[nw_arizona_granny]

Wow, an amazing roundup of crooks and all in New Jersey.

Cal,

You put in a lot of work on this thread.......

It is not a surprise that we may have cells of terrorists with fake but real ID's.

And to think, it is happening in every state.

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1352768/posts

Newark can't resist the mayor's parties
February 27, 2005

Every year on his birthday, Newark Mayor Sharpe James holds a political fund-raiser that brings in thousands of dollars -- much of it from municipal employees. Last Thursday, in the midst of a snowstorm, the mayor's annual gala brought out more than 1,000 people who paid $500 each to party in a cavernous ballroom wrapped in red, white and blue at the Robert Treat Hotel. The mayor's wife, mother and three sons were there. So was acting Gov. Richard Codey, city council members, local politicians, as well as scores of developers and others who do business in Newark.

[Calpernia]

Convicted Camden Counseling Center CEO Sentenced to Prison for $138,000 Insurance Fraud
January 24, 2005

TRENTON - Attorney General Peter C. Harvey announced that the former owner and chief executive officer of a now-defunct Camden mental health counseling center has been sentenced to state prison after being convicted of submitting more than $137,900 in fraudulent bills to the Medicaid Program.

The Medicaid Program, which is funded by the state and federal governments, provides health care services and prescription drugs to persons who may not otherwise be able to afford such services and medicines. The State of New Jersey administers the Medicaid Program through the Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services and through the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor’s Medicaid Fraud Section, which investigates both criminal and civil Medicaid fraud.

According to Vaughn L. McKoy, Director, Division of Criminal Justice, and Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Greta Gooden-Brown, Eliezer Martinez, 57, Arthur Avenue, Camden, former owner and chief executive officer of Hispanic Counseling Center and Family Services of New Jersey, Inc., Camden, was sentenced on Jan. 21 by Camden County Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Brown, Jr. to five years in state prison and was ordered to pay more than $275,900 in criminal fines and $137,900 in restitution. On Oct. 27, 2004, Martinez was convicted by a Camden County jury on charges contained in a May 31, 2002 State Grand Jury indictment filed by the Division of Criminal Justice - Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor. The indictment charged Martinez with Health Care Claims Fraud (2nd degree) and Medicaid Fraud (3rd degree).

http://www.state.nj.us/lps/newsreleases05/pr20050124a.html

[Calpernia]

Old Bridge official indicted on corruption charges

http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_062150108.html

A state grand jury has indicted an Old Bridge Township official on corruption charges, alleging he solicited and received thousands of dollars in goods and services from developers doing business with the township.

Barry C. Bowers, the community's engineering inspector, was charged with official misconduct and accepting unlawful benefits as a public servant, the state Attorney General's office said Thursday.

[Clemenza]

What about that police Chief of North Bergen who issued a "hands-off" order for the hooker hotels on Tonelle Avenue, in exchange for some "hands on" activity from the workin' girls.

There used to be a site dedicated to corruption in North Bergen (historically run by the DeCalvacante family) online, but it misteriously disappeared.

[TexasTransplant]

Now that is a list!

Fellow Freepers, is there an existing list compiled for my good friends in Austin, cause I'm in a letter writing mood.
(Elected Crooks and Criminals of the Great State of Texas are expanding their greed and corruption with our State Sales Tax)

TT

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1421318/posts
Loophole lets ex-con fund his retirement; Former politician taps leftover election cash

[Coleus]

SCI probing universities' political ties

Saturday, April 23, 2005

The State Commission of Investigation has opened an inquiry into the role of political influence at New Jersey's top public universities.

The investigative agency sent letters this week to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rowan University. The letters request a broad range of documents, from information about hiring to consultant and professional services contracts and spending, according to a source who has seen the letters.

The probe was prompted by weeks worth of revelations and questions about spending at the medical university. This week, UMDNJ began releasing information about no-bid contracts.

The document release came after repeated requests from the press and began with the year 2002. For that year alone, the university gave out $126 million in contracts without competitive bidding.

State Sen. Robert E. Littell, R-Franklin, on Friday requested that state Auditor Richard L. Fair examine the no-bid contracts. "I was appalled to learn that so many of the contracts issued by UMDNJ were no-bid,'' said Littell, pointing out that the university receives more than $200 million in state funding.

Administrators at UMDNJ have pledged to have an outside audit conducted.

The SCI started its probe after acting Governor Codey questioned a $75,000 no-bid contract given in 2002 to Philadelphia lawyer Ronald White, a top fund-raiser for former Gov. James E. McGreevey. The contract called for White to serve as a liaison to McGreevey and to discern the former governor's health-care "vision." University officials said they could find no evidence that White, who has since died, did anything for the money.

The probe widened this week as the agency, which conducts fact-finding investigations, also requested information from the other state-supported schools.

Of the public universities, it has been thought that UMDNJ - a sprawling and Byzantine public bureaucracy - has been most prone to patronage and questionable spending practices. But all of the institutions have massive payrolls and elaborate budgets that critics say have been vulnerable to political interference for years.

Since the McGreevey administration, Democrats have stepped up political influence on the state college boards, appointing more party loyalists than previous administrations had named.

McGreevey also backed John J. Petillo for the presidency of UMDNJ, which he assumed last year. Petillo will be formally inaugurated on Tuesday.

