Posted on 09/14/2004 9:39:57 AM PDT by Liz
Golan Cipel was only a plaything. It was developer Charles Kushner who speeded his passage through the swamps of New Jersey patronage politics—till Kushner was brought down in his own spectacular sex scandal.
Less than 24 hours after New Jersey developer Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to retaliating against a federal witness and filing both false tax returns and false campaign-finance reports, the would-be political kingmaker was in his office on Columbia Turnpike in Florham Park. Shamed, humiliated, and facing at least a year and a half in jail, he was discussing his predicament with defense attorney Ben Brafman, marveling at how fast his life had unraveled.
Wasn’t this the same man who had built Kushner Companies into a billion-dollar real-estate empire that controlled office buildings, condominiums, and apartments in half a dozen states? Hadn’t he skillfully crafted a role for himself as a major power broker with unfettered access by contributing millions of dollars to politicians?
It was no accident that when Bill Clinton was president, he made several appearances at Kushner functions in Florham Park. So had former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And so, especially, had Governor James McGreevey, who, more than any of the others, was a political creature built of his will and cash. Kushner, 50, was also a towering figure in the Jewish community, building schools, helping synagogues, and contributing freely to a broad variety of causes both here and in Israel.
But there he was on that midsummer morning several weeks ago, forced to contemplate how, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, he had destroyed so much of what he had spent years working so hard to build. On June 30, he had to pay a $508,900 fine to the Federal Election Commission, one of the highest penalties ever assessed. Less than a week later, rather than be arrested, he turned himself in to the FBI to face a litany of criminal charges.
Now he has stepped down as chairman of his company. His days as a political force both nationally and in New Jersey are over. Saddest of all, he has shattered his once close-knit family.
The days when the Kushner clan—Charles and his three siblings and all their spouses and kids and grandkids—would travel to Miami together for Passover are long gone. He and his older brother, Murray, have not spoken in more than two years as a result of a bitter lawsuit over money Murray believed Charles owed him from deals they had done together—a lawsuit that Charles Kushner’s supporters claim opened the door for the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into his campaign-finance activities.
And, of course, to add to the horror, the federal witnesses he had attempted to retaliate against were his sister and brother-in-law, who were cooperating with that same investigation.
Kushner paid a prostitute $10,000 to lure his brother-in-law to a motel room at the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater to have sex with him. A hidden camera recorded the activity, and Kushner sent the lurid tape to his sister, making sure the tape arrived on the day of a family party.
As he sat in his office less than 24 hours after his guilty plea, the phone rang. The caller couldn’t have been more unexpected—it was Governor Jim McGreevey. Though Kushner had given the governor more than $1.5 million for his two races and was instrumental in his rise to power, the two had barely spoken in months.
There is a strange symmetry to the fall of the two titans. Exactly one week before, McGreevey had also lost nearly everything he had worked his whole life to achieve. In an even more public, more personal, and more heavily scrutinized admission of guilt, McGreevey stood in the statehouse in Trenton, flanked by his oddly smiling wife and his parents, and admitted his own lies, deceptions, and sensational bad judgment. “My truth,” he said, “is that I am a gay American.”
Kushner’s split with McGreevey had occurred almost nine months earlier, when Kushner was competing with Bruce Ratner to buy the New Jersey Nets. During a conference call that included the governor and two officials of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, Kushner laid out his proposal for the basketball team, and asked for a $25 million subsidy from the state.
According to sources familiar with the call, McGreevey responded in a very un-McGreevey-like way: He said no, a word he rarely spoke to anyone.
Thoughtfully, he explained why the state couldn’t spend vast sums of public money to keep the Nets in New Jersey. Perhaps surprised by the governor’s intransigence, Kushner was “angry and bitterly disappointed,” according to someone on the call, and he apparently lost it. He went into a screaming tirade—everyone was stunned. When Kushner hung up, McGreevey calmly said to those around him, “Well, I guess I won’t have to put up with Charles Kushner anymore.”
“The McGreevey administration was without adult supervision,” says one insider. “All the guys who could provide a compass were pushed out.”
But now there were no histrionics. “It was a very warm, personal conversation,” says Brafman, “between two close friends going through some very public problems. They talked about what they’ve each been going through, and they just wanted to support one another.”
In the middle of February, about a month after being sworn in as governor, Jim McGreevey made two appointments that would change the course of his career. He gave a seat on the board of the Port Authority to Charles Kushner, and he named Golan Cipel an adviser on homeland security.
