Three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and roughly 40 other officials and private citizens, including rabbis, were rounded up today by federal authorities after a massive, 10-year investigation of an international money laundering ring.
The ring allegedly trafficked in goods as diverse as human organs and fake designer handbags. Suspects were taken by the carload to the FBI’s Newark office, with cars at times stacked four-deep waiting to unload their passengers.
Three hundred agents in 54 locations in New Jersey and New York were involved in the arrests this morning, the Newark Star-Ledger reported.
The wide-ranging scandal led to the resignation of Jersey’s commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, Joseph Doria. He wasn’t arrested but after his office and home were searched, Gov. Corzine said he could no longer be effective and asked him to step down.
The politicians willingly put themselves up for sale,” acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra said. “For these defendants, corruption was a way of life. They existed in an ethics-free zone.”
The arrested include Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez, state Assemblymen Peter Van Pelt and Harvey Smith, Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega, Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Baldini, Jersey City Republicans John Guarini and Guy Catrillo, La Vern Webb-Washington, a Jersey City council candidate, Joseph Castagna, Jersey City’s health officer, and Michael Manzo, a long-time veteran of the Jersey City fire department.
Suarez was charged with agreeing to accept a $10,000 corrupt cash payment for his legal defense fund, the Bergen Record reported.
Elwell was charged with taking a $10,000 cash bribe.
Cammarano was charged with accepting $25,000 in cash bribes from an undercover cooperating witness.
Van Pelt is accused of accepting $10,000 from a cooperating government witness posing as a developer who sought help in getting permits for a project in Ocean County.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the investigation initially focused, with the help of the cooperating witness, on the money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, Deal, N.J. and Israel. The network is alleged to have laundered tens of millions of dollars through charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.
The investigation widened to include official corruption in July 2007 when the cooperating witness approached public officials in Hudson County posing as a developer seeking to build in the Jersey City area.
The Wall Street Journal identified the developer as Solomon Dwek, an Orthodox Jewish man who was arrested on bank-fraud charges in 2006.
He owned some 300 residential and commercial properties but was forced to file for bankruptcy.
Cammarano, the Hoboken mayor, allegedly met with a developer who became an undercover informant after being charged with bank fraud, the Star-Ledger reported. The man apparently was Dwek.
The developer wanted to build in Hoboken and in April met with with Cammarano, a mayoral candidate at the time, and Michael Schaffer, a North Hudson Utilities Authority commissioner. He asked for help getting building approvals.
The “developer” told Cammarano he would give Schaffer $10,000.
“Just make sure you expedite my stuff. That’s all I ask,” the informant allegedly said, the Star-Ledger reported.
The rabbis arrest in the Syrian Jewish areas of Deal and Brooklyn were charged with laundering $3 million through non-profit organizations, the Star-Ledger reported.
Part of the $3 million allegedly came from sales of kidneys by Isaac Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn. He was accused of selling kidneys for transplants for $160,000 each, the Bergen Record reported.
Rosenbaum at one point allegedly bragged he’d made “quite a lot” of matches for kidneys.
With Post Wire Services