Reformers saw his selection widening political influence at the state schools. Petillo, of West Orange, was chosen after trustees spent $350,000 for a nationwide search. He is a longtime player in the state, former head of the UMDNJ Board of Trustees and the first non-physician to run the institution.

A bipartisan arm of the Legislature, the SCI conducts fact-finding investigations. It has subpoena power and the authority to recommend changes in government operations and refer matters to the Attorney General's Office for criminal prosecution.

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1506777/posts
Corzine's donations questioned in New Jersey governor's race

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1191576/posts

Jihadists in New Jersey with Senator Jon Corzine & Congressman Bill Pascrell, Democrats
FrontPageMag.com ^ | March 30, 2004 | Joel Mowbray

Posted on 08/14/2004 2:05:22 PM EDT by Coleus

Jihadists in Jersey

By Joel Mowbray
The New York Sun | March 30, 2004

Rep. Bill Pascrell and Senator Corzine, both Democrats of New Jersey, addressed an annual "community brunch" last month co-sponsored by 11 Muslim organizations, including a mosque that has allegedly raised funds for Hamas and another New Jersey mosque whose former imam was convicted last year for smuggling more than a half-million dollars to an Egyptian group that the American Treasury Department subsequently designated a terrorist organization. Mr. Pascrell has also received campaign contributions and fund-raising support from the president of the event's primary sponsor.

The American Muslim Union's Annual Community Brunch on February 21, 2004, was co-sponsored by 10 other organizations, including the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Center of Passaic County of Paterson, the El Tawheed Islamic Center of Jersey City, and the Dar-ul-Islah Islamic Center of Teaneck.

The co-sponsor with the most apparent ties to radical Islam, including allegedly raising funds for Hamas and hosting as a speaker last year an alleged Hamas figure, is the Islamic Center of Passaic County. The American Muslim Union, though, appears to have close ties to the Islamic Center of Passaic County, as five of its current and former directors and executives have held or still hold leadership positions at the Islamic Center.

The American Muslim Union insists it is a mainstream group, and Mr. Pascrell says he doesn't regret the appearance. Neither Mr. Pascrell nor Mr. Corzine generally vote outside of the Democratic mainstream on Israel or terror-related matters.

The co-founder of and former imam at the Islamic Center of Passaic County, which was founded in 1989, was Mohamed El-Mezain. He worked with the ICPC to raise funds for Hamas in the mid-1990s, according to an FBI memo drafted in November 2001 by the FBI's assistant director of counterterrorism, Dale Watson. Mr. El-Mezain, who is no longer affiliated with the Islamic Center and could not be reached for comment, was never charged or arrested.

The FBI document, which provided the basis for the U.S. government to shut down the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in December 2001, cited a "reliable" source in noting that "during a speech at the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC) in November, 1994, Mohammad El-Mezain, the HLFRD's current Director of Endowments and former Chairman of the HLFRD Board, admitted that some of the money collected by the ICPC and the HLFRD goes to HAMAS or HAMAS activities in Israel. El-Mezain also defended HAMAS and the activities carried out by HAMAS."

The American Muslim Union's president, Mohamed Younes, who is a member of Islamic Center of Passaic County's board of trustees, told The New York Sun that people at the mosque "did not know everywhere their money was going, and they would not have meant to give to Hamas."

Mr. El-Mezain and the Islamic Center of Passaic County appear to have other ties to Hamas.

Mr. El-Mezain attended a conference in Los Angeles in the mid-1990s where more than $200,000 was raised for Hamas and the keynote speaker urged participants to "finish off the Israelis," according to the FBI memo.

The FBI memo cites a "reliable" source who says that at a Muslim Arab Youth Association conference held from December 30, 1994, to January 2, 1995, the keynote speaker was Sheikh Muhammed Siyam, who was introduced as "head of operations of Al Jihad Al Islamia in Gaza, the Hamas military wing." According to the FBI in formant, Mr. Siyam told the crowd, "Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all! Exterminate them!"

"Following Siyam's speech," the memo continues, "El-Mezain exhorted the crowd to contribute money. It was subsequently announced that $207,000 was raised for 'the cause."' The FBI informant also said that at the conference, Mr. El-Mezain announced that he had raised $1.8 million inside the United States for Hamas in 1994 alone.

Magdy Mahmoud, who is the cofounder and president of CAIR-NJ, one of the co-sponsors of the American Muslim Union brunch, was on the executive board of the Muslim Arab Youth Association and directed its Chapters Committee from 1993 to 1998, during which time the 1994-95 conference occurred. According to his biography on CAIR-NJ's Web site, Mr. Mahmoud later served as the chairman of the Chapters Committee for the American Muslim Union from 1999 to 2001. Mr. Mahmoud did not return a call requesting comment.

According to the Islamic Center of Passaic County's Web site, the mosque hosted a lecture in February 2003 by Abdelhaleem Ashqar, who was identified in the FBI memo as a prominent Hamas figure.

Another co-sponsor of last month's event attended by Messrs. Corzine and Pascrell, Dar-ul-Islah Islamic Center, was co-founded by Waheed Khalid, who has defended Hamas activities. When asked by the Bergen Record newspaper in 1998 about Hamas' terrorist activities, Mr. Khalid, who until late last year served as the mosque's president, responded, "They are trying to get the occupiers out of their home."

