Feb. 16—As the "puppeteer" of a bribery scheme in Old Forge, James J. Peperno Jr. should spend years in a federal prison, the U.S. attorney's office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania argued.

In a memorandum, federal prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion to sentence Peperno to the higher end of a 70- to 87-month guideline range. Peperno, 58, is due for sentencing at 2 p.m. Friday.

"As neither the public official, nor the source of the bribe payments, Peperno was nothing more than an individual who saw an opportunity to profit from corruption and greed, and who pursued it without hesitation," according to the memorandum filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip J. Caraballo-Garrison. "Peperno's own words and actions, captured in covert FBI records, and memorialized in careless text messages, revealed an immoral man who effectively spawned a briberous relationship between two vulnerable individuals for his own self-profit, pulling their strings like a puppeteer."

A federal jury convicted Peperno in September of bribery and related offenses following a nine-day trial that detailed how he acted as a middleman between former Council President Robert Semenza and scrap yard owner Walter Stocki.

Semenza and Peperno both faced charges in an investigation centered on payments Stocki made to Semenza in 2019 both directly and indirectly through Peperno to influence costly zoning litigation against Stocki's North Keyser Avenue business. Investigators said Stocki paid Semenza $10,000 directly and funneled another $6,000 to Peperno, of which $500 went to Semenza.

Stocki assisted the FBI in their investigation. The $6,000 he passed to Peperno came from funds the FBI gave Stocki to further the investigation.

Semenza, 49, pleaded guilty to bribery and resigned from borough council in May 2021. He was in the grip of a cocaine addiction at the time, he has said in court. Sober for more than two years, Semenza testified against Peperno during the trial.

Mannion sentenced Semenza to a year and a day in prison; he surrendered in late January to the Federal Correctional Institution/Schuylkill.

Peperno maintained he acted as a consultant for Stocki. Federal authorities said he had the characteristics of a "corrupt fraudster."

In 2007, he was convicted in federal court for running a Ponzi scheme prosecutors said defrauded victims out of nearly $2 million.

Ordered to pay it back, authorities said he lied under oath about his finances and stymied efforts to collect on his restitution.

In one case, they said, he claimed to work for a physician in Dunmore. One day, Peperno inadvertently called his probation officer and was heard instructing the physician on what to say if an investigator asked questions about Peperno's earnings.

"In committing his most recent crimes, Peperno has remained true to his pattern of showing no respect for the law, and a willingness to engage in any corrupt, fraudulent, or perjurious action that will deliver money into his hands," the memorandum said.

Contact the writer: jkohut@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9100, x5187; @jkohutTT on Twitter.