McGreevey, who had been the mayor of Woodbridge, had always been viewed as a pleasant if uptight policy wonk. He worked hard, had very little fun as best as anyone could tell, and had an almost obsessive ambition, nursed since adolescence, to become governor. “He had a propensity for saying yes and being on both sides of the issues,” says one insider. “He would’ve called it being political.”
In an era of Internet fund-raising, instant polling, and a 24-hour news cycle, New Jersey still practices diner politics—deals are still brokered in vinyl-covered booths over coffee served by waitresses who call people “doll.” “The McGreevey administration is really a throwback,” says Jon Shure, who served as Jim Florio’s press secretary and now heads a policy forum called New Jersey Policy Perspective. “Up until the seventies, the way to become governor was by a handful of powerful county leaders deciding to pick you as the candidate. This is what happened in McGreevey’s case. The county chairs in Union, Essex, Middlesex, and Camden got together and said, ‘This is who we’ll back, this is who we’ll rally behind.’ ”
Kushner made essentially the same decision after McGreevey narrowly lost to Christine Todd Whitman in 1997. He decided to solidify and amp up what had been a casual relationship, believing McGreevey would win the next time around.
It was a perfect marriage. The only thing Kushner craved more than wealth was access to power. For his part, McGreevey, like all politicians, needed money. He also needed a way to keep his political team together until the next campaign began in 2001. So he started an organization called Committee for Working Families, which employed his key people and was largely funded by Kushner.
The Kushner family is part of a New Jersey phenomenon known as the Holocaust builders. In the post–World War II wave of survivors who came to America was a small group of men who settled in northern New Jersey and became extraordinarily successful builders and real-estate developers. In addition to the Kushners, there are the Wilfs, the Rosens, and the Zuckerman and Pantirer families. (Zuckerman and Pantirer were saved by Oskar Schindler, and everything they build has a street or a building named for Schindler.)
The families operate like clans, with sons and daughters and sons-in-law and grandkids all working in the business. They are active in communal Jewish life, and outside of the occasional mention in one of the Jewish newspapers, they work very hard to fly under the radar.
Kushner’s high profile was always an irritant to the other families. He has been referred to as the Dapper Don of the Holocaust builders. Not only did he have the silver hair, impeccably tailored suits, and the swagger, but like John Gotti, he brought far more attention to his community than any of the others were comfortable with. “In New Jersey, you contribute money not for access but results,” says Alan Marcus, founder of the Marcus Group, a political-consulting company. “Anybody who doesn’t admit that is lying.”
Long read. Click on source for rest of story.
This Dumbocrat hiring a prostitute to entrap federal witnesses to silence them ----one of whom is his BIL-----has to be the most depraved, criminal behavior imaginable.......and, unfortunately, something we have come to expect among corrupt, power-hungry Dumcbocrats (think Clinton).
I drive by his office on Columbia Turnpike every day with a smile on my face.
In the middle of February, about a month after being sworn in as governor, Jim McGreevey made two appointments that would change the course of his career. He gave a seat on the board of the Port Authority to Charles Kushner, and he named Golan Cipel an adviser on homeland security.
Be nice if the media explored this interesting connection.
Be nice to knock Corzine out of the race for Gov.
I wonder how much Corzine knew of Kushner's corrupt activities. Their connection's sure been played down in the Old Irrevelant media.
How could he not know, this is NJ, after all.
Port Authority to Charles Kushner!!
Port Authority to Charles Kushner!!!
Who was that Port Authority Officer that was shot? Now I'm REALLY curious.
Making copies I couldn't help but notice the 1999 issue on the movement of Russian-Israeli monies through New Jersey laundromats.
The potential for Kushner to ripoff New Yorkers and New Jerseyans as PA chair-----in the rebuilding of post/911 WTC-----owned by the PA-----was enormous.
In his disclosure form to the PA, Kushner listed his business connections: chairman of the board of Norcrown Bank, and Westminster Management Limited Liability Co, the property management affiliate of Kushner Companies headquartered in Florham Park.
The affiliate manages 22,000 apartment units and three million square feet of commercial property in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts and Florida.
The list of Kushner's development firms includes numerous limited liability companies (notorious for hiding stuff) with names that cannot be readily identified with a project or location, like Holiday Associates, Township Associates and St Luke's Associates.