Mr. Pascrell said that allegations that any of the co-sponsors of the event are radical Islamists or tied to terrorist organizations are "pure crap." Asked if he felt that by appearing at the event he was lending legitimacy to radical organizations, he added, "I'm not going to deal in rumors; the rest is crap. I know these men as fine family men."

A spokesman for Mr. Pascrell later clarified that the congressman wasn't referring to Alaa Al-Sadawi, the former imam at El Tawheed Islamic Center, who was convicted last July of attempting to smuggle more than $650,000 in cash to the Global Relief Fund in Egypt in April 2002.The U.S. Treasury Department designated that fund as terrorist in October 2002.

The spokesman for the congressman said, "That guy should be in jail, but you can't hold the members of the mosque responsible for his actions."

Despite multiple calls from the Sun, Mr. Corzine's office offered no comment.

The American Muslim Union's president, Mr. Younes, stressed that his organization is both moderate and mainstream, adding that it has worked to "bring people together of all faiths."

According to both men, Mr. Younes and Rep. Pascrell have been friends for almost a decade. Mr. Younes and his wife have contributed more than $4,300 to Mr. Pascrell's campaigns since 1998, according to federal election records. Mr. Younes also said that he has hosted "several" fund-raisers for the congressman, including one that netted over $20,000 in October 2000. Messrs. Younes and Pascrell said they can't remember how many fund-raisers Mr. Younes has hosted, or when the most recent one was held.

Mr. Pascrell said he had no regrets about addressing the American Muslim Union- sponsored brunch last month, noting that he has never been given any warning about the group by authorities. "I'm on the Homeland Security Committee and I've never been briefed that they are something I should stay away from," he explained.

Some information for this report was provided by the Investigative Project, a group headed by counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson.

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1516493/posts

Judge: State must provide counties with names of deceased voters
Newsday ^

Posted on 11/05/2005 7:30:21 PM EST by Sub-Driver

Judge: State must provide counties with names of deceased voters

November 5, 2005, 6:29 PM EST

TRENTON, N.J. -- State officials must quickly provide all 21 counties and both major political parties with the names of adult New Jerseyans who have died since 1985 in an effort to guard against voter fraud in Tuesday's elections, a judge has ruled.

The lists must be distributed no later than 10 a.m. Monday, state Superior Court Judge Linda R. Feinberg said Friday. She issued the directive after learning that the state official responsible for tracking deaths each year and providing the names of deceased residents to county election officials had failed to do so because he did not know it was one of his duties.

Before making her ruling, Feinberg was considering a plan to have staffers with all county election boards work this weekend to compare the death lists to their voter rolls, a move that could have had them pouring over the names of as many as 1.5 million people in three days.

However, Feinberg changed her mind after Paul Josephson, an attorney for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine, expressed concern that eligible voters could accidentally have their names purged from the rolls and possibly not be allowed to vote if workers rushed to complete the review by Tuesday.

The hearing stemmed from complaints that state Republican officials filed earlier this year. They claim that an estimated 13,000 people who apparently have died remain on voter registration lists in New Jersey, including 4,755 people who reportedly voted in last November's election.

The state registrar of vital statistics is required by state law to annually provide the counties with a list of all people over age 18 who died

(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...

[Calpernia]

JERSEY GOVERNOR RACE TURNS UGLY: CHARGES OF ABORTION, AFFAIRS DRIVE LAST DAYS (Drudge Report Flash)
Drudge Report ^ | Nov 5th, 2005 | Drudge

Posted on 11/05/2005 12:31:38 PM EST by PhiKapMom

JERSEY GOVERNOR RACE TURNS UGLY: CHARGES OF ABORTION, AFFAIRS DRIVE LAST DAYS

Sat Nov 05 2005 11:06:43 ET

New Jersey Public Radio & Television aired a report Friday night in which New Jersey Democratic Candidate for Governor Jon Corzine was grilled about whether a staffer he allegedly had an affair with -- had an abortion.

NJN News’ Michael Aron reported Friday: “The press is interested right now in personal conduct. Corzine was asked about a persistent rumor that he had an affair with a staffer whom the reporter identified by name.”

Sen. Jon Corzine: “A, not true. B, I’m not going to comment on the kind of, I think, low, guttural politics that’s going on over and over in this state, and I think the ad that was talked about was just symptomatic of that.”

NJN’s Michael Aron: “He was asked about a rumor that the same staffer had an abortion in Ohio. “ Reporter: “Can you respond to those rumors that are circulating?”

Corzine: “Trash.”

Saturday's edition of THE NEW YORK TIMES reported the incident but ignored the specifics: “But Mr. Corzine did deny a new allegation raised by reporters yesterday regarding another woman.”

TIMES reporter David Kocieniewski has been investigating the claims, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

"He had the details. He's sat on the details," says a source.

Meanwhile, sex charges have been leveled at Corzine's republican challenger, Doug Forrester.

At an appearance in Woodbridge, Forrester denied that he had an extramarital affair, which was reported in a NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, which attributed the allegation to an e-mail it had received. "These are false accusations. It is wrong. It is despicable. It is the example of the kind of campaign that Jon Corzine has been running from the beginning," he said.

A final debate is set for tonight at 7.

New Jersey voters head to the polls on Tuesday.

Developing...

