Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign event "Declare Your Independence Celebration" at Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County on Oct. 12, 2023, in Miami. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

An election lawyer alleges in a new lawsuit that New Jersey’s “sore loser law” prevents independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from appearing on the November ballot in the Garden State.

The law prohibits candidates from mounting independent campaigns the same year they’ve failed to win the nomination of a political party. Salmon says Kennedy did just that by seeking the White House as an independent after trying and failing to defeat President Joe Biden as a Democrat.

“If you want to run as an independent, that’s fine, run as an independent — don’t try and get the party’s nomination first, lose, and then decide, ‘You know what, screw these people, I want to go around the system,’” attorney Scott Salmon said in an interview.

The New Jersey Globe first reported Salmon’s complaint, which was filed in state Superior Court in Mercer County Tuesday.

Salmon was instrumental in keeping rapper Ye from appearing on the 2020 presidential ballot in New Jersey. Ye’s campaign withdrew from the race after Salmon challenged his petition signatures, saying some lacked required information and others looked identical.

Democrats in key states like North Carolina and Nevada, fearing Kennedy will siphon votes from Biden and hand the election to Republican Donald Trump, have made similar pushes to boot Kennedy from the ballot.

Kennedy announced his presidential campaign in April 2023 as a Democrat competing against Biden. Kennedy raised $385,000 from hundreds of New Jersey donors while seeking the party’s nomination, according to Salmon.

In October, Kennedy announced he would end his campaign as a Democrat and launched an independent bid for the White House.

Kennedy’s name didn’t appear on the ballot for New Jersey’s June 4 Democratic primary, but he still received hundreds, if not thousands, of write-in votes, according to Salmon.

Secretary of State Tahesha Way has until Aug. 9 to formally certify all candidates for the general election. Salmon is hoping the judge decides his case before then.

“It should be clear to people what you’re running for, what you want to associate for, and it’s fine if you don’t want to associate with a party. What’s not good for anybody is to confuse the voters, who are expecting to see someone’s name on the ballot for the nomination and then they’ve withdrawn from that party,” he said.

In his complaint, Salmon says federal and state courts have upheld New Jersey’s sore loser law. He has noted that candidates do not have to appear on a primary ballot to be disqualified from the November ballot — unsuccessfully seeking the nomination is also disqualifying under the law.

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Douglas County, Ga., elections officials Milton Kidd, left, and Tesha Green fear being followed home by angry voters. Nationwide, many election officials are concerned for their safety. (Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline)

Editor’s note: This story contains profanities and racist slurs.

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — When Milton Kidd leaves work at the end of the day, he slips out the back door of the domed Douglas County Courthouse, avoiding the public entrance where people might berate him or demand his home address.

He never takes the same route home two days in a row, and he makes random turns to avoid being followed.

Kidd, a Black man, has a very dangerous job: He is the elections and voter registration director for Douglas County.

“Milton Kidd is a nasty n***** living on tax money like the scum he is,” one voter wrote in an email Kidd shared with Stateline. “Living on tax money, like a piece of low IQ n***** shit.”

Another resident from Kidd’s county of 149,000 west of Atlanta left him a voicemail.

“I don’t know if you’re aware, Milton, but the American people have set a precedent for what they do to f***ing tyrants and oppressors who occupy government office,” the caller said. “Yep, back in the 1700s, they were called the British and the f***ing American people got so fed up with the f***ing British being dicks, kind of like you, and then they just f***ing killed all the f***ing British.”

Kidd smiled incredulously as he shared his security routine and the hate-filled messages that inspired it. He is dumbfounded that he’s the target of such vitriol for administering elections in 2024 — but he knows where it originated.

The lies told by former President Donald Trump, who faces state felony charges for trying to pressure Georgia officials to change the 2020 results, have resonated with many Douglas County voters, Kidd said. Now this nonpartisan official, like many others across the country, is forced to face their ire.

“It’s an idea that has become insidious in the mindsets of Americans, that because a single individual did not win an election, that now I can behave like this,” said Kidd, who has a thick beard and wears a thumb-size crystal on a black string around his neck.

As he prepares for the next presidential election, Kidd said he will continue to press his state’s elected officials for more leadership and money to protect him, his staff and the democratic process.

