|
Saturday, May 31, 2003 |
|
Photo by: AP  James W. Treffinger standing silently behind his lawyers Friday at a news conference after his guilty plea. |
The once-promising political career of James W. Treffinger bottomed out Friday when the former Essex County executive pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges that probably will land him in prison for about a year.
The latest in a string of New Jersey politicians toppled by federal investigations, the Verona Republican admitted covering up county contracts he gave to a construction company in exchange for contributions to his two failed U.S. Senate campaigns.
During an hour-long hearing in U.S. District Court in Newark, Treffinger said he ordered the creation of phony, back-dated documents to make the contracts appear legitimate. He also admitted telling county employees to lie to federal investigators.
Treffinger also admitted paying two campaign workers with taxpayer funds and issuing them perfect attendance awards - to get them a raise out of the county budget - even though the two rarely, if ever, showed up for work.
The 53-year-old former Fulbright scholar joins a long list of Garden State politicians recently undone by corruption. His admissions also continue a bad run for Essex County, which saw his predecessor in the county executive's office, Thomas D'Alessio, convicted of federal corruption charges as well.
"We do have a significant corruption problem here in New Jersey,'' U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announced at a packed news conference Friday in Newark. "We are sending a clear message here today, a message to the public officials in this state, that if you choose to violate your oath of office, if you violate the trust of your constituents, we will be there. We will catch you and make sure you are punished swiftly and severely.''
Treffinger pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice. His plea bargain calls for a sentence of 10 to 16 months in prison and $29,471 in restitution, which equals the amount of county funds paid to the campaign workers. Chief U.S. District Judge John Bissell accepted the deal and scheduled Treffinger's sentencing for Sept. 10.
Treffinger, who remained free on $100,000 bail, looked shaken after admitting the crimes, clenching his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. Outside the courthouse, flanked by his two attorneys, he declined to answer questions from a swarm of reporters.
"Mr. Treffinger is a person of outstanding ability and character, who has made his share of mistakes,'' said defense attorney Henry Klingeman. "Although we were prepared to contest the government's case vigorously, this is the correct result for Mr. Treffinger and his family.''
A graduate of Rutgers Law School, Treffinger began his political career in 1980 on the Verona Township Council before being elected to the Essex County Board of Freeholders in 1992. Two years later, he surprisingly won the county executive seat in one of the state's most Democratic counties.
Treffinger ran an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in 2000 and was gearing up for another run in 2002 when the FBI raided his home and office. He was arrested in October 2002 and later indicted on 20 counts.
The investigation, which benefited from conversations secretly taped by several of Treffinger's top advisers, focused largely on a contract he gave to United Gunite Construction, an Irvington company that also was central to a federal investigation that led to a guilty plea by former Paterson Mayor Marty Barnes.
Treffinger admitted knowing that Gunite planned to contribute $10,000 to his campaign in exchange for a contract. He also admitted handing over doctored documents to a grand jury to make the contract appear legitimate.
As federal investigators closed in, Treffinger told an aide he would clear up everything by becoming the U.S. attorney, according to the indictment. He went so far as to apply for the post and get political allies to recommend him to the president, Christie said.
The aide, Michael DeMiro, who by then was cooperating with federal officials, recorded Treffinger saying that others, including himself, would be off limits to law enforcement if he became the U.S. attorney.
"[There are] plenty of mobsters to go after,'' Treffinger was recorded as saying. "You don't have to go after all these poor politicians plying their trade.''
Treffinger had maintained his innocence. But last week, Bissell ruled that the secretly taped conversations would be allowed as evidence.
DeMiro pleaded guilty on Wednesday, admitting that at Treffinger's request in May 2000, he helped the county engineer create the false documents to justify the Gunite contract.
The county engineer, Rajashekar Ravilla, pleaded guilty Thursday to a fraud charge, admitting that Treffinger told him to give hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of emergency contracts to Gunite in return for campaign donations.
In addition, Cosmo Cerrigone, who ran a hair salon in Cedar Grove, pleaded guilty Wednesday to an embezzlement charge, admitting that Treffinger had him appointed to the no-show job of hairdresser for the county hospital in Cedar Grove - which paid $14,000 to $17,000 a year from 1995 to 2002 - in return for political support.
"The corruption we are seeing here undermines the principles of a democratic government,'' FBI Special Agent in Charge Louie Allen said at the U.S. attorney's news conference Friday. "People have no faith in government officials when they commit the kind of offenses they do.''
