http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/braun/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1040022654134980.xml
'Invisible man' braves last days in office
Monday, December 16, 2002
The smiles, the hugs, the stares from men and women eager to know you, to get your attention, their hands lingering in your grasp as they whisper compliments and ask favors.
Gone.
"It's amazing how many people have forgotten they were ever involved with me at all," says the man who, while looking older than his official pictures, still seems boyish at 52. "For someone who sought the approval of others all his life, that's difficult to take. I guess it's true -- if you want a good friend, get a dog."
Jim Treffinger. Once, the hope of the Republican Party in New Jersey. Now, the lamest of lame ducks.
"A lame duck who is also seriously wounded," says Treffinger. For a few more days, until Jan. 1, the Essex County executive.
But those days are short, with not much to do but prepare a transition report for his successor. There is no longer anywhere to go but home after 5 p.m. A few farewell dinners for people he hired, but he's not invited to all of them. He doesn't work weekends anymore; he always worked weekends.
"Now I know what a ghost feels like. You're invisible and you have no impact on the material world."
He is in his office on the fourth floor of the Hall of Records in Newark. A few storage boxes have begun to gather in his office, waiting to be filled. A few plaques and pictures have come down from the walls.
"You accumulate a lot in eight years," he says.
Outside his office, the marble hallways are oddly quiet and empty at mid-day.
"Hear that?" Treffinger quips -- there is no sound. "The splashes? That's the sound of friends jumping ship."
Treffinger was arrested Oct. 28 on a federal indictment charging him with 20 counts of extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice.
He was taken by federal agents outside his Verona home. Frisked and shackled in full view of a news photographer.
"Hey, my older daughter's a reporter," he says. "I understand." Sarah Treffinger, 25, once an intern with The Star-Ledger, now works for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.
If Treffinger has forgiven this newspaper for picturing him in handcuffs on its front page, he has not forgiven Christopher Christie, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey who arranged the public arrest. They have a history together, as do all politicians in this small state.
"But, of course, I can't say anything," he says. "That wouldn't help me."
A lot of topics are like this. Can't go there because his lawyers will cringe. He mentions other prominent New Jersey politicians who have escaped indictment and symbolically bites his hand, a sign of frustration because he cannot speak openly.
"But it does make you wonder, doesn't it?"
Treffinger is not bombastic. Not angry. Not apologetic. But, embarrassed -- yes.
"After Jan. 2, I'm unemployed," he says. "I'm looking for a job. I'd be fibbing if I said it was easy getting people to consider you when you've been indicted."
He's a lawyer with a background in business. A Fulbright Scholar. Until the FBI raided his office last April, he was the leading candidate for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.
Now, he says, he doesn't own very much at all. House, mortgaged. Cars, rentals.
"Broke," he says, and facing anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million in legal bills.
Embarrassed, too, because so much for which he wished to be remembered now seems like a bad joke because of the indictment.
"I know it sounds odd now under the circumstances but I wanted to be remembered for restoring public confidence to the county executive's office," says Treffinger.
This meeting gives him the chance to recite his record. A hawk on taxes. A bull on business. Property values and population up. A good eight years for Essex. A good record, he says, for taking into the Senate race against -- it was supposed to have been Bob Torricelli.
"Yeah, Torricelli," he says. "Look what happened." Again, the bite of the hand. So much he wants to say, so much he can't.
Treffinger says things will get better. "After I'm exonerated," he says, "people will remember all I was able to accomplish. The good things."
So, now, Treffinger stays home a lot. Reads. Not reports on government. Not political tracts. Not even the biographies of great men that were the grist for his ambitions.
"Philosophy. Theology. Some novels, too. Been a long time since I read novels."
Reads a lot because it's so hard to sleep.
"I could always do with only a little sleep. Now I sleep a lot less -- but I have a lot less to do."
Hard to get out of his head what happened a few weeks ago. Getting pushed against a car. Wrists yanked together, cold metal pinching at them. Strange faces. New people he doesn't want to meet shouting at him, reciting his legal rights. The neighbors peering out from behind their doors. His wife, Janet, and younger daughter, Katie, 21, looking out the windows.
Later, off comes the tie, the shoe laces, the belt, even the suit jacket. Then, the mug shot, fingerprints, led into court in leg irons. More faces staring at him.
Not the usual way he met new people.
"Not what I expected when I was growing up."
Bob Braun's columns appear Mondays and Wednesdays. He can be reached at
rjbraun@webspan.net or (973) 392-4281.
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Treffinger's hospital fiasco
Monday, December 16, 2002
Essex County's purchase of the old United Hospitals building in Newark has turned out to be a money machine for everybody involved except, of course, for the taxpayers. The latest to score big are a pack of thieves who systematically stripped the entire copper electrical system from the county's part of the complex.
From the $6.5 million purchase price for the eight-story white elephant, to a series of actions that could jeopardize compensation for the theft, the lame-duck administration of County Executive James Treffinger has victimized the taxpayers quite as thoroughly as any band of metal-strippers.
Consider this set of facts: Sometime prior to July, someone removed almost all the copper wiring, transformers, conduits and electrical fittings from the building, roof to basement. It was a neat, professional job on a structure that is fenced and boarded, with only one gated entry point that is supposed to be guarded 24 hours a day.
And nobody saw a thing.
It is a mystery that demands answers, including why the robbers only attacked the part of the complex that the county owns.
The rest belongs to a group of doctors that paid $700,000 to buy the complex, after United Hospitals went bankrupt five years ago. Within months, the group had sold one portion of the grounds to the county for a whopping $6.5 million. A tidy return.
