Middletown Man Admits to Extortion at Jersey City Golf Course: FBI

A Middletown man admitted Monday to his role in an extortion scheme during construction of the Skyway Golf Course, a new public golf course in Jersey City, the FBI announced.

Gerard Pica, 65, of Middletown, pleaded guilty on Nov. 9 before U.S. District Judge Jose Linares to charges of conspiracy to commit extortion. Pica’s co-hort, James Castaldo, 60, of Beachwood, also pleaded guilty that day to the same charge.

Pica worked as an environmental scientist with the Hudson County Improvement Authority (HCIA) during its construction of the nine-hole public golf course, alternately called Lincoln Park West or the Skyway Golf Course. In that role, the FBI alleges, Pica had the authority to influence which contractors the HCIA hired to provide soil and fill material for the course.

Castaldo ran Renda Enterprises, which provided transportation and broker services to move recycled waste.

From August 2010 through November 2011, Pica, Castaldo and others schemed to obtain payments from certain contractors in exchange for Pica and another HCIA employee getting them approved for the job, the feds alleged.

Pica admitted Monday that he used his position at the HCIA to greenlight the owner of a Bayonne recycling business for the job in exchange for a payoff. As part of the illegal agreement, the Bayonne recycler -- who was not named in court -- would pay Castaldo a fee, $2 per cubic yard of fill and soil material delivered to the site, in exchange for the lucrative job, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Pica admitted he received a payment of about $6,600 in December 2010 as his partial share of the payoff. In addition, Pica admitted to creating a fraudulent invoice from a separate company he owned for monies he claimed were owed to him by Renda Enterprises. Pica accepted a check for $6,000 from Renda Enterprises in April 2011, and he confessed Monday this money was actually further payoff from the Bayonne recycling business.

As for Castaldo, he admitted Monday that in early 2011, he met with Pica and a person referred to in the indictment only as “Individual 1,” who was the owner of an environmental consulting firm seeking authorization to dump soil at the golf course.

Castaldo admitted that he, Pica and Individual 1 agreed upon the amount per cubic yard that Individual 1 would have to pay in return for Pica’s assistance in ensuring he would be able to dump material at the site. Castaldo admitted that in July of that same year, Renda Enterprises received two payments totaling more than $8,600 from Individual 1, who dumped more than 2,600 cubic yards of fill materials at the golf course.

Both Pica and Castaldo are facing a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. They also are jointly responsible for returning $53,861. They will be sentenced on Feb. 23, 2016.

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