Cheektowaga strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr. has accused federal prosecutors and agents of causing the suicides of two potential witnesses in his forthcoming trial at federal court.
Gerace, who is in jail awaiting trial on charges of sex and drug trafficking, bribing a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and witness tampering, made the accusations in a letter he recently sent to The Buffalo News.
Federal prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty while building their case against strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr. and three others they allege played a role in the death of federal witness Crystal Quinn.
The owner of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club claims he is the victim of “prosecutorial misconduct” by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Tripi and other federal law enforcement officials.
Gerace, 56, said he also sent the letter to the Justice Department’s inspector general, former President Donald J. Trump, U.S. Attorney Trini Ross and other public officials.
The defendant’s letter accuses Tripi, the FBI and other law enforcement officials of putting extreme pressure on two potential witnesses, State Supreme Court Judge John Michalski and former Pharaoh’s strip club employee Crystal Quinn, and causing them to kill themselves.
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Federal and state law enforcement officers, who have been investigating the judge for several years, raided his home on March 24. But no charges were filed against the judge or his wife.
Authorities said Michalski died by suicide in his Amherst home in April 2022, 12 days after FBI agents raided his home, searching for evidence.
Quinn, who had agreed to testify in Gerace’s trial, died of a massive drug overdose in Wellsville in August 2023. Her death has not been ruled a suicide.
Prosecutors charged a Wellsville man with purposely giving Quinn a lethal dose of fentanyl to stop her from testifying against Gerace. They charged Gerace and three other men with a witness tampering conspiracy, accusing them of conspiring to kill Quinn.
Gerace’s letter claims both Michalski and Quinn would have testified on his behalf “as 2 of my most important witnesses.”
The letter claims that both people “killed themselves because of the pressure (Tripi) put on them to either give false testimony … or else face prison time themselves.”
The FBI is investigating the Aug. 1 death of Crystal Quinn, 37, at a friend's home in the Allegany County Village of Wellsville.
Federal prosecutors charged Quinn in 2023 with tampering with a different witness in the Gerace case, but the charges were dropped after she agreed to testify as a government witness. Defense attorneys said they also planned to call Quinn to testify.
Ross, Tripi and Justice Department officials in Washington declined to discuss the accusations with The News. But Tripi has defended the actions of law enforcement during pretrial arguments about the case before District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo.
Crystal Quinn’s mother, Sharon Quinn, was critical of federal prosecutors and agents during an interview with The News shortly after her daughter’s death. But she told The News on April 19 that she now agrees with prosecutors that her daughter was murdered.
“I don’t think that the prosecutor or the FBI gave my daughter enough fentanyl to kill 400 people. My daughter did not commit suicide. She was murdered, no matter what Peter thinks,” Sharon Quinn said April 19. “I will let the FBI and prosecutor investigate the murder and, hopefully, justice will be served.”
Terrence M. Connors, attorney for Judge Michalski’s family, said he and the family do not wish to comment.
Federal prosecutors claim strip club owner Peter G. Gerace Jr. arranged sex for John L. Michalski, a State Supreme Court justice who later died by suicide, and gained judicial favors from him.
In addition to his claims about the deaths of Michalski and Quinn, Gerace claims prosecutors are harassing him and his attorneys, punishing them for making vigorous efforts to prove he is not guilty.
Gerace’s letter repeatedly refers to the prosecutor as “Mr. Trippi.”
“The prosecutorial misconduct of Mr. Trippi, himself and through his associate AUSA’s, continues,” Gerace wrote. “Joe Trippi and his partners are doing everything in their power to prevent me from getting a fair trial.”
Gerace details alleged misconduct
Gerace’s letter makes these claims about the treatment he has received while he is jailed and awaiting trial:
The indictment mirrors the criminal complaint the U.S. Attorney's Office filed against Gregory Trotter in November.
The Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club owner claims that Amherst Police Detective Gregory Trotter was another witness who would have helped him. He claims prosecutors charged Trotter last year with lying to the FBI, as part of an effort to prevent Trotter from testifying for the defense. A grand jury indicted Trotter Thursday on charges that he lied to the FBI when they questioned him about his contacts with Gerace.
“Another of my important witnesses is Detective Greg Trotter, so there is no surprise that Trippi had him arrested,” Gerace wrote.
He claims federal law enforcement interceded with jail officials in Niagara and Chautauqua counties to make it difficult for him and attorneys to prepare their defense.