[Calpernia]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--officialcharged1110nov10,0,1666141.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey

Councilman indicted for tampering with absentee ballots

November 10, 2005, 7:39 PM EST

TRENTON, N.J. -- The state Attorney General's Office on Thursday announced the indictment of an Atlantic City councilman on charges of tampering with absentee ballots before the city's June 7 primary election for mayor and city council.

Marty L. Small, 31, has been charged with 10 counts of tampering with public records and one count of hindering or preventing voting.

(snip)

Small is accused of filing absentee ballot applications for 10 people. He represented himself as their "authorized messenger," when he had no such designation from the voters.

A registered voter in New Jersey has the option of having a person pick up their absentee ballot if they are unable to file for the ballot themselves.

Small faces a maximum of 55{ years in prison and $160,000 in fines if convicted, though such offenses often do not result in incarceration. Small would also have to forfeit his position on the city council and his job with the Atlantic City public schools.

(snip)

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39a9e4cf7770.htm
Winning Washington's Ear, With a Checkbook and a Tale

News/Current Events Breaking News News
Source: New York Times
Published: 8/28/00 Author: TIM GOLDEN and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Posted on 08/27/2000 21:04:31 PDT by kattracks

At his small suite of offices in Fort Lee, N.J., David Chang was a tycoon without much to do.

Mr. Chang, 56, often rode to work in a Rolls-Royce and strode through the door in a long mink coat, a cigarette dangling from his lips. But although his holding company boasted of big, global deals in everything from oil exploration to telecommunications, almost none of those ventures ever got off the ground.

"I never really saw anybody there do anything," said Clark R. Wilcox, a former banking executive who was hired to help run the firm in 1997, only to quit soon after and successfully sue his former employer for breach of contract.

In Washington, however, Mr. Chang cut a very different figure. There, he attended state dinners at the White House and visited informally with the president. He hired Mr. Clinton's chief fund-raiser as a consultant and cultivated senators and congressmen from both parties. The chairman of his company, a retired Navy admiral, had been chief of staff to George Bush when he was vice president.

The secret of Mr. Chang's popularity among American politicians was of course no secret: he and his employees gave generously to favored candidates and their parties -- more than 100 contributions that totaled $325,000. Mr. Chang also pledged at least $1 million toward the presidential library that Mr. Clinton hopes to build in Little Rock, Ark.

Mr. Chang's activities finally caught the attention of federal campaign-finance investigators, who learned he was spending more on politicians than he was reporting in taxable income. In June, he pleaded guilty to channeling more than $53,000 in illegal contributions to one of the Democratic Party's most important fund-raisers, Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey.

Now, Mr. Chang is at the center of a widening federal inquiry into the possibility that Mr. Torricelli's 1996 campaign staff may have been complicit in Mr. Chang's illegal donations -- something the senator strongly denies. Lawyers familiar with the case say Mr. Chang has given prosecutors information suggesting that Mr. Torricelli's aides accounted improperly for some of his contributions, and at least two dozen Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have been added to the inquiry in recent weeks.

Mr. Torricelli and other politicians now cast him as an unscrupulous con man, and themselves as his unwitting victims. Through his Washington lawyer, Mr. Chang declined to comment at all. But Mr. Chang's credibility is likely to be a central issue in any new case that is brought.

A portrait of Mr. Chang -- drawn from interviews, court records and a thick file of lawsuits by and against him -- shows a man of glaring, sometimes comical contradictions: one who claims to have been educated at England's best schools but who speaks broken English; whose closest business contacts included Communist officials from North Korea and a former Republican congressman from New Jersey; who rallied American politicians to help him buy a billion-dollar South Korean insurance company but never had even a small fraction of the money he needed.

"How can a guy like Chang get hooked up with all these people?" asked Mr. Wilcox, his former employee. "As a citizen, quite frankly, it makes me very angry."

As a businessman, many of his former employees say, Mr. Chang generated all sorts of ambitious schemes but almost no apparent profit. Though he has owned large homes, expensive cars and the 235-room Fort Lee Hilton hotel, just over the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan, it is unclear where he has gotten his money, large chunks of which have arrived in wire transfers from abroad, court records show.

And while Mr. Chang's generosity won him many attentive friends in Washington, it did not buy him all the political favors he sought. His most important request, that the Clinton administration help him win repayment of tens of millions of dollars he said he was owed by North Korea for grain shipments, made almost no progress at all.

"Did anything go wrong?" said a spokesman for Mr. Clinton, Jake Seiwert. "His proposals were neither accepted nor acted upon.

What he wanted to do didn't happen."

Still, the story of Mr. Chang's education in money politics is a remarkable chapter in the saga of Washington influence bought and sold. In a world of fund-raiser business executives, deal-savvy senators and retired officials who increasingly exploit their connections abroad, Mr. Chang was a magnet for the powerful -- even after he was publicly identified as having given illegal donations to two different election campaigns.

Basic Contradictions

Just who David Chang is has been difficult to ascertain.

At a bail hearing earlier this year, prosecutors noted that Mr. Chang had used at least two passports and three Social Security numbers, listed two different birthplaces and three different birth dates, and was married to two women at the same time -- not including a reputed girlfriend who has also been listed as his wife.

"David Chang is a chronic liar," one of his many former lawyers, Michael S. Kimm, asserted in a recent lawsuit that, like several others by other people, claims that Mr. Chang failed to pay him what he owed.

