Marrese ran for an aldermanic position in North York in the 1976 municipal election, and finished third against Mario Gentile in the city's second ward.
[12] Marrese was re-elected to the Metro Separate School Board in 1978, representing Ward Twenty-One in the Jane and Finch area.
He was arrested on June 16, 1982 on charges of "breach of trust, and as a public official seeking to accept a reward and agreeing to vote for consideration" relating to the sale of the school board's former headquarters on Laird Drive.
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.
His accuser, John Lonergan, testified that Marrese approached him in June 1982 and "asked to be paid $30,000 for ensuring that the [separate school] board accepted a $1,925,000 offer".
[18] The six acceptance charges against Marrese were dismissed on a legal technicality in mid-October 1983, when the judge ruled that a school trustee cannot be considered a municipal official.
[19] Defending himself against the remaining breach-of-trust charge, Marrese told the court that he had only agreed to make an improper financial arrangement with Lonergan to procure evidence that the realtor was trying to bribe him.
He testified that he had been planning to take his evidence to the next board meeting in order "to reveal the bribe and vote against Lonergan's offer"; this course of action was, he added, made impossible by his arrest.
Jack Graham, the board's acting chairman, described the conviction as the most embarrassing incident in the history of Catholic education in Ontario.
In 1986, he made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the rights for property development on a North York city block surrounded by Yonge, Princess, Empress and Doris Streets.