According to the letter, Gerace was transferred from Niagara County Jail – about 30 miles from Buffalo – to the Chautauqua County Jail, about 70 miles from Buffalo, to make it inconvenient for his attorneys to meet with him.
He claims that a prisoner who is a paralegal was helping him to prepare legal challenges. He said that prisoner has been “separated” from him and is no longer allowed to assist him.
Testimony about the owner of Pharaoh's Gentlemen's Club was inevitable because eight of the 15 bribery, obstruction of justice, false statement and other charges Joseph Bongiovanni faces involve Peter Gerace Jr. in some way.
Gerace claims jail officials have placed restrictions on his ability to copy documents and to engage in phone calls with attorneys.
“I believe all these actions were taken strictly out of spite for Peter standing up for his innocence,” said attorney Steven M. Cohen, who represents Gerace in a civil case and in a criminal case accusing Gerace of Covid-19 aid fraud.
Since Gerace was first arrested in 2021, federal prosecutors have either forced or tried to force all four of his defense attorneys to stop representing Gerace, Cohen said on Thursday.
“The government has gone after every attorney who has sought to aggressively represent Mr. Gerace,” Cohen said.
Tripi has argued in court that the government had solid legal grounds to seek removal of the four Gerace attorneys.
The News reported in January that Cohen, identified as “Gerace attorney 1,” was accused by a grand jury of making efforts to prevent Quinn from testifying against Gerace as part of a conspiracy. Cohen is not charged with any crime in that case.
Federal prosecutors are investigating one of the region’s most high-profile attorneys in connection with a conspiracy that reportedly caused the death of a witness in the Pharaoh's strip club case to prevent her from testifying.
Gerace claims that federal prosecutors last year tried to convince State Liquor Authority officials not to renew Pharaoh’s liquor license. The license was renewed last year.
Asked about Gerace’s claim, a SLA spokesman declined to comment to The News.
Tripi: a hard-nosed prosecutor
Some local defense attorneys and Italian American organizations say they are outraged over Joseph M. Tripi’s repeated references to “Italian organized crime” in court and legal papers, including an indictment.
Gerace also said he has sent letters complaining about his treatment to Judge Vilardo, who is overseeing his case. On several occasions, Vilardo has mentioned in open court that Gerace has complained to him.
Tripi is perhaps Western New York’s most high-profile prosecution trial lawyer. Attorneys call him a hard-nosed prosecutor who often battles with defense lawyers. According to federal court records, he has never had a verdict overturned due to a prosecutorial misconduct complaint.
He has won two national law enforcement awards for his prosecutions of violent drug gangs in the Buffalo area.
Tripi has been a federal prosecutor since 2008, handling many of the region’s most disturbing murder and gang violence cases. He is the lead prosecutor in the federal death penalty case of Payton Gendron, the admitted white supremacist killer of 10 Black men and women who were slain at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo.
In 2022, defense attorneys accused Tripi of maliciously prosecuting Gerace and other Italian-American defendants. Two judges ruled in Tripi’s favor, saying they found “no evidence” of discriminatory conduct by Tripi, who is Italian-American.
While it is not unusual for a criminal defendant to complain about prosecutors, it is “quite unusual” for a defendant who is awaiting trial to make public those complaints, retired U.S. Attorney Denise E. O’Donnell said.
“Sometimes, after a person has been convicted, they will make claims of prosecutorial misconduct while trying to get their verdict overturned,” O’Donnell said. “To do that pretrial is quite unusual.”
She said she wonders if former President Donald J. Trump’s highly publicized pretrial attacks on prosecutors will inspire other defendants to use similar tactics.
“I think this is something we’re going to see more often as part of a defense strategy,” said O’Donnell, a Democrat who has no involvement with the Gerace case. “Blame the government, blame the prosecution for persecuting you and try to taint the jury and look for public sympathy.”
Gerace sold his home
Meanwhile, Gerace recently sold his Clarence home for $1.35 million, real estate records show.
His attorney, Mark A. Foti, said one of the main reasons Gerace sold the home was to raise money for his defense.
Foti said his client is “very frustrated” over his money problems, his long wait for a trial date and what he sees as wrongdoing by the prosecution.
“At this point, it’s become a bigger and bigger challenge for Peter to pay for his defense,” Foti said Thursday. “He’s been in jail and unable to work for more than a year now.”
While Gerace has paid most of his own defense bills, taxpayers are paying for Foti’s work on the latest charges filed against Gerace. Because of Gerace’s dwindling finances, the judge approved those payments under a program designed to help destitute defendants after Gerace was charged with witness tampering and conspiring to silence a federal witness.