Even on the basic facts of his background, Mr. Chang has at least contradicted himself repeatedly. In one set of court papers, he said he was born in Beijing in 1943 and emigrated to South Korea soon after the Communist takeover of China six years later. In an interview last year with a South Korean newspaper, he said he was born in Korea and left his homeland in 1963, when he hopped a freighter and sailed to America. In New Jersey, Mr. Chang told his employees that he spent the 70's and 80's working as a high-flying oil trader in London and the Middle East. Through his Washington lawyer, David Schertler, Mr. Chang said he had worked abroad for his own oil company, Nikko Petroleum, and moved its operations to New York in 1976.

Mr. Chang's profile began to rise in the United States around 1990, when he became an American citizen. By then, he was calling his firm Nikko Enterprises Inc. and had moved it into offices in Fort Lee, just across the river from Manhattan.

He portrayed himself as a man of discreet but powerful patrons. He told associates that he had named his firm for its sponsorship by the Nikko Securities Company, Japan's third-largest brokerage, and that he had a rich young wife back in Japan, the daughter of a Nikko executive.

But not only did Nikko Securities have nothing to do with Mr. Chang, it also apparently persuaded him to stop using its name, prompting him to reincorporate his company in 1994 as Bright & Bright. Soon enough, though, he found new sources of respectability in the United States.

Among the first and most important of Mr. Chang's Washington contacts was Daniel J. Murphy, a high-profile lobbyist with a gleaming government résumé. A retired four-star admiral, Mr. Murphy had commanded the Navy's Sixth Fleet, had served as chief of staff to George Bush when he was vice president, and had been a deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and a deputy undersecretary of defense.

After resigning from Vice President Bush's staff in 1985, Mr. Murphy went to work as a lobbyist, first for Gray & Company, a firm closely tied to the Reagan administration, and then on his own. He quickly built a reputation for putting business ahead of politics, representing the Marxist government of Angola, trying to drum up business in Gen. Manuel Noriega's Panama, and maintaining a friendship with Tongsun Park, the former South Korean lobbyist and intelligence agent, long after Mr. Park's ties to American congressmen touched off a political scandal involving United States officials in the late 1970's.

Mr. Murphy, who declined to say anything about his relationsip with Mr. Chang, began working for him as a consultant and lobbyist by at least 1990, according to Mr. Schertler, Mr. Chang's lawyer. Mr. Murphy soon became a business partner as well, helping Mr. Chang open some of the more important doors in Washington.

"He was at the White House once a month, when I was there," said one former assistant who worked for Mr. Chang during the latter half of the Bush administration. Mr. Bush's spokesman said the former president did not recall ever meeting Mr. Chang, and there are no records that he ever made a private visit to the White House.

Creating a Niche

Mr. Chang used his contacts to carve out an unusual business niche, trying to supply goods and services to countries hostile to the United States. Besides shipping wheat to North Korea, his former employees said, he tried to send ambulances and other equipment to Iraq.

He also bought American real estate and Asian stocks, tried to sell repackaged cigarettes in Russia and beer snacks in South Korea, and explored building a fleet of mini-blimps for advertising. Almost none of his start-ups, however, seem to have even gotten off the ground.

It is unclear what Mr. Chang was using for capital. For his grain deal with North Korea, he received at least $60 million from South Korea's Shinhan Bank, and from L.G. International, the New Jersey subsidiary of one of South Korea's biggest conglomerates.

In 1991, Mr. Chang obtained one of the first Commerce Department licenses authorizing the sale of food to North Korea, which was then subject to American trade sanctions. By 1994, court records show, he had shipped the government there some 560,000 tons of wheat, with a value of $110 million.

Mr. Chang accused the North Korean government of failing to pay him $71 million on the deal and reneging on a $1.2-billion contract for further shipments. He made the accusations in a libel suit filed against a Korean-language newspaper based in Queens, which published an article accusing him of giving free rooms at the Fort Lee Hilton to visiting North Korean officials. The paper stood by its story; Mr. Chang dropped his suit three years later.

Whatever misgivings Mr. Chang had about doing business with the North Koreans apparently eased. By 1998, he had been back in North Korea on a contract to provide logistical support for a United States Army team that sought to recover the remains of American soldiers missing there since the Korean War.

New Alliances

With Mr. Bush out of the White House and South Korean financiers pressing him for repayment on the grain deal, Mr. Chang began to cultivate the Democrats.

Until then, he had been a relatively modest and mainly Republican donor. In 1992, for instance, he gave $25,000 to Republicans and $1,000 to Mr. Torricelli, then his local congressman. But by the 1995-96 election cycle, the balance of his generosity shifted to Democrats, and Mr. Torricelli became his most-favored politician.

When pressed, a spokesman for Mr. Torricelli said his campaign fund-raisers merely found Mr. Chang's name -- along with hundreds of others -- on a list of New Jersey donors provided by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "He was not one of the senator's inner circle of fund-raisers," the senator's chief of staff, Eric B. Shuffler, said. "Not in any way, shape or form anything close to that."

But many of Mr. Torricelli's friends and former aides tell of a much closer relationship. "All of a sudden," one former aide recalled, "he became a player."

