Gov. Phil Murphy speaks about launching a new expedited clemency initiative and establishing a clemency advisory board at Saint James A.M.E. Church in Newark on June 19, 2024. (Jake Hirsch/Governor’s Office)

Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order Wednesday intended to speed clemency applications to his desk in hopes of extending pardons to thousands of New Jerseyans in and out of the state’s jails and prisons.

Murphy’s order creates a board that will review clemency applications and make non-binding recommendations about which requests should be granted in an effort to expand grants of clemency beyond friends and allies of the governor, as has often been the practice in New Jersey and elsewhere.

“Historically speaking here in New Jersey, receiving a pardon or having your sentence commuted was not a matter of either fairness or objectivity,” Murphy said at Saint James A.M.E. Church in Newark. “It was a matter of who you knew or how well connected you were to those in power. With the executive order I’m signing today, we are changing that.”

Rapper Meek Mill — real name Robert Rihmeek Williams— spoke at Wednesday’s announcement in support of the initiative. He became a champion for criminal justice reform because of a 2007 arrest on gun and drug charges in Philadelphia that prosecutors later conceded may have been improper. The state’s Superior Court in 2019 vacated the rapper’s conviction, citing credibility problems with the arresting officer.

“Everything you’re talking about — clemency, second chances, giving people a fair shot — I grew up on that side of life, and I never thought I would be in rooms like this,” the rapper said Wednesday. “You guys give me the courage and the energy to use my platform to keep pushing forward to better our communities.”

Murphy’s order comes two days after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed an order pardoning 17,000 misdemeanor cannabis-related convictions (cannabis use is legal in that state for those over 21).

Murphy’s order, which comes after lobbying by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, directs the board to expedite applications if they pass a two-pronged test based on time and the offense for which they seek a pardon. The governor says he expects the first batch of clemencies to come in roughly six months.

Clemency seekers who are no longer incarcerated would be eligible for expedited review if 10 years had passed since the end of their sentence, including parole, probation, and court diversionary programs. That time bar falls to five years for applicants who are 60 or older or who were no older than 25 at the time of their offense.

They could meet the offense test if the crime for which they seek a pardon was not subject to the No Early Release Act or is no longer illegal.

“Corrections is based upon providing the opportunity for second chances, and our criminal and justice systems must provide meaningful opportunities for rehabilitation and redemption,” said Corrections Commissioner Victoria Kuhn.

The order bars clemency for offenses involving public corruption. Those with pending charges or who have been convicted outside of New Jersey for crimes that would prevent expedited review are likewise ineligible.

Murphy’s order creates a separate process for those who are currently incarcerated. Such individuals would be eligible for expedited review if they were a victim of sex trafficking or domestic violence, they were handed an excessive sentence, or they were convicted of a crime that is no longer illegal or has had its penalties reduced.

Regardless of a person’s carceral status, they are eligible for expedited review if the conviction review unit within the Office of the Attorney General refers the application to the new board for that purpose.

The Department of Corrections will work to solicit clemency applications from those still jailed, Murphy said, while those who have completed their sentences must apply online.

“Sometime in the future, I suspect after I’ve hung my cleats up, there will be an opportunity for somebody to press a button and automatically know who’s eligible or is considering eligibility, but today we don’t have it,” Murphy said. “So, the responsibility’s going to be out there on the individual to come to us.”

The six-member board must include the New Jersey attorney general and five public members, among whom there must be a retired judge, an experienced defense attorney, an expert on clemency, and a victim advocate.

Murphy has selected Justin Dews, a former senior counsel to the governor, as the board’s chair. The panel’s members will serve at the governor’s pleasure and receive no compensation.

“Clemency, whether it be a pardon or a commutation, is transformational,” Dews said Wednesday. “A pardon removes barriers that the law erects. Commutations shortens sentences. What the law says you cannot do, a pardon restores, and what the law says you must face, a pardon wipes away.”

Murphy has not issued any pardons since taking office in early 2018, and executive clemencies are a relative rarity in New Jersey.

Since Christine Todd Whitman became governor in 1994, the state’s executives have issued just 105 pardons and commutations, with most coming at the end of a governor’s lame-duck term.

Chris Christie, who issued more pardons than any governor since at least 1994, issued 15 clemencies in his first seven years in office, pardoned 38 in his last year, and commuted the sentences of three others.

Murphy on Wednesday declined to rule out issuing pardons or clemencies to individuals the board did not recommend should receive them.

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George Norcross III, right, and lawyer Michael Critchley speak to reporters in Trenton on June 17, 2024, after hearing Norcross has been indicted by the state Attorney General's Office. (Photo by Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)

The indictment unveiled Monday that accuses insurance executive and Democratic power broker George Norcross III of overseeing a criminal enterprise is replete with accusations of threats, intimidation, and political corruption that go on for 111 pages.

But at the heart of the charges filed by Attorney General Matt Platkin’s office are claims that Norcross — a Democratic kingmaker widely regarded as New Jersey’s most powerful unelected person — conspired with his allies to leverage their control of Camden County government officials to steer redevelopment work to their preferred investors and punish those who did not fall in line.

While some details of the saga have previously emerged in press reports or through a gubernatorial task force convened to probe abuses of the state’s tax incentives, the indictment against Norcross and five of his allies presents new details about how prosecutors claim they used their political power for personal gain.

It centers around voluminous New Jersey tax incentive programs meant to steer investment to the state’s financially struggling cities and accuses Norcross and others of enriching themselves with taxpayer dollars while lying to the government.

Norcross, a former Democratic national committeeman who faces 13 counts in the racketeering indictment, has denied any wrongdoing and alleges the prosecution is politically motivated.

“What’s being alleged here, it’s a wild story, a fanciful story woven together, a concocted criminal enterprise,” said Kevin Marino, an attorney for one of the defendants. “I don’t see a single allegation here that rises to the level of criminal activity.”

Triad1828 & 11 Cooper

In 2013, Norcross and allies sought to build on plots near Camden’s waterfront as expanded tax incentives became available under a new law.

Parts of the law were written by Kevin Sheehan, an attorney at the Parker McCay firm — Norcross’s brother Philip, a co-defendant, is the CEO — who the indictment calls lawyer-1, and offered more generous awards with far fewer guardrails to projects in Camden than it called for elsewhere. But Norcross and his allies still ran into problems.

They did not own the land and lacked the rights to develop it, and Philadelphia-based developer Dranoff Properties had the right of first refusal for one lot and a view easement that would limit the height of construction in the other.

