New Jersey State Attorney General Office

The Jersey Journal's Jarrett Renshaw reports that the state's criminal investigation of Hoboken's top construction code official has now expanded to at least one neighboring municipality.

The Attorney General's Office issued a subpoena for records from Weehawken's Building Department earlier this week, Renshaw reports. The Attorney General's Office ordered Weehawken's Building Department to turn over documents by Sept. 17 related to its oversight of construction projects in neighboring Hoboken, according to Weehawken township attorney Rick Venino. Read more about the investigation into Arezzo here.

State Police grab documents in Arezzo probe

The Jersey Journal's Jarrett Renshaw is reporting that State Troopers from the Organized Crime Unit went to City Hall yesterday and seized documents from Construction Code Official Al Arezzo's office.

In addition, sources have told Renshaw that a grand jury has been convened in connection with the probe.

Attorney General Stuart Rabner has asked the State Police to join the fight against public cor ruption by having troopers in their organized crime bureau focus on developing cases, tripling the number of investigators sniffing out crooked pols.

"The key to it all is building a more stable base of leads," Rabner said during a sit-down with reporters yesterday in his Hughes Justice Complex office in Trenton. "The first stop for me ... is the State Police."

State Attorney General Stuart Rabner, who has promised to slay the public-corruption dragon, on Wednesday revealed his view of how to snare such targets: "You catch a lot of frogs before you've got a prince."

Rabner, seven weeks and a day into his job, told reporters that indicting public officials takes time, with good and not-so-good leads, followed by investigations and eventual cases.

Bob Ingle Blog
http://bobingle.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 07, 2006

And Now The Legislature Is Targeted

U. S. Attorney Chris Christie's office has asked the Office of Legislative Services how subpoenaes can properly be served on lawmakers in Trenton. Looks like Christie's net is spreading.

Perhaps he has in mind a RICO indictment for the entire bunch. That would be a perp walk no one would want to miss -- all of 'em led out of the Statehouse in cuffs to the cheers of thousands.
posted by Bob Ingle at 11:04 AM

Ed Mecka Comments:  Earlier today, Bob Ingle's story was confirmed to me by a highly placed state official. 

The NJ State Attorney General and the Federal Attorney General are working together on this corruption investigation.

I have provided a brief overview of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act , also known as R.I.C.O., for educational purposes only.  

Legal scrutiny of state Sen. Wayne Bryant's mixing of business and politics is broadening with new state and federal subpoenas issued this week, according to published reports.

Bryant, a Democrat, resigned his post as chairman of the state Senate's powerful budget committee after a federal monitor's report earlier in the month found that he had held a no-work, $38,000-a-year job for the University of Medicine and Dentistry.

Partisan opponents in the U.S. Senate race escalated their charges Friday as the race continued veering toward the negative some five weeks before Election Day.

Democratic supporters of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez accused Republicans of engaging in an unabashed campaign of "mudslinging" to avoid discussing serious national issues.

Republican backers of GOP challenger Tom Kean Jr. asked the state Attorney General's Office to investigate the connection between Menendez and a powerful North Jersey attorney, two days after the release of secretly taped conversations that have rocked the campaign.

CAMDEN — State Sen. Wayne R. Bryant, who stepped down Monday from a key legislative post amid an ethics scandal, pressured Rutgers officials for a job and a berth in the university\'s Hall of Distinguished Alumni, a former university board member said.

The Camden County Democrat, an alumnus of the School of Law at Rutgers-Camden, was hired by the university in 2002 and inducted as a distinguished alumnus in 2005.

The [New Jersey State] Attorney General's Office has opened its own investigation into Sen. Wayne Bryant, the embattled Camden County lawmaker accused by a federal monitor of ordering the state's medical university to give him a no-show job.

State prosecutors sent a subpoena to the city of Camden last Monday seeking the financial records of a neighborhood redevelopment plan for which Bryant helped secure millions of dollars in state funding in 2003.

"Public officials who betray the public trust should go to jail," said Rabner, who has been Gov. Jon S. Corzine's chief counsel since January and is the former head of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's office in Newark.