Over the next few years, Mr. Chang and his aides gave $8,000 to Mr. Torricelli, and Mr. Chang was named to the finance committee for Mr. Torricelli's 1996 campaign. Mr. Chang gave Mr. Torricelli use of his corporate jet during his 1996 Senate campaign, and investigators are now examining whether the campaign fully reimbursed Mr. Chang for the 19 flights. Mr. Chang gave $30,000 more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, of which Mr. Torricelli was named vice chairman and then chairman, and $5,000 to a legal-defense fund set up on Mr. Torricelli's behalf for a House ethics inquiry involving Mr. Torricelli, who was ultimately cleared.

As his relationship with the White House grew, Mr. Chang and his companies gave $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee and $70,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Over the same period, Mr. Chang, his aides and his companies gave only about $44,000 to the Republican Party.

Between late 1995 and 1996, Mr. Chang also arranged for an additional $53,700 in illegal contributions to Mr. Torricelli's campaign, funneling the money through friends, business associates and even the former chairman of the Bergen County Republican Party, Berek Don. Mr. Don has pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and is cooperating with prosecutors.

A spokesman for Mr. Torricelli, who declined to answer questions himself, said the senator's office did almost nothing for Mr. Chang.

"I know it looks strange, but this is not a guy who we did anything for," Mr. Shuffler said. "No one on our staff, in our Washington office, ever spoke to Chang or met him."

Again, however, several other politicians and current and former Torricelli aides remember the relationship differently.

"He was seen as someone who Torricelli was actively engaged with," one former aide said. "This was a guy who was important to Bob."

In December 1997, Mr. Torricelli went to South Korea just days before a presidential election there.

The American embassy, concerned that Mr. Torricelli might be seen as meddling in the campaign, balked at setting up political meetings for him. Mr. Chang swept into the void.

In a one-page statement issued in response to written questions, Mr. Torricelli's office denied that Mr. Chang was present on the trip, made any of the arrangements for it, or communicated about it with any members of the senator's staff.

But two people with detailed knowledge of the trip said Mr. Chang did stay in the same hotel as Mr. Torricelli, while Mr. Chang's aide, Christopher Kim, helped set up meetings for the senator with the two opposition candidates, Kim Dae Jung, who won the vote, and Rhee In Je. In a brief interview, Mr. Kim also acknowledged that Mr. Chang sent him to Seoul to help with the arrangements and to act as the senator's guide as he met with Korean officials and candidates.

The week of Mr. Torricelli's visit, one of Mr. Chang's companies also made a $30,000 donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Seeking Payback

Despite all that support, a spokesman for Mr. Torricelli said he never helped Mr. Chang with the matter of his greatest concern -- persuading the administration to transfer frozen North Korean assets to him, or to pressure the North Korea to repay the debt. But other politicians were apparently more forthcoming.

As recently as last fall, a handful of legislators, from the relatively liberal Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey to conservative Republicans like Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming, wrote to the administration on Mr. Chang's behalf, urging it not to ease the sanctions on North Korea without pressing for the repayment of debts to American companies like Bright & Bright.

Aides to Mr. Lautenberg said they wrote a pro forma letter for him because he was a New Jersey resident. An aide to Mr. Thomas said the Wyoming senator supported Mr. Chang's appeal after being lobbied on his behalf by one of his business partners, James A. Courter, the former Republican congressman from New Jersey.

According to two politicians close to Mr. Clinton, Mr. Chang was introduced to the president by Mr. Torricelli at a fund-raising event for the senator. Under questioning by the head of the Justice Department's campaign-financing task force, Robert J. Conrad Jr., Mr. Clinton said that Mr. Torricelli might have made the introduction, but that he could not remember.

When South Korea's president visited Washington in June 1998, Mr. Chang and his then 30-year-old assistant, Audrey Yu, were among the guests at a state dinner. Barely a month later, on July 14, Mr. Clinton invited Mr. Chang over again, this time to watch a movie in the White House screening room. When Mr. Clinton traveled to Seoul that November, Mr. Chang and others said, he was invited to the president's hotel room for conversation and pizza. Days before Christmas, Mr. Chang was invited to the White House again, for a holiday dinner.

Early the following spring, Mr. Chang was invited to the White House to watch the N.C.A.A. basketball final with Mr. Clinton. And when the Chinese prime minister, Zhu Rongji, visited that April, Mr. Chang and Ms. Yu were invited to another state dinner.

Over the year that he was so assiduously wined, dined and entertained by Mr. Clinton and other administration officials, Mr. Chang and his companies donated more than $150,000 to the Democratic Party.

Nonetheless, Terry McAuliffe, the president's friend and chief fund-raiser, said, Mr. Chang "was treated no differently from any other supporter." White House officials suggested that while senior National Security Council officials were dispatched twice in 1998 to meet with Mr. Chang and listened to his thoughts on the Middle East, North Korea and Iraq, mostly they just humored him.

Yet even as Mr. Chang became a more prized Democratic donor, his legal troubles were in fairly plain sight.

The Biggest Deal

His role in making $12,000 in illegal campaign contributions to the 1992 campaign of former Representative Jay Kim, a Korean-American Republican from California, had come to light in news articles by August 1997. (Mr. Chang was not charged, after agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors.) His involvement in illegal contributions to the 1996 Torricelli campaign surfaced clearly in May 1999, when Mr. Don, the former Bergen County chairman, pleaded guilty to funneling Mr. Chang's money through employees at his law firm.

Nor was there much evidence that Mr. Chang was flourishing in business.