Norcross and allies sought an end to the easement so they could construct the Triad1828 Centre — the tallest building on Camden’s waterfront, which now hosts Conner Strong & Buckelew, NFI, and the Michaels Organization — but met with resistance from Carl Dranoff, the developer whom the indictment refers to as developer-1.

Norcross is executive chairman of Conner Strong & Buckelew. NFI CEO Sidney Brown and Michaels Organization CEO John O’Donnell have also been charged.

City officials, including then-Mayor Dana Redd — another co-defendant — then stopped returning the developer’s calls, and an offer followed, prosecutors claim. Dranoff Properties would receive $1.3 million in reimbursements and consulting fees plus $1 million to cede its development rights, its easement, and $18 million in state tax credits to Liberty Property Trust, the developer favored by Norcross, according to the indictment.

The offer included the promise of a push by Norcross allies to lobby the Camden Redevelopment Agency to issue permits that would lower the environmental remediation standards at a separate site the developer sought to redevelop, the indictment says. The firms played no legal role in that process.

The deal fell through the same day it was offered, and those in Norcross’s orbit turned to other methods, prosecutors claim.

“I think we just do it. F**k ‘em. F**k ‘em. Just do it,” Norcross said during a recorded conversation with his brother, according to the indictment.

The indictment alleges Norcross turned to two strategies: His team would have the Camden Redevelopment Agency challenge the easement in court, and they would challenge the developer’s character in public.

The court filing was an effort to get the easement thrown out under the New Jersey Eminent Domain Act, which allows governments to seize private property under certain circumstances that include just compensation for the property owner.

There is no evidence the redevelopment agency intended to follow the process set out by that law, which requires the condemning agency appraise the property to be seized and make a written offer that meets or exceeds its value before moving to condemn the building, prosecutors said.

The indictment says the developer feared the financial harms borne of Norcross’s control of Camden government and his ability to do businesses elsewhere in the future. He ceded his easement and sold his $18 million in tax credits and his development rights for $1.95 million in October 2016.

Prosecutors allege Norcross and his allies resorted to coercive tactics over a separate site some 16 months later, when they charged Dranoff was responsible for stalled redevelopment at Radio Lofts, a former Radio Corporation of America building that could not be redeveloped because the Camden Redevelopment Agency could not secure sufficient financing for environmental remediation.

“He’s gonna come under some serious accusations from the City of Camden, which are gonna basically suggest that he’s not a reputable person and he’s done nothing but try to impede the progress of the city,” Norcross said on a recorded conference call, according to the indictment. “You can never trust him until you got a bat over his head.”

Officials began deriding the developer after he sued the city, the redevelopment agency, and others in 2018 after Camden moved to end his development rights on the Radio Lofts site.

“The city of Camden is taking action against those who have taken advantage of the city when it was down,” then-Camden Mayor Frank Moran said when the city countersued Dranoff in 2018.

The developer settled that suit in 2023, agreeing to pay the city $3.3 million and cede redevelopment rights to the Radio Lofts site. He believed he was in the right, the indictment says, but “had concerns over corruption in Camden which made him believe that he would not be treated fairly by the court system.”

That accusation raised the hackles of Norcross attorney Michael Critchley, who likened them to Donald Trump’s claims that his New York hush money conviction is the result of a corrupt judicial system.

“Why would an officer of the court, meaning Platkin, the attorney general, put shame unnecessarily, unjustly, and salaciously, on the entire court system of Camden, and in particular the judge,” Critchley told the New Jersey Monitor. “This is just out of Trump’s playbook.”

Conner Strong & Buckelew, NFI, and the Michaels Organization won more than $240 million in tax credits for the Triad1828 Centre through the now-defunct GROW NJ tax credit program. The three firms have received at least $29 million of those tax credits, prosecutors said, much of which they sold.

The Michaels Organization has received roughly $3.5 million in tax credits for 11 Cooper, a residential project on the site to which the developer had the right of first refusal. Michaels sold those tax credits for roughly $4.3 million.

A Dranoff spokeswoman declined to comment.

L3 complex

The indictment alleges similar misconduct over the nonprofit Coopers Ferry’s redevelopment of an office building Cooper University Health Care wanted for its own offices. Norcross is chairman of the Cooper health system’s board.

Philip Norcross railed at top officials at Cooper’s Ferry over the project, saying it should be handed over to a private developer, the indictment claims. Prosecutors allege that within a day, he urged the nonprofit to partner with Ira Lubert, a Pennsylvania real estate mogul with financial ties to George Norcross whom the indictment calls Investor-1.

Cooper’s Ferry entered a non-disclosure agreement with Lubert but chose another developer, a decision that immediately drew Norcross’s ire, prosecutors say.

Two days later, on April 25, 2014, Philip Norcross, who held no formal role with the city or Cooper’s Ferry, told the nonprofit it was not allowed to use its chosen developers, a statement then-Cooper’s Ferry CEO Anthony Perno took as a threat, prosecutors allege.

In an email cited by the indictment, Perno called the two bids a “false choice,” saying Cooper’s Ferry would likely not be able to close a deal with its chosen developers “given the opposition.”

In the end, Cooper’s Ferry partnered with Norcross’ chosen developer, netted just $125,000 for its work on the project, and never received shares of future profits promised to it during negotiations, the indictment alleges.

The nonprofit’s agreement with its preferred developer would have seen it win 25% of future profits from the site. At the time of closing, the L3 site was appraised at roughly $54 million, tens of millions more than the $32.7 million Lubert’s partnership paid for it.

Cooper Health had applied for tax incentives to cover the costs of rent at the site a month earlier, though in its applications to the state Economic Development Authority, it left out that it planned to purchase an interest in L3, prosecutors say.

Cooper Health received an award of nearly $40 million just 28 days after filing its application and, four months thereafter, purchased a 49% stake in the site for about $2.5 million. Between 2015 and 2020, Cooper Health received more than $27.1 million in tax incentives, which it sold for about $25.1 million.

Prosecutors allege Norcross and others then sought to shield their role in the saga. Norcross, during a 2016 FBI interview, claimed he did not know anyone at Cooper’s Ferry, according to the indictment.

But Susan Bass Levin, who the indictment calls CC-1, joined the Cooper Ferry’s board two years earlier. Bass Levin is CEO of the Cooper Foundation, the charitable arm of Cooper University Health Care.

