that is the standard for full-time employment and eligibility for state benefits. A third co-defendant, former Mayor Pete Byron, pleaded guilty last summer and is cooperating with the prosecution.
Mikulski retained Christopher St. John, who replaced Dave Stefankiewicz. Stefankiewicz was indicted on witness tampering charges related to alleged conduct in connection with his defense of a different client in another case.
Because both Stefankiewicz and Mikulski are being prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office, Mikulski would have had to sign a conflict of interest waiver forfeiting his rights to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in the event of a conviction in order to keep Stefankiewicz on the case.
Reached for comment on March 14, Mikulski referred questions to St. John, who did not return a phone call from the Herald. St. John is the third lawyer Mikulski has hired in the case; originally he had been represented by John Tumelty.
This is also the second conflict-of-interest issue to arise in these prosecutions. Troiano’s former lawyer, Brian Pelloni, was removed by the judge after he took a job with the state Attorney General‘s Office. Though Troiano tried to waive the conflict, the judge ruled it was not waivable.
On the prosecution side, the state has added Deputy Attorney General Laura Croce, who has taken over as lead prosecutor.
Both Troiano and Mikulski successfully argued their cases should be heard separately. Mikulski will go first, with a trial date set for Aug. 11, followed by a September trial for Troiano. The state said it expects it will take three to four days to present the case. Defense lawyers requested a similar amount of time for rebuttal. Both sides expressed concerns that the notoriety of the defendants could complicate and prolong jury selection.
The trials were originally set for March, then postponed to May; now the first one is scheduled to begin in August.
If convicted on all charges and sentenced to consecutive terms, Troiano and Mikulski each face 26.5 years in state prison, a term Presiding Judge Bernard E. DeLury Jr. described as “unlikely,” although he added if convicted some prison time would be a “virtual certainty.”
Troiano did not respond to an inquiry from the Herald March 14, nor did his attorney, Charles Nugent.
Contact the reporter, Shay Roddy, at sroddy@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 142.