“If this office fails, then our democracy has failed,” he said. “I will never let a detractor who calls with vile language deter me from the work that I do.”

‘Like standing in a puddle of gasoline’

Kidd is far from the only election official who has faced threats inspired by the lies of Trump and his allies, who continue to claim without evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Nationally, 38% of local election officials have experienced threats, harassment or abuse since 2020 just for doing their jobs, according to a survey released in May by the Brennan Center for Justice, a voting rights nonprofit housed at the New York University School of Law. More than half of the over 900 respondents said they are concerned about the safety of their colleagues and staff.

Kidd’s colleagues in neighboring counties also have felt the hostility.

In the green hills of Bartow County, a rural community in northwest Georgia, Election Supervisor Joseph Kirk has taken steps to protect himself, though he won’t disclose specifics. While harassment has not reached the level it has in other counties, he said he has lost staff members who left their positions because of the changed atmosphere.

“There’s a lot more animosity now,” he said in his Cartersville office, a red-brick building 4 miles from Main Street.

Cobb County Director of Elections Tate Fall is also fortifying her suburban Atlanta elections office. In the coming weeks, her office will install a shatterproof safety film on the glass that shields the front desk. More access points will require key cards for entry, and there will be additional panic buttons.

“It’s very surreal,” she said. “In the office, people have become so desensitized to people yelling at them that they don’t consider a lot a threat anymore.”

At least a dozen states have enacted new protections for local election officials in recent years, including boosting criminal penalties for those who threaten or harass them.

This month, Georgia officials announced a first-in-the-nation requirement that all new police officers undergo a course on election security, partly focusing on protecting election officials from threats.

This is part of a broader mission to build more coordination between sheriff’s offices and elections offices, said Chris Harvey, deputy executive director of the Georgia Police Officer Training and Standards Council, which will lead the effort.

Harvey, a former detective, also served as Georgia’s state elections director for six years, including through the 2020 presidential election.

After the January 2021 U.S. Senate runoff, he was doxed — his home address and a picture of his house were posted online. He also received an emailed death threat that included a photo of him with crosshairs over his face.

While he says he wasn’t worried about his safety, he did worry about his wife and four children at home. He called the local police, who posted a car in front of his house for two weeks.

“In this supercharged environment, it’s like standing in a puddle of gasoline,” he told Stateline. “Anything can set it off. It didn’t used to be like that.”

The democratic path

Democracy’s fragile promise has always been part of Kidd’s life.

Kidd, 39, grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, a former manufacturing hub of 18,000 people along the Mississippi River.

His family was part of the Great Migration, moving north from Southern states such as Arkansas and Mississippi looking for work and safety. But shortly after his ancestors’ arrival, white mobs killed hundreds of Black newcomers during several months of 1917, displacing 6,000 Black people in the southern Illinois city.

His grandmother was a sharecropper in Luxor, Arkansas, and instilled in his mother the importance of voting. Growing up, he heard stories about civil rights activists Fannie Lou Hamer, who was beaten for registering voters, and Medgar Evers, who was assassinated. It made Kidd a student of history, able to recite the Declaration of Independence and parts of the Constitution.

“The importance of the ballot box has always been something that has been stressed to me,” he said. “I know in my own family individuals have tried to register to vote and had dogs sicced on them. These are not words in a book. It’s not that far off.”

Inspired by his father, who left school in the ninth grade to work, and his mother, who received a college education later in her life, Kidd earned his master’s degree in public administration from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2010.

He then did what he called a “reverse migration” back to the South to begin working elections in various counties in the Atlanta area, including Douglas County. He started there in 2015 and was promoted to lead the office three years later.

In that time, Kidd has seen the election environment turn nasty.

“We’ve reshaped this nation into an uglier, vile, vitriolic spirit that we’re just allowing to continue to manifest,” he said last month.

He and his eight full-time staff members have attempted to bolster their public standing by going to local churches, fairs and political party meetings of both parties to share details about how they run elections and tabulate the vote securely.

But he needs more resources from the state. The same lawmakers who wink and nod at the lie that massive fraud is stealing elections do not support additional funding for local election administration, he said, especially for the safety of election administrators.

Every one of the security enhancements he made to his office — including a series of magnetic locks on the doors — came through outside grant funding, a practice the state later outlawed in 2021.