In 2017, Norcross moved to oust Perno as he shifted officials through positions within his influence, prosecutors allege. Perno resigned at the urging of Bass Levin — losing a full year in severance — though his departure had less to do with his job performance than Norcross’s view of his performance, prosecutors claimed.

If he refused to quit, officials would just invent a reason to remove him for cause and thereby deny him severance, Bass Levin said, according to the indictment.

The indictment recounts a conversation about Norcross that prosecutors claim Bass Levin had with Perno.

“You don’t want that fight. Believe me when I tell you. If you don’t think that he can’t get to anybody he wants to, you’re kidding yourself,” Bass Levin said.

Marino, the attorney representing Philip Norcross, said that exchange is an example of many in the indictment that prove no criminal activity and were included to create the appearance that George Norcross and his allies acted improperly.

“One party’s telling another party that George Norcross can get anywhere and do anything. What is that doing in an indictment?” Marino said. “The reason this indictment runs to 111 pages is it takes a lot of work to construct what actually happened in such a way as to make it look like it violates the law. It doesn’t.”

The post Inside the ‘wild’ charges against Dem power broker George Norcross appeared first on New Jersey Monitor.

Attorney General Matt Platkin (center) speaks to reporters after announcing his office has indicted Democratic power broker George Norcross III (seated far right). (Photo by Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)

George Norcross III, a powerful Democratic power broker, was charged with racketeering on Monday along with five others including his personal lawyer, his brother, and a former Camden mayor.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin unveiled the 13-count indictment during an unusual press conference in Trenton in front of an audience that included Norcross, who sat in the front row and refused to move seats when asked to by someone in Platkin’s office.

The indictment accuses Norcross of overseeing a criminal enterprise, using direct threats and intimidation to win development rights along the Camden waterfront and then benefiting from millions of dollars in state-issued tax credits.

In one instance, the indictment alleges Norcross told an unnamed developer who didn’t want to give up their waterfront property that he would ensure the developer never does business in Camden again. The indictment alleges that Norcross later recounted the conversation this way in a recorded conversation:

“Are you threatening me?” the developer asked.

“Absolutely,” Norcross responded.

The indictment includes salty language not uncommon in New Jersey politics. It alleges Norcross once threatened a developer that he would “f**k you up like you’ve never been f**ked up before.”

Platkin said Monday that Norcross and his allies manipulated government programs designed to attract development and investment to instead suit their own financial desires.

“Instead of contributing to the successes of the city of Camden, through a series of criminal acts alleged in the state’s case, the Norcross enterprise took the Camden waterfront all for themselves,” the attorney general said.

The charges come during a turbulent year in New Jersey politics. In March, Democratic Party bosses lost the chance to use county-line ballots to push their favored candidates during primaries, and in May, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez’s second corruption trial in the last seven years began in a federal courthouse in Manhattan. Menendez, a Democrat, has indicated he will seek reelection as an independent in November if he is not convicted, a move that is certain to harm the chances of the Democratic nominee to succeed him, Rep. Andy Kim.

Norcross’ co-defendants are his brother Philip Norcross, who runs the Parker McKay law firm; Dana Redd, the former Camden mayor; Bill Tambussi, Norcross’ attorney; Sidney Brown, the head of trucking company NFI and a Norcross business partner; and John J. O’Donnell, a real estate developer and president of The Michaels Organization. There are also several unnamed co-conspirators, Platkin added.

“This alleged conduct of the Norcross enterprise has caused great harm to individuals, businesses, nonprofits, the people of the state of New Jersey, and especially to the city of Camden and its residents,” Platkin said. “That stops today.”

When a reporter asked about Norcross’ presence at the press conference, Platkin refused to comment.

The charges including racketeering, official misconduct, conspiracy to commit theft, financial facilitation of criminal activity, and misconduct by a corporate official.

Norcross denies the allegations. Norcross, an insurance executive and chairman of the Camden-based Cooper University Health Care, has long maintained great political power in Camden and in greater South Jersey. His brother Donald is a member of the House of Representatives.

Speaking to reporters after the charges were released, Norcross suggested the case is Platkin’s payback for being “humiliated and exposed” in front of a legislative committee that investigated rape allegations of a campaign staffer for Gov. Phil Murphy (the staffer has said she told Platkin about her claims and he mishandled them). Norcross also suggested Platkin’s political ambitions are to blame — Norcross called Platkin a politician “masquerading as an attorney general.”

“I want to go to trial in two weeks. I want Matt Platkin to come down here and try this case himself, because he’s a coward, because he has forced people in this building to implement his will,” Norcross said.

Platkin’s announcement comes on the heels of charges his office filed Friday against two South Jersey Transportation Authority board members who are alleged to have used their positions to punish a Norcross foe.

The new allegations stretch back to at least 2012.

Norcross and his allies wielded their political influence — at the time, Norcross was aligned with the state Senate president, Stephen Sweeney — to tailor economic development legislation to their preference before extorting and coercing landowners to obtain property rights in Camden to benefit Norcross and his allies, Platkin alleges.

“As George Norcross himself allegedly said, ‘This is for our friends,’” Platkin said.

Platkin alleges Norcross and his allies helped pass a state law in September 2013 called the Economic Opportunity Act. Norcross, in a meeting with allies ahead of the law’s enactment, said he wanted to use the new legislation to construct an office building for free, according to the indictment.

The indictment says the Norcross team exchanged emails with top political leaders at the time, including then-Gov. Chris Christie and Sweeney, sending talking points in support of the bill. And following the law’s enactment, lawyers lobbied to amend it in a way that would benefit Cooper hospital, according to the indictment.

Authorities allege Philip Norcross touted the law — even while noting “this probably is not such a good thing” — because the state would cover tax credits for all capital and related costs for developers coming to Camden with jobs.

“Over ten years, it’s a hundred percent, and … it will cause real havoc, it’s unlimited,” he said in a recorded conversation, according to the indictment.

Overall, the law doled out lucrative tax breaks to businesses in the form of billions of dollars. Later, Murphy’s administration would establish a task force to investigate how the awards were granted.

The charges announced Monday include allegations surrounding the L3 complex, two three-story buildings and surface parking on a 21-acre lot near the Camden waterfront. The claims offer an illustration of how Platkin’s office alleges the Norcross team operated.

