WILKES-BARRE - Steven D. Slavinsky testified Monday in the federal trial of two ex-Shenandoah police officers that he thought the worst had come when one of them drove him down Raven Run Road in September 2007.
"I didn't know where we were going. He was nervous. I was probably more nervous," Slavinsky testified about former police Chief Matthew R. Nestor taking him to a remote area of West Mahanoy Township to discuss the FBI's interest in their alleged extortion scheme. "That's the only time I felt intimidated."
Slavinsky took the witness stand on the third day of the trial of Nestor and former Shenandoah police Capt. Jamie Gennarini in U.S. District Court. Testimony to the jury and Senior U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. today; prosecutors said they are on track to end their case this afternoon.
Nestor faces five counts of extortion, three of conspiracy and one each of obstruction of justice and a civil rights violation. Gennarini faces two counts each of extortion and conspiracy and one of a civil rights violation.
Federal prosecutors allege that Nestor, Slavinsky and Joseph Sobinsky extorted money from three Shenandoah bookmakers from 2004 through September 2007, and that Nestor and Gennarini took businessman Donald Rinaldi into custody on May 16, 2007 - one day earlier than alleged in the grand jury indictment - and forced his then-fiancee, Judy Paone Rinaldi, to pay them $2,000, which Gennarini allegedly said Donald Rinaldi owed him, in order to get him released.
"I gave Matt $2,000," Judy Rinaldi testified. "I didn't know why they took Don down to the police station."
During contentious cross-examination by Joseph P. Nahas Jr., Frackville, one of Nestor's lawyers, Judy Rinaldi also insisted that Nestor had called her while she was getting the money demanding to know why it was taking so long, in spite of the fact that phone records produced by prosecutors do not show any such call.
"I know Matt Nestor called me," Judy Rinaldi said.
James Paone, Judy Rinaldi's son, and Edward Trusky, a former employee of Donald Rinaldi, each testified he saw Nestor and Gennarini putting Donald Rinaldi into a police car. However, although Trusky said he had heard a "commotion" in Donald Rinaldi's office and that it was in "total disarray" after the arrest, neither man, when cross-examined by Gino A. Bartolai Jr., Wilkes-Barre, Gennarini's lawyer, said he heard Gennarini say either "This is the way we do business in Shenandoah" or "I want my money."
Slavinsky, on the other hand, said he was relaying Nestor's message when he told Sobinsky, "Tell them, 'Pay now or pay later,'" when the bookmakers allegedly were slow in paying the kickbacks of $350 per week during football season and $250 per week the rest of the year.
"That's what I would tell Sobinsky any time they were short with the money," Slavinsky said.
"That was the message from the chief," Sobinsky had testified earlier on Monday.
Slavinsky also testified Nestor told him on Oct. 17, 2007, not to talk with anyone about the alleged extortion, although the tape he made of the conversation was barely audible to the jury and others in the courtroom.
"I can't make anything out of that," one juror said while it was being played. "Could you turn it up?"
Slavinsky was clear when he testified where the money from the bookmakers went.
"What would you do with the money?" prosecutor Myesha K. Braden asked him.
"I'd contact Matt Nestor," Slavinsky answered.
"Did he ever refuse to accept the money?"
"No."
Slavinsky testified Nestor never actually threatened him on the trip down Raven Run Road, or at any other time, but that he did offer to take care of him if he went to prison.
"He said he would help me with all of my bills," Slavinsky said. "He wanted me to shut up and say nothing."
Other witnesses who testified Monday included:
- James T. Tedesco, one of the three bookmakers who purportedly paid money in the scheme, said he agreed to pay $100 per week. However, he also testified he never had any contact with Nestor and that Sobinsky testified incorrectly when he said he set the amount Tedesco should pay.
"That never happened, not directly to me, anyway," Tedesco testified.
- State police Cpl. William J. Allar of the Harrisburg station, who said that while he was at the Frackville station, Slavinsky talked with him about the alleged extortion scheme, and that he appeared nervous and serious. Allar testified he believed Slavinsky, but that his perception of him might have been different if he had known that he already had told Nestor about the FBI's interest in the case.
- Diane Bachman, an investigation operations analyst with the FBI, who testified she analyzed phone records of Judy Rinaldi, Nestor and Slavinsky.