Between 1996 and 1998, while he donated more than $270,000 to various political causes, Mr. Chang reported only $183,000 in income. Over a one-year period starting in the fall of 1998, he also lost nearly $300,000 gambling in Atlantic City, federal prosecutors said.

Mr. Seiwert, the White house spokesman, said a presidential visitor and donor like Mr. Chang should typically have been vetted by the Democratic National Committee, the Secret Service and White House researchers. He said administration officials were "still checking" to determine how that vetting might have been done in his case.

In mid-1998, Mr. Chang hired Mr. McAuliffe to help him try to buy a bank in South Korea. Mr. McAuliffe said that before signing a yearlong consulting contract with Mr. Chang, he checked with several people, including Mr. Courter, the former congressman who was listed on company documents as the president of the new trading company that Mr. Chang established in late 1997, Panacom Inc.

A person familiar with the contract said Mr. Torricelli provided an enthusiastic reference, telling Mr. McAuliffe, "He's a legitimate person, a legitimate businessman, his wife's family owns Nikko Securities."

Mr. Torricelli's aides deny that he or any staff member ever vouched for Mr. Chang.

Mr. McAuliffe said he never discussed Mr. Chang's business deals with President Clinton, and ended his consulting arrangement after only about six months. Roughly six months after that, however, he agreed to work for Mr. Chang again, this time as an investment banker when Panacom sought to buy the troubled Korea Life Insurance Company, South Korea's third-largest insurance company.

Mr. McAuliffe said he went back after learning that Mr. Murphy was acting as Panacom's chairman, and after Mr. Courter assured him that Mr. Chang had enough money to buy the company. He said one of Mr. Chang's lawyers also gave him a Korean newspaper clipping indicating that former President Bush had already met with Korean officials on Panacom's behalf, something that one of Mr. Chang's former lawyers, Michael Critchley, also asserted during a hearing in federal court.

A spokesman for Mr. Bush, Gian-Carlo A. Peressutti, said this was untrue. The former president, he said, had been in Korea on behalf of another American firm, the Carlyle Group, which is headed by former Republican adminstration officials.

The Korea Life deal would have been by far Mr. Chang's biggest yet, one that three of the world's largest multinational insurance companies had already bid on and lost by the summer of 1999, when Mr. Murphy and Mr. Chang stepped into the void.

"It was a bit of a surprise, because no one had ever heard of them," recalled Lee Jong-Koo, a senior Finance Ministry official who attended the meeting. "Chang and Admiral Murphy asked questions about K.L.I. and they indicated that they could raise abundant funds to acquire the company from various sources, especially New Jersey pension funds."

In an interview at his office in Seoul, Mr. Lee said Korean officials repeatedly sought further evidence from Mr. Chang that Panacom could assemble the roughly $1.5 billion they were seeking for the company. Instead, they heard about Mr. Chang's politician friends.

"I remember David Chang said he knew Senator Torricelli and other politicians," Mr. Lee said. "He also said that he knew President Clinton and that he had eaten pizza with the president."

Within weeks, the Korean prime minister, Kim Jong Pil, began to receive letters from politicians in Washington and New Jersey. Representative Gregory W. Meeks, a New York City Democrat, wrote to "highly recommend Panacom for this acquisition because of their strong record in investment, trade and finance for many years." Representative Carolyn Maloney, another New York CityDemocrat, who received $2,000 from Mr. Chang and his assistant in 1998, wrote a similar letter. Senator Torricelli and a New Jersey state finance official, wrote similarletters, Korean officials said.

The two representatives said through spokesmen that they did so because they believed Panacom was a legitimate business with operations in New York.

Aides to one lawmaker said they also checked first with Mr. Torricelli's staff, which vouched strongly for Mr. Chang. A spokesman for Mr. Torricelli denied this had happened.

Mr. Torricelli agreed to provide The New York Times with a copy of the letter he wrote to the Korean government on Panacom's behalf. After several weeks, however, his aides said the letter could not be found.

Deepening Troubles

As Mr. Chang's push for the insurance deal continued last summer, Korean officials became openly suspicious that he was acting as a front man for the former owner of the insurance company, who had been jailed on corruption charges but was trying to win it back.

"I knew this guy Chang was lying to me," Mr. Lee said.

Mr. McAuliffe flew to Seoul in late August to help move the deal ahead.

But he said that after only two discussions with Panacom lawyers, he turned around and flew home, refusing to meet with Korean officials.

The Korea Life deal finally fell through last fall, as Mr. Chang's legal troubles were deepening in New Jersey.

With the pressure from federal prosecutors growing, the lawyer then leading Mr. Chang's defense, Mr. Critchley, did something that stunned many of the lawyers following the case. After Mr. Chang's arrest on campaign-finance, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges, Mr. Critchley announced in court that Mr. Chang had "no information about any criminal wrongdoing" by any public officials, mentioning President Clinton, Senator Torricelli and Mr. McAuliffe by name. With that, Mr. Critchley, who is active in Democratic Party politics in New Jersey, seemed to foreclose the possibility that Mr. Chang would ever cooperate with the government.

Less than six months later, however, as Mr. Chang prepared to go to trial with a new lawyer, he indicated to prosecutors that he might have that kind of information and agreed to cooperate with the authorities. He became the sixth person to plead guilty to making illegal contributions to Mr. Torricelli's campaign.