Cooper’s Ferry Partnership, a nonprofit redevelopment organization, was seeking to purchase the L3 site. Norcross allies intervened, according to the indictment, by having the Camden mayor’s office instruct the nonprofit’s leaders to meet regularly with Philip Norcross “so the Norcross Enterprise could monitor what the nonprofit was doing,” the indictment says. Philip Norcross then told the nonprofit it would suffer repercussions if it chose their own developer instead of one of the Norcross team’s choosing, according to the indictment.

In the end, Cooper’s Ferry — which could have partnered with a developer and earned millions from shared profits — instead sold the property at a “discounted price” to the Norcross-chosen developer, the indictment says. Cooper University Health Care then bought a substantial ownership share in the developer and over the next four years, won $27 million in state tax credits, the indictment says.

The state also claims that after this episode, a Norcross ally threatened the Cooper’s Ferry CEO, forcing him to resign. Cooper’s Ferry became Camden Community Partnership in 2021. Redd is now its president and CEO.

Norcross’ appearance at Platkin’s press conference — he was not invited — caused a stir. When a member of Platkin’s team asked him to move, a lawyer for one of the defendants defended him.

“Is there someone more significant than the lead defendant in the case to have a seat in the front row while he’s being excoriated by the attorney general of the state?” the lawyer asked.

Norcross remained where he was.

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Attorney General Matt Platkin announces criminal charges on Feb. 6, 2023, against Paterson Police Officer Jerry Moravek, who shot a fleeing man in the back in June 2022. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)

Attorney General Matt Platkin alleges a political feud between a Democratic Party power broker and a Mercer County commissioner led two South Jersey Transportation Authority board members to block payments to the commissioner’s engineering firm in retaliation.

Christopher Milam, the board’s vice chairman, and Bryan Bush, a board member, are facing charges of official misconduct, conspiracy to commit official misconduct, and perjury. Milam also chairs Washington Township’s Democratic Party.

Investigators with Platkin’s public integrity and accountability office allege the two Sewell men texted about their plan to block the payments. The charges were announced in a press release Friday.

“As this investigation continues, today we are sending a clear message: No matter how connected or powerful you are, if there is evidence suggesting that you have used your position and taxpayer dollars for political retribution or gain, we will hold you accountable,” Platkin said in a statement. “And if you lie to a grand jury, as alleged here, to cover up your conduct, you will answer for that, too.”

During three board meetings in 2023, Milam and Bush cast “no” votes that prevented the South Jersey Transportation Authority — which oversees the Atlantic City International Airport, Atlantic City Expressway, and other South Jersey public transportation facilities — from paying an unidentified engineering firm.

Politico New Jersey and the Philadelphia Inquirer have reported the feud is between South Jersey power broker George Norcross and Mercer County Commissioner John Cimino (both are unnamed in Platkin’s release). The outlets said Norcross asked Cimino in 2022 to stay neutral in the Mercer County executive race the following year, and Cimino instead endorsed a candidate who was not backed by Norcross in December 2022.

On Feb. 8, 2023, Platkin’s office alleges Milam texted Bush, “They cut South Jersey in Mercer County so now we vote no.”

Cimino works for engineering firm T&M Associates.

A spokesman for Norcross denied any ties to the case.

“As we have said repeatedly and in prior public statements, Mr. Norcross had no involvement in the South Jersey Transportation Authority matter,” said spokesman Daniel Fee.

Attorneys for Bush and Milam could not be reached for comment.

Milam and Bush are also accused of giving false testimony under oath to a state grand jury in Trenton in March. They claimed they voted against the payments because they had concerns about the engineering firm, including possible double billing and other errors, Platkin’s office says.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 11: Fred Daibes arrives for trial at Manhattan Federal Court on June 11, 2024 in New York City. Jose Uribe, who is cooperating with federal prosecutors in their case against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) testified on Monday. He will continue his testimony regarding a backyard meeting with the senator in September 2019. Menendez along with his wife Nadine are facing bribery charges. The indictment is the second in eight years against Menendez. The indictment also includes charges for Wael Hana, Fred Daibes, and Uribe who are cooperating with federal prosecutors in hopes of a lenient sentence. Nadine Menendez's trial is expected to take place later this summer. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The U.S. Attorney for New Jersey told jurors in Manhattan Wednesday that Sen. Bob Menendez complained to him about the criminal prosecution of his friend and asked him to “look at it carefully.”

Philip Sellinger is the second top enforcement official from New Jersey to testify during Menendez’s corruption trial, which is now in its fifth week, that the senator asked for special treatment in a specific criminal matter. Former state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal testified last week that the three-term Democrat asked him about an insurance fraud investigation threatening to ensnare a friend’s company.

Sellinger told jurors he was a private attorney angling to become New Jersey’s new U.S. attorney at the time of his December 2020 conversation with Menendez in the senator’s Washington, D.C., office.

New Jersey’s senior senator told Sellinger that his friend Fred Daibes “was being treated unfairly,” according to Sellinger.

“Sen. Menendez hoped that if I became U.S. attorney, I would look at it carefully,” Sellinger told jurors.

Daibes’ name didn’t ring any bells, so Sellinger assured the senator he would regard all cases carefully as U.S. attorney, he testified. But he called the three-term Democrat the next day to inform him that he discovered he’d been involved in a 2017 lawsuit against the borough of Edgewater that implicated Daibes, a real estate developer and bank founder there. If he became U.S. attorney, he told Menendez, he’d have to alert his bosses at the Department of Justice about it as a potential conflict of interest and they would decide if he should recuse himself from the case, he testified.

That didn’t end the matter. Sellinger recounted in court several other calls and meetings — by Menendez and his associates — where they brought up the Daibes case.

Sellinger said the senator’s ask was unusual. The U.S. attorney is the top federal law enforcement official in New Jersey, overseeing all operations, including 1,500 criminal and 2,500 civil cases a year, as well as investigations and appeals, Sellinger told jurors. That means the person in that position rarely gets personally involved in specific cases, he added.

Sometime later, Menendez told Sellinger that he wouldn’t suggest President Biden nominate him to be New Jersey’s next U.S. attorney, saying the White House had requested multiple candidates to consider. Menendez instead named Esther Suarez — now Hudson County’s prosecutor — as his pick.

When her appointment later fell through, Sellinger reached back to Menendez to tell him he was still interested, and by December 2021, he had the job. On his first day as U.S. attorney, he reviewed the office’s major cases and alerted his new supervisors of four cases where potential conflicts of interest might warrant his recusal — including Daibes, he testified.

