Another New Jersey Corruption Sweep!

I am unable to post this essay at this time at my msn group, due to hackers and other obstructions. The first posted version of this essay at "Critique" was altered. I cannot print items today. March 28, 2007 at 11:49 A.M.

I will try again to post this essay, both at "Critique" and at my blogs. These obstructions are content-based censorship efforts in violation of fundamental First Amendment rights and federal criminal laws prohibiting obstruction and violation of civil rights. I believe that such actions emanate from the corridors of power in New Jersey.

Richard G. Jones, "14 City Employees in Paterson Are Charged in Corruption Sweep," in The New York Times, March 27, 2007, at p. B1.

"NEWARK, March 26 -- one bribe was made in exchange for dismissing the complaints of a distressed tenant against a landlord. A second was to ensure a timely lead paint inspection. Another was submitted for the most basic of needs: to keep water services from being shut off."

"Those were among the allegations made by federal prosecutors on Monday as they charged 14 people in a wide-ranging public corruption scheme involving Paterson city workers, including employees of its Housing Authority, and manipulation of the federal section 8 program providing rent subsidies for the poor."

"The charges, a result of a 14-month investigation by the United States attorney for New Jersey, outlined an extensive street-level operation in which officials solicited and accepted bribes for a range of favors -- from steering tenants to landlords to expediting the city's occupancy permit process."

"According to a criminal complaint in the case, Benny Ramos, a former deputy director of the city's section 8 program admitted to investigators that he had accepted as much as $100,000 in bribes during the past 10 years."

"For the United States attorney's office in New Jersey, whose investigations have led to the arrest of more than 100 officials" -- closer to 200! -- "for public corruption in the past five years, the Paterson case represents a different kind of prosecution."

"Its targets were not public figures with household names, like John A. Lynch, the former president of the New Jersey Senate, or James W. Treffinger, the former Essex County executive, both of whom were convicted of corruption. [An on-going federal grand jury investigation into the activities of Senator Robert "Bob" Menendez has yet to be resolved.] And the largest [single] figure cited in the complaint was just under $7,000."

The total number and sum of bribes involved in all matters were not listed. My estimate is that, even in poor neighborhoods, bribes for public officials, including judges, in New Jersey amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Public "service" in the Garden State is "nice work if you can get it."

"But Christopher J. Christie, the United States attorney, said that his 'office was not swayed by the size of the catch' and that the case represented 'a pervasive culture of corruption throughout the state where even low-level players often expect something extra for performing routine duties.' ... "

Mr. Christie was quoted at a press conference saying:

"... 'I don't come here today to tell all of you that we have broken a high level major public official case,' Mr. Christie said ... 'But this is the kind of public official case that really affects the daily lives of people in New Jersey.' "

"He said that those charged were 'people who every day are shaking down folks in order to get the routine functions of government done -- things that should be done every day without much incident.' "

"When we have sat up here and talked about the culture of corruption in New Jersey, we're not just talking about people like John Lynch and Jim Treffinger,' Mr. Christie said. 'We're talking about people like Benny Ramos. We're talking about people in the lowest levels of government who exist in a governmental culture that gives them the sense that this kind of conduct is permissible.' ..."

That culture of corruption is probably more pervasive in Hudson and other urban counties than Paterson. Statewide, DMV and other state-affiliated and governmental agencies (possibly including the A.G. and the notoriously corrupt OAE), are typically as loathsome, or more so, as these city agencies in Paterson. Some of the moneys collected in this manner must "flow up" -- leaving a slimy residue among judges and legal officials -- who are part of the "organization" that runs so much of the state behind the scenes. Ethics? In New Jersey? Nah ...

Many New Jersey officials are on the take; many more are subject to influence by "made men" of the Democrat political organization that calls the shots behind the scenes in a setting that reeks of twenties-style Chicago gangsterdom. To hear the same people whining about African-American "criminals" in the inner cities, who are like Bible-wielding mormons compared the Jersey political mob, is sickening.

Jersey's political whores -- some of whom are running courtrooms -- steal billions, are involved in child porn, corruption and bribery, wielding political and legal power behind the scenes in a system where secrecy renders everything a "signal" or sign for something else. No wonder they are obstructing my writings. They prefer the darkness, like vampires and IRS agents. Overlapping categories? Perhaps.