Treffinger insisted he got a bargain that would make a dandy replacement for the county psychiatric hospital in Cedar Grove. But by the time the copper theft was reported to his administration in July, Treffinger was already fending off criticism about the usefulness of the place and the need for $46 million or more in renovations.
It was a difficult time to bring up more bad news. So, even as county police began to investigate the crime, Treffinger continued to defend his mental-hospital plan without telling the Board of Freeholders or the taxpayers something they had a right to know: someone had sucked out the electrical system. It will take $1 million to $2 million -- minimum -- to replace it. That news was only revealed after the incoming administration toured the building and discovered what had happened.
In the meantime, the county is paying the doctors $126,000 in yearly fees, which includes the price of that see-no-evil security force. However, the doctors did not use a bonded agency, something the Treffinger administration should have made certain of, so it could easily recover for the taxpayers if something went wrong.
The county insured the place. But The Star-Ledger has learned the county has only recently reported the theft to the insurance firm. County Executive-elect Joseph DiVincenzo is justifiably concerned that Treffinger's tardiness could affect the county's ability to recover.
The county executive is supposed to look out for the taxpayers. Essex County residents deserve better than they got from their elected official, even one as distracted as Treffinger, who for months has been the subject of a federal investigation that recently culminated in his indictment on charges of extortion, fraud and obstruction.
His handling of United Hospitals, another blot on his record, is at best an inexcusable, blundering violation of the public trust.
Treffinger's term, thankfully, is coming to an end. The investigation of this thievery means he and his brain trust must provide answers and explanations. It is hard to imagine them coming up with good ones.
http://www.politicsnj.com/kornacki041003_treffinger.htm Fundraiser nets reported $30K for Treffinger legal defense
By STEVE KORNACKI
PoliticsNJ.com
SOUTH ORANGE, April 10 - Nearly one year to the day after FBI agents raided his Newark office, former Essex County Executive James W. Treffinger held a fundraiser tonight to help defray the costs of his legal defense.
Treffinger, who was arrested by federal agents last October outside his Verona home, is awaiting trial on a 20-count indictment that alleges he used his position as county executive to secure illegal campaign contributions from a contractor, United Gunite, which was then awarded lucrative contracts.
Organized by former Essex County Sheriff John F. Cryan and his son, James, the fundraiser was held in a private room at the Cryan family's restaurant in South Orange. Charging a minimum of $100-a-head, Jim Cryan said the event raised about $30,000 for Treffinger's legal defense fund.
Unlike election funds, there is no public reporting requirement for contributions to legal defense funds, a point that was emphasized in a letter accompanying the event's invitations. The reception was closed to members of the media.
The fact that the Cryans, a Democratic family, organized the fundraiser for Republican Treffinger raised some eyebrows. But Jim Cryan said his family has a longstanding friendship with Treffinger dating back to before Treffinger was elected county executive in 1994.
"He's our friend, and we take care of our friends," Cryan said. "We know what it's like to be down in the dumps."
The Cryans have a long history in politics. In addition to serving as sheriff, John Cryan was also a state assemblyman from 1964 to 1968. Another son, Joseph Cryan, currently serves as an assemblyman from Union County and is also the vice-chairman of the Democratic State Committee, but he was not in attendance at the fundraiser, according to his brother.
The elder Cryan was indicted on corruption charges while serving as sheriff in 1979. He was ultimately cleared. Jim Cryan said that experience gives him hope that Treffinger's trial will result in a similar outcome.
"I'll be honest with you, I think he's innocent," Cryan said.
In addition to the charges that he extorted $15,000 in campaign contributions from United Gunite, the indictment alleges that Treffinger created no-show county jobs for campaign workers, and coached potential witnesses and created phony documents to cover his tracks.
It also implicates him in a scheme to mislead South Jersey voters during the 2002 GOP U.S. Senate primary by placing negative phone calls about a Treffinger opponent. The callers identified themselves as representatives of another Senate campaign, and not Treffinger's.
Treffinger unsuccessfully sought the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in 2000, but was the front-runner for the nod last year when federal agents raided the county's offices in Newark. He dropped out of the race four days later.
He served two terms as Essex County executive, finishing out the final months of his last term after his October arrest.
Treffinger has maintained his innocence, and speaking outside the reception tonight, said he was gratified by the support he received.
"I'm really overwhelmed by the people that showed up," he said. "Some of them are doing things that other people wouldn't do, showing their character."
Preparations for his pending trial have exhausted his personal finances, Treffinger said. The former county executive said he has cashed in his life insurance policy and taken out a second mortgage on his house to pay for his defense. He also noted that he never gave himself a raise during his eight-year term.
"It's been an ordeal, but I'm very optimistic, and so are my lawyers," Treffinger said.
Jim Cryan said Treffinger, a former Wall Street attorney, is supporting himself and his family now as a driver for a Catholic church in Verona.
Some of Treffinger's supporters have accused U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie -- who has made fighting public corruption his top priority -- of engaging in a vendetta against Treffinger.
According to the indictment, Treffinger told a friend in early 2001 that he hoped to become U.S. Attorney, and that if he secured the post, "this whole thing goes away." But the job went instead to Christie, a former Morris County Freeholder and leader of President Bush's New Jersey campaign.
Treffinger wouldn't discuss the case, or his view of the prosecution, but he did say that "there might be some truth" to the idea he has already been convicted in the court of public opinion.
"I think some of the newspaper accounts, aided by some unnamed leaks, might have created an atmosphere where there was some jeopardy to fairness," Treffinger said.
Jim Cryan said many of the attendees tonight were from the South Orange area, but that the fundraiser attracted a large number of Democrats.
Steve Kornacki can be reached at
kornackinj@aol.com