Some of Kidd’s staff members have quit, and he’s finding it hard to fill the temporary positions that allow elections to run smoothly. Constant turnover can lead to errors, which leads to more distrust. The workers who have stayed are still fearful.

“On election night, my husband definitely waits for me to get home,” said Tesha Green, the county’s deputy elections director. “You have to always make sure that no one’s there when we’re leaving out the door.”

Kidd was encouraged by Georgia’s announcement that it would require all new police officers to undergo a course on election security. Does Kidd feel supported by his local sheriff’s office? He chuckled and said there’s a lot more that could be done.

Cpt. Trent Wilson of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the office took Kidd’s complaints seriously. Though they were concerning, he said, there was nothing criminal in the voicemails and emails Kidd received.

“It was very distasteful,” Wilson said. “But just because they’re distasteful don’t mean they’re criminal.”

Pressed about what constitutes a threat, he added: “Look, I’m a Black man. So, we don’t like to be called a n*****. But calling someone a n***** is not a crime.”

When election season comes, he said the sheriff’s office boosts security, adding more deputies to the courthouse. Visitors already must pass through metal detectors, he noted.

As head of the election office, Kidd knows he’s a target, and he’s accepted that. But he worries about his staff, many of whom are older women who don’t feel safe walking to their cars at night. And, closer to home, he worries that if something happens to him, no one will be able to take care of his beloved dogs, Kleo and Knight.

“In 2024, I work a job that I have to allow myself to be called a n*****,” he said. “But I do it because I want to make sure people have access to the ballot box.”

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 X.

The post Racist slurs and death threats: The dangerous life of a Georgia elections official appeared first on New Jersey Monitor.

(Photo by Hal Brown)

The state’s elections law watchdog plans to examine whether the radio show hosted by a Republican running for governor provides an indirect financial benefit to his campaign.

The push pits the state Election Law Enforcement Commission against the candidate, Bill Spadea, and New Jersey 101.5, the radio station where Spadea hosts a four-hour morning show each weekday.

Spadea announced Monday that he is seeking the GOP nod for governor in 2025, and almost immediately afterward, the radio station’s owner announced that Spadea would continue as an on-air personality for an unspecified period of time.

The news that Spadea would simultaneously run for governor while hosting a high-profile talk show where he often speaks about politics and policy led to grumbling from some of his opponents. It’s not clear whether the Election Law Enforcement Commission’s decision to look into the matter resulted from a complaint about Spadea’s campaign.

The commission said Thursday it will host a hearing June 28 on the matter.

Election law attorney Flavio Komuves said it’s rare for state election law officials to determine the value of a media company providing airtime to an employee who is seeking political office.

“I think there’s two questions: One is, is this an in-kind donation, and two, if it is, how should it be valued? And what other considerations apply given that this is a media company?” said Komuves.

In-kind donations are non-cash gifts to campaigns, usually in the form of goods and services. The legal limit for in-kind contributions is $5,800.

A campaign official for Spadea could not be reached for comment, while NJ 101.5 owner Townsquare Media did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement Monday, the media company said Spadea will remain on the air until “he becomes a legally qualified candidate” and that the company has put guidelines in place to make sure his show violates no election laws.

“We are sensitive to the legal parameters attendant keeping a broadcast personality on air while they are seeking public office,” the statement says.

The post Watchdog to examine financial benefit of gubernatorial hopeful Bill Spadea’s radio show appeared first on New Jersey Monitor.

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.

The post Democratic power broker George Norcross indicted on racketeering charges appeared first on New Jersey Monitor.

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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(OIT/NJ Governor’s Office)

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. is projected to win the Democratic nomination for the 9th Congressional District, defeating a challenger who said Pascrell turned his back on his Muslim constituents with his support of Israel.

The Associated Press called the race for Pascrell over Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah about 40 minutes after polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

“I will never stop fighting for our neighbors. I love New Jersey! American democracy itself is on the ballot this fall,” Pascrell said in a celebratory social media post.

Pascrell will again face Republican Billy Prempeh in November. Pascrell has defeated Prempeh in the last two election cycles.

Progressive critics of Pascrell have hammered him over his response to the war in Gaza, saying his March call for a cease-fire was slow to come and inadequate.