The next week, Sellinger’s bosses ordered him off the Daibes case.

A friendship ended

Sellinger told jurors he first met Menendez about 20 years ago, when he began supporting his campaign fundraisers. They became so close that Sellinger attended the Menendezes’ October 2020 wedding, and the two couples socialized.

But it didn’t take long after Sellinger’s recusal from Daibes’ case for him learn the senator was irked, testimony showed. Sellinger told jurors he called Menendez in March 2022 to see if he’d speak at the formal ceremony recognizing his appointment.

“He said, ‘I’m going to pass. The only thing worse than not having a relationship with the United States attorney is people thinking you have a relationship with the United States attorney, and you don’t,’” Sellinger testified.

Prosecutor Lara Pomerantz asked Sellinger what he thought the senator meant.

“That we no longer had a relationship,” Sellinger responded.

Prosecutors have accused Daibes of giving the Menendezes cash and gold bars in exchange for his help in squashing his criminal troubles. Daibes has long been accused of using money to expand his influence in Edgewater, schemes the State Commission of Investigation revealed last year.

As Wednesday wound to a close, defense attorney Avi Weitzman began his cross-examination. He focused on Sellinger’s reputation and self-perception as someone whose integrity and good name are of paramount importance. Weitzman asked: Had he made those “core values” known to Menendez?

“I never believed him to be asking me to do something unethical or improper,” Sellinger said.

Jose Uribe cross continued

Earlier Wednesday, defense attorneys finished cross-examining Jose Uribe, the failed insurance broker who became the prosecution’s star witness when he agreed to plead guilty and testify against his co-defendants.

Uribe has said he gave Nadine $15,000 for a down payment for a new Mercedes-Benz convertible and paid her monthly $900 payments for almost three years in a “deal” that required her to connect him with the senator, who he expected to “stop and kill all investigation.”

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, at that time, had indicted Uribe’s friend Elvis Parra and Uribe worried investigators’ continuing, expanding probe would reach a company, Phoenix Risk Management, that he was running illicitly after he was barred from the business because of his own 2011 insurance fraud conviction.

Through questioning by defense attorney Adam Fee, Uribe acknowledged that he never mentioned money or the Mercedes to Sen. Menendez, spelled out the terms of his deal with Nadine Menendez to the senator, or discussed details about the senator’s calls and meeting with Grewal.

While Fee spent Tuesday trying to depict Uribe as a chronic liar and criminal, he spent Wednesday morning attacking his memory, accusing Uribe of regular intoxication and Xanax use.

“Sir, have you driven drunk before?” Fee asked Uribe, prompting an objection from prosecutors that Judge Sidney H. Stein sustained.

Uribe denied he was drunk or otherwise incapacitated when he met with Menendez.

“I am not sitting with a U.S. senator to discuss a serious matter when I am intoxicated,” he said.

Wednesday also brought some ping-ponging testimony from prosecutors and defense attorneys about some of the more salacious moments of Uribe’s testimony.

Fee suggested during cross-examination that Uribe made up his “super weird” claim that Menendez rang a little bell to summon Nadine when the men needed paper so Uribe could write down the names of the people and companies he wanted the senator to inquire about.

But Pomerantz showed jurors a text Nadine sent Fred Daibes in August 2019 that read: “I am looking for the perfect bell. I have not found it yet, but I will.”

Earlier, Fee tried to cast doubt on Uribe’s claim that Menendez told him in Spanish during a dinner when Nadine Menendez had disappeared to the bathroom: “I saved your little a** not once but twice.”

Pomerantz then showed jurors a text Menendez sent his wife during that dinner that read: “Can you go to bathroom.”

Also on Wednesday, Stein held a closed-door hearing about Nadine Menendez’s trial date, which had been scheduled for July 8. He pushed it to Aug. 5 but requested additional information from her doctors about the state of her breast cancer, her prognosis, and a projection for when she might be able to assist in her defense in hopes of setting “a more realistic trial date.”

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(Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Corrections officials at three state prisons routinely failed to properly investigate alleged abuses in 46 cases, including at least two where video showed officials attacking inmates without any visible provocation, the state comptroller says in a report released Thursday.

The department’s investigators failed to interview witnesses in 22% of the cases and lost key evidence in 13% of the 46 cases that took place between 2018 and 2022, the comptroller said.

“Often these investigations were not real investigations,” said acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh. “Some investigators were clearly just going through the motions. It’s also possible some were using their positions to protect one of their own and prevent accountability.”

Only two corrections officers were disciplined as a result of the 38 complaints investigated by the comptroller that included a corrections officer.

Walsh’s office said a culture of silence among law enforcement officials, poor training of corrections investigators, and shaky department policies contributed to the investigatory lapses.

It said the department should reopen investigations into the two assaults, which occurred at Bayside State Prison, and probe investigators’ handling of those incidents to see if discipline is warranted or more training is needed.

The department should retain an independent monitor to review its investigators’ cases, expand an internal audit that started in August 2022, and increase transparency of its internal affairs investigations to grow public trust, Walsh’s office said.

Daniel Sperrazza, a spokesperson for the department, said corrections officials have “worked tirelessly” to restructure its internal affairs unit, called the special investigations division.

“Significant changes have been implemented over the past three years to establish prison and cultural reform at all levels and units within the agency,” Sperrazza said.

Security footage of Bayside prison in Leesburg released alongside the report shows an officer repeatedly punching an inmate who made no visible provocations.

The officer claimed the inmate had threatened to hit him, but corrections officials never interviewed multiple witnesses who could have confirmed that, Thursday’s report says. He was never disciplined, while the inmate was placed into solitary confinement for 30 days, the report says.

Separate footage from the same facility shows a corrections officer pepper-spraying an inmate who also made no visible provocations. Disciplinary charges against the inmate were later dismissed, and the officer faced no discipline, according to the report.

The comptroller’s investigators found scant evidence of a thorough investigation. It is unclear whether officials even reviewed the facility’s security footage, and a corrections investigator asked leading questions of the officer that the comptroller said seemed designed to exonerate him.

Corrections investigators within the special investigations division also did not properly maintain case paperwork, failed to interview officers, inmates, and civilians who witnessed alleged abuses, and deprived inmates of thorough and fair investigations.

In the pepper-spraying case, paperwork did not even include a description of the incident, saying only that a corrections officer had called an emergency code, Thursday’s report says.

