Prosecutor calls late Judge Michalski 'unindicted co-conspirator' in Gerace sex-trafficking case

Michalski, described as an unindicted co-conspirator in Gerace’s sex-trafficking case, sent Gerace a text message mentioning a prostitute he liked, according to prosecutors.

At a March hearing, a federal prosecutor said Michalski could be referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator to a sex-trafficking crime because of evidence showing him to be a customer of “high-end prostitution.”

Prosecutors accuse Gerace of exploiting drug-addicted dancers at his Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga by providing them drugs to get them to perform sex acts for him and his friends – a key accusation in the federal case against him.

But Gerace was also grooming “people in high places,” such as Michalski, they say.

“It goes to show you that people in a position of power this defendant has access to, absolutely ruin people’s lives,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Tripi said at a March hearing urging U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. to keep Gerace in jail prior to his trial.

Gerace has been behind bars since the hearing, and Sinatra’s ruling this past Tuesday will keep him in custody ahead of his trial in August.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office invited Michalski in 2021 to talk to prosecutors about Gerace and what he knew about him, but the judge declined, said attorney Anthony J. Lana, who represented the judge.

Lana said Michalski told him that he didn’t know about any suspected drug- or sex-trafficking at Pharaoh’s, telling his lawyer, “I have nothing to tell them.” Lana said that when he pressed Tripi to show him any evidence of criminality involving the judge, “it was all speculation – all nebulous.”

“He’s not going to win husband of the year award, but that’s a far cry from being an unindicted co-conspirator,” Lana said of Michalski.

Michalski’s widow expressed anguish Thursday in a statement to The Buffalo News after she was asked about the prosecutor’s allegations against her husband.

Here’s how Michalski helped Gerace, according to prosecutors:

The judge issued a protective order shielding witnesses’ identities in a previous police investigation of suspected drug trafficking at Gerace’s club, and did not recuse himself, although he and Gerace were friends.

“And then, ultimately, that case went nowhere. I don’t think that was a coincidence,” Tripi said at the hearing.

Michalski handled a vehicular assault case involving Gerace’s ex-wife in which she pleaded guilty. Previously, Michalski mocked the former spouse whom Gerace has been at odds with.

The judge approved a name change for Gerace’s son on the same day Gerace made the request.

Gerace flaunted his connections with powerful people, Tripi said at the hearing.

“He has bragged to witnesses that he has contacts in every local police department, political figures and many others,” the prosecutor said of Gerace.

“His unindicted co-conspirators include drug dealers, organized crime associates and even a local judge,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a recent court filing.

A suicide after a raid

Michalski died by suicide in his Amherst home April 5, 2022, 12 days after police executed a search warrant there.

The judge had also been hospitalized Feb. 28, 2021, after he lay in front of a moving freight train in Depew and was hit by it. The train incident happened about two weeks after federal agents contacted Michalski about his friendship with Gerace.

During the 2022 search of his home, police from federal and state agencies seized documents related to a small online business run by the judge’s wife, Lana previously confirmed.

Given the judge’s fragile mental state at the time, “there’s no coincidence of the suicide shortly after that happened,” Lana said of the raid. “I thought that was egregious.”

Michalski was never charged with any crimes.

“I had the privilege to assist Judge Michalski with the inquiry by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct and the Office of Court Administration,” attorney Terrence M. Connors told The News. “After both of these matters were concluded, the judge was returned to the bench. Both of these agencies cast aside the unreliable, scurrilous accusations from anonymous sources with no credibility.”

“There’s nothing more that the government and the media can do to us as a family that will hurt us,” said the judge’s widow, Susan Michalski. “It is shameful to be talking about a man who has recently passed on, and a family who is trying so hard to heal. Please just leave us alone,” she said in a statement to The News delivered by Connors.

Tripi declined to comment to The News about mentioning Michalski at the March detention hearing for Gerace.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s prosecutor’s manual counsels against identifying an unindicted co-conspirator in an indictment, because it does not give the person a chance to defend himself or herself, Connors said.

“With the judge, it was worse because it wasn’t even a finding returned by a grand jury,” Connors said.

In this case, Michalski was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator, not in the indictment, but at a detention hearing in which Tripi described Gerace as a danger to the community.

“We do not comment on pending cases,” U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross told The News. “As a general matter, there is a legitimate government interest in providing the court with information relevant to inform its decisions.”

Gerace faces multiple charges

Gerace has pleaded not guilty to a 2021 indictment that he bribed a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, conspired to distribute controlled substances, maintained Pharaoh’s as a drug-involved premises and exploited the drug addictions of dancers at the club to coerce them into engaging in sex acts.

