Friends and family of Tamaqua restaurateur Alfonso “Alfie” Picone crowded a Schuylkill County courtroom Monday, prepared to speak on his behalf before he was sentenced for bilking an elderly couple of about $315,000.

But President Judge William E. Baldwin said he would choose another date to impose punishment to allow Deputy Attorney General Michelle L. Laucella and Deputy Attorney General Adrian Shchuka, who works in asset forfeiture, to determine how much of Picone’s $100,000 bail could be allocated to restitution.Shchuka said that also involves talking with Matthew Jones, who had posted Picone’s bail.Baldwin will schedule a date for the bail forfeiture hearing.Baldwin also said he would need to set aside more time for the sentencing to allow the 50 or so people who want to speak on Picone’s behalf to do so.The sentencing hearing is required by law to be held within 90 days of a guilty verdict. In Picone’s case, that means he would have to be sentenced by Dec. 22.Before the start of the sentencing hearing Monday, Picone’s lawyer, Ross M. Miller of Lansdale, asked Baldwin to acquit his client. He filed that motion late Friday.Miller said prosecutors presented no evidence during the trial to prove Picone stole the money. Instead, Miller argued, the money was gifts and loans.Baldwin said the victim, John W. Burnard, now 93, had survived the Battle of Normandy during World War II, and that Burnard and his late wife, Ella E. Burnard, had worked hard, lived frugally, and saved their money.They would not, Baldwin said, have simply told Picone to take whatever he wanted from their bank accounts.“No one would buy that, and the jury didn’t,” Baldwin said. “Your motion is denied.”Further, Baldwin said, no reasonable person could have considered the evidence and not concluded “the defendant was helping himself to the Burnards’ money.”Miller also asked for a new trial for Picone.Picone was charged with swindling $315,492 between January and December 2014 from the couple. Forensic accountant Dennis Houser testified at Picone’s trial that between Aug. 26, 2013, and Dec. 9, 2014, there were 23 transactions from the Burnards’ bank and retirement accounts to Picone or his business or his vendors (contractors who did work on his house) totaling $319,501.Picone, 46, was charged in May 2015 by then-Rush Township patrolman Thomas R. Fort.According to police reports and testimony, Picone used temporary bank checks to siphon money from the couple’s retirement and checking accounts.The theft began after Ella Burnard was struggling with age-related dementia when she asked Picone, who co-owns and manages his family’s restaurant, La Dolce Casa, for help in paying her bills and balancing her checkbook. The couple had frequented the Tamaqua restaurant.Baldwin said that the Burnards added Picone’s name to their accounts so he could help them pay their bills, “not so he could help himself to their money.”A jury on Sept. 22 deliberated for just 90 minutes before reaching the unanimous verdicts on dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities, knowing that property is proceeds of illegal activity, theft and receiving stolen property.At the time, Baldwin increased Picone’s bail to $100,000 straight cash from $100,000 percentage, and ordered him to surrender his passport.He said Picone, who is from Italy, has ties to that country and money at his disposal, and so was a flight risk.