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(Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

A New Jersey appeals court declined Friday to expand a judicial doctrine requiring resentencing hearings for certain juvenile offenders to cover some young adults.

The three-judge panel’s opinion found ruling in favor of three long-jailed men would have exceeded the intermediate court’s authority, rejecting plaintiffs’ arguments that young adults’ incomplete cognitive development should require leniency.

“Our institutional role as an intermediate appellate court is a limited one,” Judge Lisa Rose wrote for the panel. “We are bound to follow the precedents of the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of New Jersey, regardless of whether those precedents might seem outmoded.”

Earlier court decisions limiting lengthy sentences lay at the root of appeals lodged by Sean Jones, Timothy Harris, and Richard Roche, all of whom were between the ages of 18 and 20 when they committed murder and other crimes in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

A series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions issued in the last two decades limit life sentences without the possibility of parole for offenders under the age of 18, and New Jersey’s Supreme Court in 2022 ruled juvenile offenders are entitled to petition for resentencing after they spent 20 years in prison.

The state and federal court decisions shared the same rationale: Because children are less mature and more susceptible to outside pressures than adults, the law must give them some ability to demonstrate their maturity and rehabilitation.

Jones, Harris, and Roche argued that doctrine should be expanded to cover some young adults, citing research that found individuals in their early 20s, like adolescents, have less impulse control because their brains are not fully developed.

The panel rejected those arguments in Friday’s ruling, noting New Jersey’s Supreme Court said in a separate 2020 decision that the principles limiting lengthy sentences for juveniles do not apply to crimes committed by individuals 18 and older.

At the time, the high court noted 18 is indeed an arbitrary age but conceded “a line must be drawn.”

A spokesperson for the Office of the Public Defender, whose attorneys represented the three men, did not immediately return a request for comment.

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WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 24: An attendee looks at a series of banners for National Crime Victims' Rights Week Candlelight Vigil on the National Mall a on April 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime held the event to pay tribute to victims and survivors of crime and individuals who provide service and support. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Groups that assist crime victims across the United States are bracing for significant financial pain after the amount available from a major federal victim services fund plunged $700 million this year.

Congress recently lowered spending to $1.2 billion from the fund, which provides grants to nonprofit and local programs across the country.

This latest round of cuts has sparked widespread concern among district attorney’s offices, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, child advocacy centers and law enforcement agencies that offer victim support services. Many of these organizations and agencies now expect to have to close locations, lay off staff and cut back on services.

Meanwhile, the drop in dollars has many experts and advocates rethinking the current, uncertain system of helping crime victims. How much federal money is available every year is determined by a complex three-year average of court fees, fines and penalties that have accumulated — a number that has plummeted by billions during the past six years. The fund does not receive any taxpayer dollars.

Karrie Delaney, director of federal affairs for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, said the slowdown of court cases during the COVID-19 pandemic and the last administration not prosecuting as many corporate cases has affected the fund more than usual.

RAINN is the country’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization. It operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-HOPE) alongside local organizations and runs the U.S. Defense Department’s Safe Helpline. It “also carries out programs to prevent sexual violence, help survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice,” according to its website.

“I think what’s important from RAINN’s perspective is the actual impact that those fluctuations have on the survivors that we support and organizations and service providers across the country,” Delaney said.

When the federal cap decreases, she said, organizations that support crime victims often turn to state and local governments to make up the gap. And a lot of the times there isn’t enough money to do that.

Victim services providers say that smaller groups or branches, particularly those in rural towns or counties, are at an especially high risk of closing because of the expected cutbacks. Many rely solely on federal dollars.

Shakyra Diaz, the chief of federal advocacy with the Alliance for Safety and Justice, which advocates for crime victims, said many groups are “seriously in a situation where they may have to close their doors, they may have to cut services, they may have to cut staff, they may have to tell crime victims, ‘I cannot help you right now. You have to wait six months.’”

In at least three states — California, Colorado and Maine — state legislators have proposed bills that would create new avenues for state-based funding for victim services. A couple of bills would inject general state dollars into victim services to offset the federal cuts, while one would create a new tax on firearms and ammunition, and yet another would increase criminal penalties on corporations. The money collected from taxes or fines would then go toward supporting victim services.

The federal crime victims fund gets its money from fines, forfeited bonds and financial penalties in certain federal cases.

The year-by-year uncertainty around how much money will come from federal crime cases, which directly affects how much will be available to states to distribute to victim services providers, makes it challenging for groups to budget over the long term.

“Services for victims and resources for victim services are already so tight. And so when you’re talking about taking a pot of money that’s already stretched at its best and making it smaller — it’s frankly terrifying,” said Renée Williams, the executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime.

The federal fund was established in 1984 under the Victims of Crime Act, known as VOCA. Congress tried to stabilize the fund in 2000 by setting an annual cap on withdrawals. The cap remained below $1 billion a year until 2015, but Congress raised it to $2.3 billion that year, and in 2018 it peaked at $4.4 billion.

Then, the cap plummeted, and by fiscal year 2023, Congress had set it at $1.9 billion, according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice.

This past March, Congress again lowered the cap, to $1.2 billion, a drop of more than 35%. The cuts will not take effect until October of this year, when the federal government’s next fiscal year begins.

Victim services groups say that the demand for help has continued to surge. Some anticipate the grant process to become even more competitive.

They’re asking state lawmakers for help.

State legislation

For Stand Up Placer, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking in Placer County, California, the anticipated federal cuts are expected to slash about $700,000, or 22%, of the group's budget, according to Cheryl Marcell, the organization's CEO.

Some of the group’s services, such as legal counseling, are likely to be scaled back. Instead of serving the current caseload of 500, the group may only be able to accommodate 200 clients, Marcell said.

In California, local district attorney's offices are grappling with how to address this funding shortfall, according to Jonathan Raven, assistant CEO of the California District Attorneys Association and former Yolo County chief deputy district attorney.

Offices are considering options such as laying off staff, requesting local funding or scaling back services altogether, Raven told Stateline.

“The people that are victimized that are the most vulnerable are no longer going to get the services that they should expect and they do deserve,” Raven said. “It's really going to be a significant impact across California and across the country.”

State legislators in California have proposed two bills aimed at mitigating the federal cuts.

One of the bills would require state supplemental funding whenever the federal VOCA award is reduced more than 10% than the amount awarded the prior year. The bill is in committee.