Peter Pochna's e-mail address is pochna@northjersey.com
A garden (state) of corruption
Former Essex County Executive James Treffinger is the latest public servant from New Jersey to leave office tainted by corruption. Among the others:
Marty G. Barnes, R, former Paterson mayor: Admitted in July that he took $200,000 in cash and gifts in exchange for no-bid contracts. Is about to begin a 37-month federal prison term.
Joseph Ciccone, D, former Bergen County sheriff: Serving five years on probation after pleading guilty in state court in January 2001 to using a variety of schemes - including forcing his officers to sell "special deputy" badges - to raise money illegally for his reelection campaign.
Nicola DiDonna, R, former Passaic County administrator: Sentenced in November 2001 to four months in federal prison after admitting his participation in a pair of schemes that made him and a group of cronies thousands of dollars each. DiDonna agreed to help federal authorities investigate corruption in the county.
Robert C. Janiszewski, D, former Hudson County executive: Pleaded guilty in October to taking more than $100,000 in bribes. Now is naming names for federal prosecutors.
Milton Milan, D, former Camden mayor: Serving a seven-year prison sentence following his December 2000 conviction for taking payoffs from the mob, laundering drug money, and stealing campaign funds. He was the third Camden mayor in recent years to be indicted.
New Jersey briefs
| Thursday, May 29, 2003 |
Three associates of former Essex County Executive James W. Treffinger pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday in Newark and agreed to testify against him in his upcoming corruption trial, officials said.
Treffinger aide Michael DeMiro pleaded guilty to conspiracy; Matthew J. Kirnan, a lawyer, admitted to tax fraud; and Cosmo Cerrigone, who ran a hair salon in Cedar Grove, pleaded guilty to embezzlement, authorities said.
Treffinger, a Republican, is scheduled to be tried Tuesday on a 20-count indictment. He is accused of abusing his office to raise campaign funds for his U.S. Senate races, including extorting $15,000 from United Gunite Construction Co., an Irvington company involved in other corruption cases.
DeMiro admitted that at Treffinger's request in May 2000 he helped the county engineer create false documents in an effort to justify an emergency no-bid contract to Gunite.
Kirnan, the lawyer, admitted he filed a 1999 joint federal tax return that omitted income from his practice. Cerrigone admitted that in return for political support, Treffinger had him appointed to the no-show job of hairdresser for the county hospital in Cedar Grove, which paid $14,000 to $17,000 a year from 1995 to 2002. He was the Republican Congressional Candidate for the 8th District in 1998
DeMiro, 57, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kirnan, 43, faces up to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine. Cerrigone, 56, faces up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
Treffinger witnesses admit guilt
Plea deals outline corruption in Essex
Thursday, May 29, 2003
BY JOHN P. MARTIN
Star-Ledger Staff
Two aides and a supporter of former Essex County Executive James Treffinger pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges and pledged to testify against him when Treffinger's corruption trial opens next week.
The pleas were not a surprise, but marked the first time any government witness publicly admitted complicity in the case. The proceedings offered a glimpse of the investigation that took three years to build and could unfold in a Newark courtroom throughout the summer.
Michael DeMiro, an attorney and longtime Treffinger confidant who served as special counsel to the county executive, pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct the FBI probe.
Verona lawyer Matthew Kirnan, who managed Treffinger's 2000 Republican U.S. Senate bid and acted as campaign treasurer last year, admitted to evading taxes unrelated to the case.
And Cosmo Cerrigone, a Cedar Grove barber and Treffinger supporter, pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $30,000 in public money by accepting a part-time county paycheck for a job he never worked.
A fourth witness, former county engineer Rajashekar Ravilla, also is expected to enter a plea before jury selection begins Tuesday. That plea could come as early as today.
Prosecutors hope the witnesses, along with a handful of tape recordings and documents, will portray Treffinger as a politician who rewarded friends, campaign workers and contractors with county contracts, paychecks and no-show jobs.
Treffinger, who left office after two terms in January, has pleaded not guilty to 20 counts of fraud, extortion and obstruction. He has vowed to prove his innocence.
Neither he nor his defense attorneys attended yesterday's hearings before Chief U.S. District Judge John Bissell in Newark. One of the attorneys, Henry Klingeman, was contacted later but declined to comment.