Pascrell’s home base of Paterson — he was once the city’s mayor — is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the nation, if not the largest. The city also boasts that it has the largest Palestinian American enclave in the United States, Little Ramallah.

Pascrell, who at 87 is one of the oldest members of Congress, has been in the House for more than 25 years. If he wins reelection in November, his next term will be his 15th.

Incumbent Reps. Chris Smith (R-04), Frank Pallone (D-06), Tom Kean Jr. (R-07), Mikie Sherrill (D-11), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12) also won their contested primaries.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 30: Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in court for his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024 in New York City. Judge Juan Merchan gave the jury instructions, and deliberations are entering their second day. The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first of his criminal cases to go to trial. (Photo by Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty Images)

Both Democrat Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican state Sen. Mike Testa said the guilty verdicts a New York jury handed down to Donald Trump made Thursday “a sad day” — though predictably for different reasons.

For Sherrill, who was elected to the House in the 2018 Democratic wave that was largely seen as a rebuke to Trump’s first two years in office, Thursday was a sad day in our nation’s history because it represents the first time an American president has been convicted of a crime — but, she added, “it is also a critical day for the rule of law.”

“The former president must be held accountable for all his illegal actions, and it is paramount that we protect the judicial process and our democratic institutions,” Sherrill said.

For Testa, the sadness of the day was because of “persecution via prosecution.”

“I will be happily awaiting the appeal of this verdict. There appears to have been a sundry of errors which are ripe for appeal,” he said. “I am praying for President Trump, his family, and for the United States of America.”

Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president in November, called the proceedings a “rigged, disgraceful trial.”

Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, said the verdict “has reaffirmed that no one is above the law, not even a former president.”

“The fact is that former President Trump was afforded his due process rights and was able to mount a full defense in a court of law, like every criminal defendant should. The 34 guilty verdicts in President Trump’s case mean that a jury of his peers, after impartially reviewing the evidence presented and having sworn an oath to perform their duties faithfully, unanimously determined beyond a reasonable doubt — 34 separate times — that the former president broke the law,” Booker said.

Jack Ciattarelli, who is seeking the GOP nomination for governor next year, said the American people will render their own verdict in November.

“Regardless of what anyone thinks about Donald Trump, would these charges have ever been brought if he wasn’t running for President? Legal experts on both sides are saying that these convictions are likely to be overturned on appeal. I agree.”

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 23: Dr. Jonathan Holloway, President, of Rutgers University testifies at a hearing called "Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos" before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Capitol Hill on May 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. University leaders are being asked to testify by House Republicans about how colleges have responded to pro-Palestinian protests and allegations of antisemitism on their campuses. (Photo by Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

Three weeks after protestors at Rutgers University in North Brunswick peacefully dismantled their short-lived Gaza solidarity encampment, the university’s president faced intense questioning from Republicans in Washington, D.C., demanding to know why college officials aren’t doing more to combat antisemitism. 

Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway on Thursday again defended the university’s decision to end the protest by negotiating with protestors rather than sending police to break up the encampments. Holloway stressed to lawmakers the importance of building trust with students and promoting curiosity and education. 

“We made a choice. That choice was to engage our students through dialogue as our first option instead of police actions,” he said. “We saw what transpired on other universities and sought a different way.” 

Holloway’s testimony in front of the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce — where he was joined by Northwestern University President Michael Schill and University of California at Los Angeles Chancellor Gene Block — came as GOP lawmakers continue to grill university presidents over the Gaza encampments that have become flashpoints for growing unease with the war in Gaza.

It was the third time lawmakers have invited university leaders to testify on the Hill about the campus protests. And it was the second time this month Holloway has taken the hot seat to face questioning from lawmakers. Members of the Legislature’s budget committees interrogated him about the encampments on May 9.

The university leaders on Thursday said they agree that attacks on Jewish people are increasing on college campuses and across the country, but they disputed that their colleges are hotbeds for antisemitism. Holloway said every instance of discrimination on campus is investigated and involves law enforcement, from campus police to the FBI when necessary.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chairwoman of the committee, scolded the college officials for their agreements with protestors and for not taking enough disciplinary action against faculty and students involved. Four Rutgers have been suspended, and 19 others are under investigation, Holloway said.