The other bill, which is still under consideration in the Assembly, would increase fines levied on corporations convicted of misdemeanor and felony offenses. These fines would be used to fund a new California Crime Victims Fund.

In Colorado, the legislature passed a bill proposing a more permanent state funding source for victim services through a 9% gun and ammunition excise tax. The tax revenue would be spent on crime victim support services, mental health services, school safety and gun violence prevention.

The bill is now headed to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who has until June 7 to sign or veto it, according to his press secretary. If he signs it, the measure will go before voters on the November ballot.

Meanwhile, in Maine, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a budget bill in April that includes a one-time allotment of $6 million for victim services.

Effects on services for victims

There are about 12,200 victim services providers in the United States, with nearly a quarter of them located in the country's most populous states — California, Florida, Texas and New York, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics' 2017 census.

Ohio has more than 400 victim services providers, many of which receive funding from the federal crime victims fund. Last year, the state received $46.6 million.

But for fiscal year 2024, Ohio has been awarded just $26.7 million, a 42.8% decrease from 2023 and a 77% decrease from 2018.

With such a steep cut, some victim services providers in Ohio fear they will no longer be able to serve rural communities, particularly those in the Appalachian region. For the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, a statewide coalition that supports rape crisis centers, losing funding could reduce its support to the 12 counties that do not have local rape crisis centers or programs.

“It's the places that already don't have great access to services and that have never had access to services [that] will be the ones to have whatever access they have further reduced,” said Emily Gemar, the group’s director of public policy.

Court-appointed special advocate programs in Appalachian counties also are expected to bear the brunt of the funding cuts, according to Doug Stephens, the executive director of Ohio CASA, which oversees 47 local programs covering 60 counties that support children navigating the court system. Stephens anticipates as many as 10 local programs shutting down.

“They are working very hard to provide the same services as the big cities,” he said in an interview. “The only way they can stay open is with VOCA funding.”

In South Carolina, victim services providers and Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson are urging the state legislature to offset the looming federal cuts. Wilson has requested $15 million, which is just enough money to keep existing services.

The state Senate has proposed a $5 million allotment, while the House has put forward a $3 million proposal. Under either plan, current projects could face cuts ranging from about 15% to 30%, according to the attorney general’s office.

Richland County, South Carolina, Sheriff Leon Lott, whose department receives VOCA funding and employs victim advocates who help people go through the criminal legal system, said the state should offer more support.

“When things like this happen, people just think about dollars. What we see is the real people, we see the feelings, we see the pain and emotions they're going through,” said Lott, a Democrat. “This loss of funding, I'm afraid, will have a negative impact on the things that we try to do with victims and may end up victimizing them even more.

“If the feds are not going to provide the money, then the state needs to do it.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 27: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine arrive for a court appearance at Manhattan Federal Court on September 27, 2023 in New York City. Menendez and his wife, who face bribery charges, are accused of taking bribes of gold bars, a luxury car and cash in exchange for using Menendez's position to help the government of Egypt and other corrupt acts according to an indictment from SDNY unsealed on Friday. The indictment is the second in eight years against Menendez. The indictment also includes charges for Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The federal corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez will begin Monday morning in a Manhattan courtroom, where prosecutors will seek to prove New Jersey’s senior senator took bribes of gold bars, cash, a luxury car, and more in exchange for his influence to aid several businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

The trial comes in the wake of a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have made it tougher for prosecutors to prove public corruption — and for those rare indictments to stick.

But it also takes place in a jurisdiction where federal prosecutors have been among the most successful in the nation in securing official corruption convictions.

That makes the outcome of the case a total toss-up, said Thea Johnson, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School in Camden and a former defense attorney.

“The government is saying that this was a bribery scheme where there was a very direct trade of cash, gold bars, a car, and a no-show job for his wife in exchange for pretty significant favors that only a senator could achieve … they seem to be pretty clear quid pro quo bribery payments,” Johnson said. “Still, this is a jury trial. And the truth of the matter is that juries are always an open question.”

Matthew Hale, a political science and public affairs professor at Seton Hall University, seconded that sentiment.

“You can never count on how the 12 people in the courtroom, who will sit down and hear the totality the argument, will decide,” Hale said.

First, some background

Federal prosecutors in New York first indicted Menendez, a three-term Democratic senator, in September. They charged him then and in several subsequent superseding indictments with bribery, extortion, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and acting as a foreign agent for offenses they say occurred between 2018 and last year.

Two businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, will stand trial with Menendez, who helmed the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee until he stepped down shortly after his indictment.

Hana is an Egyptian immigrant who prosecutors say bribed the senator with gold bars and cash and gave his wife Nadine a no-show job at his halal meat company in order to steer military aid and arms to Egypt, secure information about staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to share with Egyptian officials, and otherwise help the Egyptian government.

Daibes is a real estate developer and bank founder in Edgewater accused of bribing Menendez with gold bars and cash to interfere in a federal bank fraud case he faced and to publicly support the Qatari government so that a Qatari investment company would invest in one of Daibes’ properties.

Prosecutors say Nadine Menendez acted as intermediary in many of the schemes and charged her too, but Judge Sidney H. Stein postponed her trial to July as she deals with an undisclosed medical crisis.

A third businessman, Jose Uribe of Clifton, is accused of giving Nadine Menendez cash for a new Mercedes-Benz convertible to replace one she wrecked when she hit and killed a pedestrian. Uribe, a former insurance broker who’s accused of asking the senator to intervene in an insurance fraud probe, pleaded guilty in March and is expected to testify against his co-defendants.

Attorneys have said they expect the trial — before Stein at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse — will last at least six weeks.

This is Menendez’s second fight against bribery charges in less than a decade — his 2017 trial on allegations he traded favors for campaign donations and extravagant trips ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked.

Public corruption tougher to prove

Convictions for official corruption aren’t common — there’s only one for every million people in the U.S. — and they’ve steadily dropped over the past two decades, federal data shows.

Susan B. Long tracks such convictions nationally as co-founder and co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center affiliated with Syracuse University.

“Official corruption prosecutions and convictions have been declining long-term. But that’s not necessarily because there’s less official corruption going on,” Long said.

Such convictions fell by half since 2003, when there were more than 600 nationally, to just over 300 last year, with a two-decade low of about 250 in 2020 at the height of pandemic-driven government shutdowns, the center found. Twice as many local public officials were convicted last year as either state or federal officials, data shows.

