BUFFALO, N.Y. — There is still uncertainty surrounding when Peter Gerace may stand trial as the owner of the Pharaoh's Gentlemen's Club faces charges including bribery, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking.
Gerace, who has maintained his innocence, appeared in a federal courtroom on Wednesday for a scheduling conference regarding his case.
Gerace wore grey striped prison garb and said hello to a couple of supporters seated in the courtroom gallery before taking his seat between his attorneys.
He has been held without bail for more than a year at the Chautauqua County jail, after he was arrested on an additional charge of witness tampering.
According to sources close to him, Gerace is eager to get his day in court and while he may have hoped to gain some clarity as to when he will be put on trial, he left the courthouse with no more certainty than when he arrived.
While a judge has ruled that one of his attorneys, Eric Soehnlein, can continue to represent Gerace after the government's unsuccessful attempt to have Soehnlein disqualified from the case, that move by the government caused another delay in the proceedings.
Now it appears that the earliest the trail may be held would be late summer or early fall.
Meanwhile, Gerace's co-defendant Joseph Bongiovanni, a former DEA agent accused of accepting bribes from Gerace and others, awaits a re-trial after a jury was unable to reach a verdict on 12 of the 15 count against him.
Prosecutors say they're ready to go now and hoped to start that re-trial no later than mid June. However, scheduling conflicts with other cases involving Bongiovanni's lawyers now leaves that up in the air as well.
Initially, the two defendants were to be tried together.
However, the government's move to disqualify Soehnlein and the time it would take to resolve that matter, led to concerns over Bongiovanni's right to a speedy trial and ultimately the court's decision to try him separately.
With the matter now resolved, federal judge Lawrence J. Vilardo on Wednesday raised the idea of rejoining the trials of the defendants, but that appears unlikely at this point.
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