Along with the development companies, Kushner's holdings include nine investment companies, four management firms, three brokerage companies, two insurance companies, a laundry, a caterer and a legal firm that processes reimbursements, the disclosure form shows. Kushner owns interests in 216 real estate firms according to his disclosure form. The Charles and Seryl Kushner Charitable Foundation, bearing the names of the developer and his wife, is also listed.
Please be good enough to post that link here, if you would. Would make interesting reading.
I'll see what I can do. I probably won't make a decision to leave town until after supper even though the office is closing within the hour.
And yet he is only getting a year and a half in jail.
Are we really cleaning house with this WOT? Or is it just a horse and pony show?
Excerpts from this PDF File Link:
http://www.ecpatusa.org/pdf/trafficking_report_final.pdf
International Trafficking of Children to New York City for Sexual Purposes
Trafficking of human beings is not a new phenomenon. Human trafficking, mostly of women and children, is a growing $7 billion global business and reportedly the third most profitable illegal enterprise after the sale of guns and drugs. The U.S. Department of State estimates that at least 700,000 persons around the world fall victim to traffickers every year.5Because of its clandestine nature, documentation of the numbers of victims does not stand up to statistical scrutiny, but enough anecdotal evidence exists to confirm that human trafficking is a major issue of our time. It not only involves illegal criminal activity including fraud and money laundering, but from a human rights perspective, it involves coercion, deception and violence leveled against the victims. Those most at-risk for trafficking are most often vulnerable people such as those in poor countries, people living in war zones, single mothers, young women under age 25, and children, especially orphans and homeless youth
In New Jersey, part of the New York metropolitan area, there is a high density of sex establishments located in Newark, Jersey City, East Brunswick, Red Bank and Rockaway Township. New Jersey reportedly has the highest number of strip clubs of any state, totaling over 200, some of which operate as fronts for prostitution.23According to Walter Zalisko, a Jersey City police supervisor and expert on trafficking and Russian organized crime, over thirty five hundred women and girls are working as sex slaves or as indentured servants in the metropolitan area. Having interviewed as many as 300 victims, Zalisko found that almost three quarters claim they came here to work other jobs, but were forced to become strippers and prostitutes instead.24New York City is also an epicenter for the fraud and organized crime that accompanies human trafficking and is among the top three cities in the country with the greatest amount of visa fraud. In the U.S., Russian organized crime is concentrated in New York City and New Jersey
ping
ping
Multiple criminal investigaitons have begun centering on the way in Kushner, McG's top campaign financier, readily gave millions to assist McGreevey, and other prominent politicians in the region. Kushner gave $1.5 M to the DNC and more money to the Clintons and Torricelli.
In June 2004, Kushner settled separate Federal Elections Commission civil charges accusing him and his businesses’ top executives of giving out more than $500,000 in campaign contributions in the names of various Kushner real-estate partners without their knowledge or consent.
In a related case, Kushner agreed to pay a $230,000 civil penalty to end the investigation by the New Jersey state Division of Criminal Justice into campaign contributions he made beginning in 1996, when he and a family trust he controls assumed majority ownership of Livingston-based Norcrown Bank.
Under a decades-old New Jersey law, bank owners are prohibited from contributing money or anything of value to assist a political candidate or political party for state or local office. State prosecutors concluded Kushner gave $230,000 to various candidates for state and local office and political organizations that support them between June 18, 1996, and Jan. 20, 2004, the date the settlement was reached.
The state settlement pertains only to those Kushner contributions that violated the bank-ownership ban; it did not have any bearing on contributions that could have run afoul of state partnership-attribution rules. "Nothing in this agreement releases Charles Kushner from any liability arising under any other New Jersey statute," the settlement reads.
In June 2004, Kushner settled separate Federal Elections Commission civil charges accusing him and his top executives of giving out more than $500,000 in campaign contributions in the names of various Kushner real-estate partners without their knowledge or consent. Kushner said he was unaware of the state law barring his giving and added that he made his campaign contributions based on the advice of his lawyers.
Duh. Yeah sure, Charlie.
Child porn is the last bastion of societal sanctions in our amoral world, and in the seedy, anything-goes world of adult porn.
As a result, child porn commands premium prices, and is very much in demand by these sick individuals.
Human trafficking victims to get help Myers raises the cry against slavery
Slavery behind closed doors Prostitution cases are new twist in Maine
Grant helps fight sex trafficking Chris Smith
bump!
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