Multiple factors could be fueling the decline, including the strength of evidence, under-funded prosecutors, well-resourced defendants, and outside challenges prosecutors face in securing convictions, Long said.

One of those outside challenges in recent years has been the U.S. Supreme Court, which has set precedents, by overturning several corruption convictions, that observers say make such cases tougher to prosecute.

In 2016, the court unanimously overturned former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s 2014 corruption conviction, saying that while his acceptance of $175,000 in gifts from a businessman was “distasteful,” prosecutors too broadly interpreted both the federal bribery statute and what constitutes “government favors” and “official acts.”

Closer to home, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 tossed the convictions of two Christie administration aides in the Bridgegate scandal, saying they didn’t violate federal fraud laws because their goal wasn’t to get money or property. And last year, the justices overturned the fraud conviction of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s manager Joseph Percoco, faulting a judge’s instructions to jurors as “too vague.”

Attorney Jonathan Kravis is a former federal prosecutor who served as deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. He now works at the D.C.-based firm Munger, Tolles & Olson.

“The theme underlying these cases is that the courts are very concerned about the possibility that expansive interpretation of the federal criminal public corruption statutes will end up chilling or even criminalizing politics as usual,” Kravis said. “The reality is we have a campaign finance system where campaigns are largely funded through private contributions from people who have views that are like-minded with the candidates they’re supporting and they expect that they’ll be giving contributions to people who will advance their interests. In that kind of system, how do you avoid the possibility of federal criminal statutes chilling protected activity, chilling the day-to-day work of our political system?”

While jurors might fixate on the gold bars and other riches investigators found in the Menendezes’ Englewood Cliffs home, the case more likely will hinge on what acts prosecutors can prove Menendez did, Kravis said.

“It doesn’t matter if it was hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments or just a few thousand,” he said. “From a legal perspective, if you’re thinking about whether the conduct is a crime, what’s going to matter far more is what the government can show about what’s on the other side of the equation — the senator’s conduct, and whether the conduct constitutes an official act or violation of official duty, and whether the government can show that there was a corrupt quid pro quo exchange of one for the other.”

How the trial may unfold

Jury selection is expected to begin Monday.

Menendez and his co-defendants arguably are in the worst jurisdiction if they hope to walk free. Long’s center found that the Southern District of New York, where they’re being prosecuted, secured more official corruption convictions than any other federal jurisdiction nationally last year, with 24.

“They tend to take big swings. They’re not afraid of taking major cases to trial. They’re not afraid of indicting famous people, indicting people with power. And so one should be nervous when the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York comes after you,” Johnson said.

Still, Menendez scored an early victory when Stein agreed to separate his trial from his wife’s, because it eliminated the possible scenario of jurors hearing spouses testify against each other at the same trial, Kravis said. Severing the trials also made it likelier that the senator would take the stand, he added.

“Unlike many other criminal defendants, public officials are good public speakers. They’re charismatic; like they got to this point in their careers for a reason. And so they can be more influential as witnesses in front of juries than defendants who have not made their careers out of talking to crowds and making connections with people,” Kravis said. “If he testifies, then I think that will probably be the pivotal moment in the trial.”

Public corruption trials often come down to corrupt intent, and Kravis predicted Menendez’s legal team will deny any nefarious intent.

Court filings show that the defense team might try to explain away the cash-stuffed pockets of Menendez’s jackets and other riches investigators found in his home as an “intergenerational trauma” response rooted in the senator’s experience as a Cuban refugee and fears of government seizures.

Defense attorneys also have hinted that the senator might blame his wife for his legal predicament and say she withheld information about the nature of the meetings she arranged. Johnson thinks that’s a bad strategy.

“This is a 70-year-old sitting senator. It’s his responsibility to do his due diligence. It’s his responsibility to make sure — particularly given prior allegations against him — that he is only engaged in absolutely up-and-up behavior, that he is holding himself to the highest standards of integrity,” Johnson said. “I am not sure that I would think, if I were his defense attorney, that it would be a particularly fruitful argument to say, ‘Oh, I was misled by my wife.’ We expect our senators to be thoughtful, to be smart, and not misled by people around them.”

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Sen. Bob Menendez leaves the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in Manhattan after pleading not guilty to federal corruption charges on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. (Aristide Economopoulos for New Jersey Monitor)

Sen. Bob Menendez’s legal team asked a federal judge this week to sanction prosecutors in his corruption case for publicly disclosing a psychiatric condition defense attorneys say drove the senator to hoard cash in his home.

In a court filing, prosecutors included a letter from Menendez’s attorneys that revealed they planned to call a New York psychiatrist to testify that the senator’s “intergenerational trauma” created an undisclosed mental health disorder that caused him to store his riches at home. Such behavior is a common coping mechanism for trauma victims who have experienced scarcity, the attorneys said.

Specifically, the psychiatrist would reveal that the senator suffered “two significant traumatic events” — his father was a compulsive gambler who died by suicide after Menendez quit paying off his gambling debts and the Cuban government confiscated most of his parents’ money, leaving them with just a small amount of cash they kept at home, the letter said.

Menendez’s parents emigrated to New York City, where he was born, in the early 1950s, and he grew up in Union. His father died in the late 1970s.

The senator never received treatment for his resulting mental health struggles, the letter noted.

Such information should have been redacted because they were “deeply private and sensitive details about Senator Menendez’s personal history and mental health diagnoses,” and they revealed defense strategy, which likely tainted the jury pool, attorneys Adam Fee and Avi Weitzman wrote Thursday to Judge Sidney H. Stein.

“There is thus no excuse or justification for the government’s conduct,” Fee wrote. “This Court can, and should, order a remedy to attempt to mitigate the damage caused by the government’s conduct.”

He asked Stein to order prosecutors, who are trying to block the psychiatrist’s testimony, to explain the disclosure to determine if it was intentional, and consider sanctions.

In other court filings this week, prosecutors asked Stein to bar testimony by the Qatari investors who businessman Fred Daibes allegedly bribed Menendez to influence, saying whether they invested is irrelevant to if the bribe occurred. And defense attorneys indicated they plan to call an accountant to testify that the senator “lived within his means.”

Previous filings showed Menendez will likely blame his wife Nadine for his legal troubles.

The trial for Menendez and two of his four co-defendants — Daibes and businessman Wael Hana — is set to start May 13 at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse in Manhattan. Health issues prompted Stein to postpone Nadine Menendez’s trial to July, and Jose Uribe, another co-defendant, pleaded guilty in March.

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