Auto businessman sentenced in Traffic Court case
Henry Alfano was sentenced to three years probation.
IN A STANDING-room-only courtroom yesterday, a federal judge sentenced a Southwest Philly automobile businessman to three years' probation in the Traffic Court ticket-fixing case.
Henry Alfano, 69, known as "Eddie," got caught up in the scandal by using his longstanding connection to a then-retired Philadelphia Traffic Court judge, Fortunato Perri Sr., to get traffic tickets "fixed" for some of Alfano's friends and business associates.
In exchange, prosecutors have said, Alfano gave Perri free seafood, porn videos and car repairs.
Yesterday in court, Mark Cedrone, one of Alfano's three defense attorneys, described the relationship between Alfano and Perri as "an exchange of favors between friends."
Cedrone said Alfano gave Perri the free gifts without expecting anything in return.
Cedrone and defense attorneys Carmen Nasuti and Jeffrey Miller also showed through witnesses who testified that Alfano frequently was a generous donor - who many times gave big and gave anonymously - to people in need, who had grave illnesses and whom he didn't know.
After U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel announced a probationary sentence for Alfano, who had about 90 supporters in the courtroom, many loudly applauded.
Alfano's wife gasped in relief. One of his daughters could be seen wiping away tears.
The judge said that Alfano, who lives in Clementon, Camden County, could have his probation supervision transferred to New Jersey.
Alfano pleaded guilty on May 22, 2014 - during jury selection for defendants in the Traffic Court ticket-fixing trial - to one count each of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy.
In sentencing Alfano, Stengel took into account, among other things, that two other defendants who had pleaded guilty earlier in the case - Perri and a retired Delaware County judge, Kenneth Miller, who filled in for a year as a Philadelphia traffic judge - had received probationary sentences from U.S. District Judge Robert Kelly.
Alfano was the last defendant in the Traffic Court case to be sentenced.
A former Philadelphia police officer, Alfano had previously been shot and injured.
Stengel noted that the jury's verdict for the seven defendants - six judges and a Chinatown businessman - who took their case to trial last year ended in all being acquitted of fraud charges, with four being convicted of "collateral offenses" of lying to a grand jury or the FBI.
Although the trial outcome wasn't what the government wanted, Stengel said, he praised Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony Wzorek and Denise Wolf and the FBI for exposing the longstanding, corrupt ticket-fixing system at Traffic Court. In the end, the old Traffic Court was dismantled; the current court has been folded into Philadelphia Municipal Court and operates differently.
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