Follow up News:

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[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1586780/posts
A big fish gets away (McGreevey)

[Liz]

BTTT

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1596670/posts
Victims' Compensation Board Filled With No Show Bureaucrats

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Former State Worked Pleads Guilty to Scam

A former state worker pleaded guilty on Monday to charges related to her taking more than 866 (t) thousand public funds meant for a housing and rental-assistance program. Robin Wheeler-Hicks pleaded guilty in state Superior Court in Mercer County to second-degree bribery and theft by deception.

The 46-year-old Elizabeth resident is a former Department of Community Affairs senior field representative in Union County. In pleading guilty, she admitted she submitted at least 428 false applications to the state's Homelessness Prevention Program.

Under the terms of her plea, Wheeler-Hicks faces up to seven years in state prison and a nearly 831 (t) thousand restitution payment. Prosecution is still pending for two co-defendants -- Tashime Mitchell and Renita Livingston.

[Coleus]

bttt

[Coleus]

NJ CORRUPT DEMOCRATS in Action..

 

 See the front page of The Record from Friday, July 24

Friday, December 18

• Ridgefield mayor indicted in statewide corruption sting

Thursday, December 17

• NJ councilman indicted in corruption probe

Tuesday, November 17

• Former Secaucus mayor indicted

Thursday, October 15

• Brothers plead not guilty in NJ corruption probe

Thursday, October 9

• Ex-council candidate in corruption sting pleads guilty

Thursday, September 24

• Ex-Hudson County official pleads guilty to extortion

Wednesday, September 18

• Two more plead guilty in NJ corruption sweep

Wednesday, September 9

• Two Jersey City officials plead guily in corruption sting

Thursday, August 20

• Indictments begin in federal corruption case

Wednesday, August 19

• Petition drive launched to recall Ridgefield mayor

Saturday, August 15

• Ex-mayor gets time to weigh plea deal

Friday, August 7

• Loophole funnels cash to candidates

Wednesday, August 5

• Protesters met by supporters of Ridgefield mayor
• State comptroller seeks Ridgefield documents

Tuesday, August 4

• Politics, under a cloud
• Corzine's order won't delay Carlstadt projects
• As mayor digs in, Corzine halts development activity in Ridgefield, threatens takeover
• Editorial: Suarez won't budge

Monday, August 3

• UPDATE: Corzine signs order freezing development activity in Ridgefield
• Mayor 'welcomes' Corzine plan to examine town finances

Sunday, August 2

• Ridgefield mayor: 'I am not resigning'
• Scandals dent Secaucus residents’ pride

Saturday, August 1

• Tracking $4,000 check
• Pressure on Suarez after Hoboken mayor's resignation
• Corzine orders review of Ridgefield deals

Friday, July 31

• Corzine proffers a theory on New Jersey corruption

Thursday, July 30

• 19 arrested officials could still collect pensions, benefits
• Pension payouts: Who would get what
• Shaw had agreed to cooperate with FBI in probe before his death
• Corzine says he expects Hoboken mayor to resign
• Graft suspect was 'old-time Irish politician'
• Report: Suspect in corruption sting on tape talking about Doria
• DEP e-mails follow lawmaker's request
• Fort Lee to weigh Suarez’s fate

Wednesday, July 29

• Key witness made nearly $200,000 in campaign contributions
• Officials stand behind councilman
• 50 rally outside city hall to demand resignations
• Secaucus mayor's resignation greeted by applause at council meeting
• Political consultant Jack Shaw found dead in Jersey City

Tuesday, July 28

• Hoboken mayoral aides maintain controversy hasn't affected services
• Ridgefield mayor's phone log, records subpoenaed
• Jersey City mayor vows to push on after arrests
• Secaucus mayor resigns

Monday, July 27

• Embattled mayors defy calls for resignation
• Hundreds rally in Hoboken calling on mayor to resign
• Jersey City employees nabbed in bust suspended
• Ridgefield mayor relieved from township attorney post
• Embattled Hoboken mayor reports to work
• Secaucus mayor confers with family on future
• Large crowd expected tonight at Ridgefield council meeting

Sunday, July 26

• Builders call the shots
• Law shields religious charities from scrutiny

Saturday, July 25

• Jersey City mayor in probe but not charged
• Mayor had no love for Meadows panel
• No word in Secaucus from Elwell
• Ridgefield's Suarez remains 'confident,' councilman says
• Doria checks on pension
• Crooked? Dumb? No, that's those other guys
• NJ corruption arrests: Who got what
• Stile: Shadowy layer of New Jersey government

Friday, July 24

• Jersey City assemblyman released on $100K bond
• VIDEO: Hoboken mayor says he won't resign
• Record Editorial: Black Thursday
• Doblin: It's not the state that is broken

Thursday, July 23

• Feds nab politicians, rabbis in 'international money laundering scheme'
• Developer played key role as a cooperating witness
• State Community Affairs chief Doria resigns after records seized
• Bail set on 25 charged in public corruption, laundering probe
• Critics: Ridgefield mayor's penchant for suing may be factor in downfall
• Charges against Secaucus mayor shock even hardened foes
• Hoboken mayor had fast rise to top
• Stile: A body blow to Corzine’s reelection
• Who they are
• What they're saying about the bust
• Brooklyn man accused of trafficking in human organs