“Each of you should be ashamed of your decisions that allowed antisemitic encampments to endanger Jewish students,” Foxx said. “Mr. Schill and Dr. Holloway, you should be double ashamed for capitulating to the antisemitic rule breakers.”

University leaders, including Holloway, have expressed concerns over balancing students’ free speech rights and public safety. Holloway said when he learned via an Instagram post that student protestors planned a 7 a.m. protest to disrupt finals — which he called a “wild violation” of the agreement they made earlier that week to keep the encampment quiet — he decided to order the encampment to disperse.

Some schools responded to their protests by calling in police to break them up. Holloway stressed the importance of building trust with students.

Rutgers officials gave in to some of the protestors’ 10 demands in exchange for them dismantling their encampment, like accepting 10 displaced Palestinian students to finish their education, creating an Arab cultural center, and reviewing the school’s relationship with Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Much of Thursday’s questioning of Holloway came from Rep. Donald Norcross (D-01), New Jersey’s only representative on the panel. He and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-05) have criticized Holloway for not doing enough to ensure Jewish students feel safe on campus, and for leaving Jewish students out of negotiations with the protestors.

“There are rules in all types of protests on college campuses, no matter what the reason is. I’ve participated in protests over my lifetime, and when I crossed the line, I paid the consequences. So what I want to dig into today is what are those lines, when were they crossed, and how you reacted,” Norcross said.

Over the summer, Rutgers will partner with the Anti-Defamation League to implement new training for students and staff and address concerns from a Jewish faculty and staff group that asked the university in December to share information on antisemitism on campus and beef up security around Jewish organizations on campus. Holloway said those requests are “being acted on post haste.”

Holloway also took heat from Republicans who targeted the Center for Security, Race, and Rights, which is based out of Rutgers’ Newark campus. The center has hosted controversial figures, including a speaker who was convicted on federal charges for conspiring to provide material to terrorist organizations and was invited to speak on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Holloway said he often doesn’t agree with the center and thinks some of their ideas are “wildly offensive.” But on a campus of 100,000 faculty and students, there are events he’s not always aware of, he admitted. He said he has no plans to close the center.

“If you’re not willing to close and defund this cesspool of hate, the state of New Jersey should,” Foxx said.

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Rep. Donald Payne Jr. at a get-out-the-vote rally on Oct. 23, 2021. (Daniella Heminghaus for New Jersey Monitor)

A dozen candidates have launched campaigns in the special election to fill the unexpired months of the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr.’s term.

Eleven Democrats will vie for the nomination in one of the most Democratic districts in the country, one that regularly sent Payne to Congress with more than 80% of the vote. The special primary is set for July 16 and the general election will be Sept. 18.

Payne died last month after a heart attack. He was 65.

Campaigns by Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver — who has the backing of Essex County’s Democratic Party — and former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks will both appear on the ballot after overcoming challenges to their nominating petitions.

Claybrooks sought to remove McIver from the ballot, alleging her petitions were fraudulent because they say a single circulator — McIver’s mother, Robin McIver — could not have gathered nearly 1,100 signatures over a weekend.

The Democratic State Committee, which supports McIver, lodged its own challenge to Claybrooks’ petitions, but that also fell flat. The committee had challenged signatures, alleging a single individual signed for multiple voters.

The administrative law judge who adjudicated the Claybrooks challenge invalidated some signatures but left Claybrooks, a former political director for Rep. Andy Kim’s U.S. Senate campaign, with enough names to get onto the ballot in time for the July special primary.

Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker, Linden Mayor Derek Armstead, and Economic Development Authority executive Darryl Godfrey are also mounting bids.

They join former congressional candidate John Flora, former Payne staffer Shana Melius, Essex County College professor Sheila Montague, Alberta Gordon, and Debra Salters.

Carmen Bucco was the only Republican to file for the seat, making him the party’s presumptive nominee in the September election.

No Democratic nominee has received less than 75% of the district’s vote in the last two decades. The district has not elected a Republican since 1946.

The special election winner would serve until a new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

The person who will succeed Payne when the new Congress is sworn in will be chosen in the Nov. 5 general election. Payne remains on the June 4 primary ballot because of the timing of his death, and Bucco is also running in that GOP primary.

After the June 4 results are certified, Democratic county committee members in the 10th District must select a replacement for Payne on November’s ballot. They have until Aug. 29 to make that choice.

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