During a March 24 hearing after Gerace was arraigned on additional charges, Tripi said a former Pharaoh’s dancer will testify at Gerace’s trial about how she began dancing at Pharaoh’s as an 18-year-old and continued there for approximately five years. When she began working there, she told authorities, she had never used drugs. But within two months, she was addicted to cocaine and heroin and began having sex in exchange for drugs and money with Gerace and his friends, Tripi said.

At that March arraignment, Gerace pleaded not guilty to the three additional counts of witness tampering and selling cocaine. It was at a detention hearing afterward when Tripi sought to have Gerace returned to pretrial detention, calling him a danger to witnesses and the community.

At the hearing, Tripi said Gerace had engaged in criminal conduct while on pretrial release and he cited what he called Gerace’s history of witness tampering and intimidation.

“Moreover, he has boasted about having law enforcement and judicial contacts and has described himself to one witness as untouchable,” Tripi said.

Texts between Michalski and Gerace

During that hearing, Tripi said he anticipated introducing at Gerace’s trial text messages from Michalski to corroborate the expected testimony of some witnesses. Tripi said text exchanges between Gerace and Michalski reveal the judge as “one example ... of people in high places that we submit the defendant has been able to groom over time.”

Tripi cited a 2015 text from Michalski to Gerace using a vulgar term indicating he was looking for a woman for sex.

Gerace responded, “Where and when?” Tripi said.

At the hearing, Tripi said he anticipates introducing evidence against Gerace about high-end prostitution for important people in this community, including some lawyers.

“Regarding some of the high-end prostitution, there was evidence that Judge Michalski was one of those high-end customers, and that he liked the female name Shelby,” Tripi said.

Tripi also provided Sinatra with a 2017 exchange of texts in which Gerace and Michalski discussed Gerace’s former wife Katrina L. Gerace, also known as Katrina Nigro.

“… he was sending screenshots of her mug shots to the judge, who mocked her. Who said things like: ‘Wow. Unbelievable. Ha ha ha.’ And, ‘She looks like crap. Give her enough rope.’

“Despite that and despite knowing full well the relationship that he had with Gerace and the witness in this case, when (Gerace’s) ex-wife was arrested for driving drunk and hurting someone, the judge heard the case, took the plea. And then only when publicity in this case started, he recused himself prior to sentencing.”

The Buffalo News has reported that Katrina Gerace has served as a witness for federal law enforcement authorities investigating suspected organized crime activities involving her ex-husband and others.

Gerace is the nephew of Joseph A. Todaro, whom prosecutors and federal agents have identified in court documents as the leader of Buffalo’s “Italian Organized Crime” organization. Todaro, the owner of La Nova Pizza, is not charged in this case and has repeatedly denied being involved in organized crime. Gerace has also denied being involved in organized crime.

Gerace’s lawyer criticizes prosecutor

Steven M. Cohen, one of the attorneys who represents Gerace, lashed out at Tripi earlier this week.

“The assistant United States attorney continues to make allegations and propound innuendo, no evidence,” Cohen said. “We look forward to a trial before impartial jurors so that our client can be acquitted and finally move beyond these baseless allegations.”

Cohen said the reason Gerace has “many friends in law enforcement and in positions of trust and honor is because he is a good and decent man.”

Cohen also defended Michalski, saying Tripi “besmirched … an excellent judge of blessed memory.”

“There seems to be no depths to which he will not plunge to attack Mr. Gerace,” Cohen said. “John Michalski was a true gentleman and a fair judge.”

Michalski was appointed to serve as a judge in 2006 to fill a vacancy on the State Court of Claims and assigned to handle cases in State Supreme Court in Erie County. Gerace was a client of Michalski’s before he became a judge.

In an example of the connection between Gerace and Michalski, Tripi cited an incident from 2015 when the Erie County District Attorney’s Office obtained a protective order from Michalski involving a police undercover investigation at Pharaoh’s involving drugs.

“The Erie County DA’s Office at the time, surely unaware of the relationship between Judge Michalski and Peter Gerace, actually went to Judge Michalski to get a protective order to not disclose the names of identifying witnesses in the case…” Tripi said.

That investigation “went nowhere,” Tripi said.

Continued efforts by defense lawyers, as recently as this week, to gain Gerace’s release ahead of his Aug. 14 trial with co-defendant Joseph Bongiovanni, the former DEA agent, have been unsuccessful.

The indictment accuses Bongiovanni of accepting at least $250,000 in bribes from drug dealers whom he thought were associated with Italian organized crime and shielding them from arrest. He has pleaded not guilty.