Some of this must be traced to the "incompetence" and continuing "dereliction of duty" of New Jersey's former and current Supreme Court "justices" -- who are usually out on the town on your tab, when not posing for portraits on horseback:

"Hey, you got the widgets? 2, 000 widgets and ya get da permit. Wadda-ya-gonna-do? ... That's life in Jersey. He-he-he."

This is the sort of thing one hears from public officials in New Jersey, some in judicial robes.

More Problems for Menendez -- Tapes!

Ray Rivera, "Tape About Hiring Puts Menendez Camp on the Defensive," The New York Times, September 29, 2006, at p. B3:

"Senator Menendez, who is being challenged by State Senator Thomas H. Kean, Jr. in a fierce race for his Senate seat, is on the defensive again, over a tape-recorded conversation in which a longtime friend and political confidant is overhead asking a psychiatrist with $1 MILLION in Hudson County contracts to hire one of Mr. Menendez's political patrons [Dr. Vicente Ruiz] or risk losing the contracts."

"A Menendez campaign spokesperson" -- who is an attorney, perhaps, and duty-bound to speak the truth? -- "denied that the senator had any involvement in exerting any influence on the psychiatrist. He moved quickly to disassociate the campaign from the man accused of applying the pressure, [New Jersey Attorney] Donald J. Scarinci, after excerpts of the conversation, which took place in 1999, appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer [by way of the Camden Democratic Machine?] and other newspapers yesterday."

Mr. Scarinci is long known to be close to the Hudson County power-structure, from which he derives a great deal of business, and to Mr. Menendez, since he is (allegedly) a friend of the Senator "from the old neighborhood," as the saying goes. Another Hudson County saying is: "You take care of me, I take care of you."

"In an interview yesterday, Dr. Sandoval" -- hereafter known as "the cautious shrink" -- "said that the tape was ONE OF DOZENS OF CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MR. SCARINCI THAT HE SECRETLY RECORDED, AND THAT MR. MENENDEZ WAS PRESENT on several occasions when the issue was being discussed. Dr. Sandoval declined to release any other tapes yesterday."

There is more coming boys and girls.

" ... 'It's an insult to the intelligence of the New Jersey public to ask them to believe that Scarinci, who has millions of dollars in business in more than 20 municipalities because of Bob Menendez's influence, did this without Menendez's involvement,' Dr. Sandoval said."

At one point in the transcript of only one recording "Mr. Scarinci is quoted as saying that from his point of view, 'it makes sense for you, because this gives you protection.' ..."

An old friend of the Hudson County "dominations and powers," Dr. Ruiz -- the recipient of this mysterious largesse -- may well have shared some of his bounty. It is too soon, at this point, to know such a thing, but it is certainly a plausible speculation. One wonders with whom Dr. Ruiz might have shared his bounty, if he did share it, better than with those who helped him to get that bounty in the first place. And I don't mean paper towels. I was told that in Jersey politics, "one hand washes the other." For some reason, however, the hands are always filthy.

Is there a pattern here? $30 MILLION in federal money for the Bayonne waterfront project and lucrative employment for Bob's friends, including Scarinsci and Li Causi, all of whom happen to be campaign contributors; $300,000 in rent for Bob, just as Bob's tenants get millions in federal funds. What a coincidence!

"A 1998 form submitted to the Internal Revenue Service showed that Dr. Ruiz was one of the highest paid employees of the North Hudson Community Action Corporation -- the non-profit agency that leased property from Menendez -- earning $125,192. Dr. Ruiz remained an employee of the agency until he resigned in January 2000, an agency spokesman said yesterday."

How much of that money paid to Ruiz was coming back to Senator Bob, one way or the other? Inquiring minds and grand juries want to know.

Menendez Haunted by Party's Ghosts.

As of September 28, 2006 at 7:39 A.M., an additional 55 intrusion attempts on my computer were detected by Norton Security. Most frequent attacker is 24.192.121.242. I have experienced great difficulties in gaining access to the blog today, also in writing at my MSN group, but I am deternined to continue writing.
Steve Kornacki, "Menendez Haunted by Party's Ghosts," in The New York Observer, September 25, 2006, at p. 5.

"... If Robert Menendez, New Jersey's appointed Democratic incumbent, fails to hold off Republican Tom Kean, Jr., Euclid himself couldn't devise a majority-producing formula for the Democrats."

