 At around the same time, fellow trustee Antonio Signoroni suggested that Marrese may have been in a conflict-of-interest by voting to give school board contracts to his cousin Peter Caruso, a trustee on the North York Board of Education with whom Marrese shared an office.Marrese acknowledged that the contracts in question were awarded to Caruso, but denied any wrongdoing and said that he had never shown preference to his cousin.He questioned Signoroni's motives in raising the matter, noting that another of his relatives was challenging Signoroni in the 1982 election.