By Tresa Baldas From Detroit Free Press

It’s been 17 months since ex-Macomb Township trustee Dino Bucci was indicted on a slew of public corruption charges, yet there have been no developments in his case.

There have been no hearings. His trial has been postponed five times.

And now he’s going on spring break to the Caribbean.

A federal judge on Tuesday gave Bucci, the onetime right-hand man of ex-Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Anthony Marrocco, permission to travel with his family to the Dominican Republic for a week. Marrocco has not been charged, though his name has come under the FBI’s radar, court records show.

Bucci, who had to surrender his passport following his 2017 indictment, will accompany his son on a school spring break trip with several other students and families, according to an order signed by U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not object to Bucci’s request to travel out of the country. When asked whether Bucci was cooperating in the case, prosecutors declined comment. So did Bucci’s lawyer, Stephen Rabaut.

Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor, said he’s not surprised that Bucci was allowed to travel outside the country.

“It’s an interesting accommodation for him … but it’s not completely abnormal,” said Henning, noting other defendants have been allowed to travel while on bond.

But what is notable in Bucci’s case, Henning said, is that the trial date keeps getting pushed forward.

“It may be that they are negotiating a deal,” Henning said, adding: “There must be some resolution on the horizon. The judge just isn’t going to let a case string out for months at a time without some indication that they are moving toward a resolution.” 

Bucci was indicted in 2017 on charges of running pay-to-play schemes for years in Macomb County and lining his pockets along the way. He resigned from his seat late in November. He is charged with bribery, extortion, fraud, theft and money laundering in connection with public contracts in Macomb Township and the Macomb County Department of Public Works, where he worked until his longtime boss, Marrocco, lost his seat in 2016 to Candice Miller.

Bucci is among 22 defendants ensnared in an ongoing public corruption probe that has so far netted 17 convictions, toppled the Rizzo garbage empire and landed two millionaire businessmen in prison: Ex-Rizzo CEO Charles Rizzo Jr., who got 5 1/2 years, and towing titan Gasper Fiore, who got 21 months.

Miller has previously said that the federal government’s corruption probe is focusing on the Macomb County public works office. She said that about a dozen employees were subpoenaed to testify in front of a grand jury, and, were questioned about Marrocco and Bucci.

To date, the stiffest punishment in the case was handed down in February, when former Clinton Township Trustee Dean Reynolds received 17 years for running four bribery schemes.  

For more on this story go to: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/macomb/2019/04/16/dino-bucci-spring-break-carribbean-vacation/3486113002/