"For now, the Menendez-Kean race is essentially a tie, something of an achievement in its own right for New Jersey's GOP, which typically enjoys all the September success of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. What's more, the most recent polls haven't even measured the impact of a recently revealed federal criminal investigation of Mr. Menendez, the consequences of which Democrats privately describe with words ranging from 'pretty bad' to 'fatal.' "

Mr. Menendez is a member of the New Jersey Bar Association, so that (as I understand it) the Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE) is duty-bound to look into these allegations in order to determine whether legal ethics rules have been violated. The same is true for Senator Wayne Bryant. I wonder whether the OAE is investigating the allegations against both of these gentlemen? I doubt it. Who is investigating the OAE's corruption and incompetence, John? ("New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

"... Just consider what else is in the news these days."

"There's Jim McGreevey, some 22 months after skipping town with federal investigations into his gubernatorial administration swirling, who barged back into our lives last week to let us know that the sexual affair with the unqualified Israeli sailor he appointed as his state's homeland security advisor actually began while Mrs. McGreevey lay in a hospital bed clutching the couple's new-born daughter. If that's not enough, Golan Cipel, Mr. McGreevey's supposed romantic partner, has himself re-emerged -- to declare that the governor had actually liquored him up ... and tried to rape him."

"There's also John Lynch, the onetime New Jersey Senate President (and Mr. McGreevey's political godfather), whose plea agreement on federal corruption charges landed on the front page of last Friday's Star Ledger -- right next to the news that Mr. McGreevey had been smitten with Mr. Cipel from the 'first kiss.' ... "

"And then there is this week's report from a federal monitor essentially charging Wayne Bryant, a powerful state senator and loyal cog in the feared Camden County Democratic Committee, with shaking down administrators at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to secure a no-show job for himself."

Sucking on the tit, Wayne?

"... Mr. Menendez was always playing a risky game, betting that he -- and, more importantly New Jersey's voters -- had heard the last from some of the uglier chapters from his days as Hudson County's Democratic Boss."

Josh Benson, "The Second Time Around, It doesn't Seem So Brave," in The New York Observer, September 25, 2006, at p. 8:

"[McGreevey's] state budget was hopelessly out of balance. His political and ideological allies, frustrated by three years of vascillation on environmental issues, ethics legislation and spending priorities, had turned on him."

"And most seriously his administration was starting to give off the distinct whiff of ethical rot."

"The governor had only shortly before been caught on tape uttering the word 'Machiavelli' to a constituent. (He professes philosophical leanings towards Kant and the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in his new book, but in this context Machiavelli was considered -- at least by federal prosecutors -- to be a code word in an illicit fund-raising scheme.)"

"And, most spectacularly, at least until the famous 'Gay American' speech, Mr. McGreevey's chief fund-raiser and financial patron, real-estate magnate Charles Kushner, had just been charged with interfering in a federal investigation into campaign finance violations."

David W. Chen, "Senator Leaves Budget Post in Ethics Inquiry," in The New York Times, September 26, 2006, at p. B7:

"Responding to pressure from colleagues as well as the governor, State Senator Wayne R. Bryant, one of New Jersey's most powerful legislators, agreed on Monday to step down temporarily as the chairman of the influential Senate Budget Appropriations Committee."

"... According to the monitor's report, the university paid [Bryant] $35,000 a year to do little more than show up perhaps one day a week and read newspapers. At the same time, the university received a substantial increase in state funds. ... the school's financing climbed to more than $4 million annually from $2.8 million."

Many speculate about whether some of that loot was spread among New Jersey's Supreme Court members and/or other prominent politicians in Trenton. In a state with New Jersey's history, courts and government have lost all credibility with the people. It is widely assumed -- probably accurately -- that real decisions are still made behind the scenes, having nothing to do with the laws on the books in New Jersey, by the various "Godfathers" in the state.

It is a mystery to me how some people in New Jersey have the nerve to wear those black robes or are hypocritical enough to judge others. (See "Is New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz unethical or only incompetent?"

http://www.alumni.rutgers.edu/alumnews/2001/summer/features/images/hda2-7912.tif.JPG (New Jersey's Supreme Court Justices having a little meal on your tab, who will probably block this image so you won't see them doing it.)

"Trenton: Senate Confirms Attorney General," in The New York Times, September 26, 2006, at p. B6:

"Stuart Rabner, a former federal prosecutor who tackled political corruption and international terrorism cases, was confirmed yesterday as New Jersey's new attorney general."

Stuart Rabner has never been known to "tackle" anything that might blow back in his direction. Mr. Rabner is a disgrace to the office he has tainted through lethargy and cowardice. ("Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")