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Carbone, DeMiro, 57, said he attended a May 2000 meeting of Treffinger and his close advisers at a vacant, county-owned building in Cedar Grove.
At the meeting, Treffinger spoke of an impending federal probe into United Gunite Corp., a sewer-repair firm that had won $50 million in municipal contracts, including $145,000 in no-bid work in Essex County that year, according to court records.
Kirnan and Ravilla also were present at the meeting, as was Irene Almeida, a county employee who had been Treffinger's chief campaign fund-raiser but who has not been charged in the case, DeMiro said. He said Treffinger coached Ravilla on how to evade questions from prosecutors about contributions from Jerry Free, a United Gunite salesman.
At the time, Ravilla already was cooperating with the FBI and wearing a hidden microphone. According to transcripts of the tapes included in court filings, Treffinger outlined the possible case against him:
"If I were a prosecutor, I would say, uh, it was pay to play. He (Free) gives a thousand dollar personal check to Jim Treffinger's campaign at a meeting in his office," Treffinger said, referring to himself in the third person. "Uh, a week later, there's an emergency invented, um, approved by Treffinger, whereby -- um, this is an argument -- whereby, he was able to bypass the bidding laws, giving (United Gunite) an $83,000 contract subsequently or roughly at the same time another $9,000 in checks from his employees -- which he probably coerced and most likely bundled, which is also a violation -- then came in ..."
DeMiro also said yesterday that Treffinger instructed him and the engineer to create phony county documents to suggest the contracts were awarded without Treffinger's knowledge.
"And did you do so?" Carbone asked DeMiro.
"Yes, I did," he replied.
Cerrigone, 56, was Treffinger's barber and had supported his first campaign for county executive.
Cerrigone admitted that in 1995, Treffinger placed him on the county payroll as a "reward" for his support. For the next seven years, Cerrigone received between $14,000 and $17,000 a year to cut hair at the county psychiatric hospital in Cedar Grove, but admitted he did not perform the work.
"Mr. Cerrigone, do you know that receiving the money was wrong?" the prosecutor asked.
"Yes, sir," he replied.
Kirnan, 43, a former Verona mayor and congressional candidate, admitted to evading taxes on at least $30,000 that he wrongly claimed as expenses related to his law practice.
The charge was unrelated to the Treffinger investigation, but Kirnan's plea agreement requires him to testify if prosecutors ask him. Like DeMiro and Ravilla, Kirnan also wore a wire and recorded talks with Treffinger. In all, prosecutors amassed 46 secret tape recordings of Treffinger over the two-year period, court records show.
Though the charges carry maximum terms of five and 10 years, the three who pleaded yesterday face only up to one year in prison under federal guidelines when Bissell sentences them in September. But prosecutors have agreed to recommend leniency, and a probationary term is more likely.
"That's our hope," said Anthony Pope, the attorney for Cerrigone.
It was unclear if Kirnan and DeMiro planned to continue their law practices. Paul Brickfield, an attorney for Kirnan, said his client planned to notify state bar officials of the plea, but that he hoped to retain his law practice. DeMiro's attorney, Patrick Mullin, declined to comment.
U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie sat in the courtroom during the plea hearings for Cerrigone and Kirnan, but did not comment. He said afterward that "at least one more" plea was pending, but would not identify the defendant.
John P. Martin covers federal courts and law enforcement. He can be reached at jmartin@starledger.com or (973) 622-3405.
Another aide turns against Treffinger
Engineer will testify on Essex corruption
Friday, May 30, 2003
BY JOHN P. MARTIN
Star-Ledger Staff
Essex County's former engineer said yesterday that Executive James Treffinger told him to give hundreds of thousand of dollars in emergency contracts to a sewer-repair firm in return for donations to Treffinger's U.S. Senate campaign.
Rajashekar Ravilla, 40, pleaded guilty yesterday to a single count of mail fraud before Chief U.S. District Judge John Bissell in Newark. In doing so, he became the fourth Treffinger aide or supporter in two days to sign a cooperating plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Last night, the office of U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announced that another hearing would be held at 11 a.m. today before Bissell. The U.S. Attorney's Office described the event as "major development" in the corruption probe, but would not elaborate. Prosecutors and Treffinger's defense attorneys have refused to acknowledge any possible plea discussions.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in Treffinger's trial on fraud, obstruction and extortion charges, and the case could last throughout the summer. Prosecutors contend he extorted campaign contributions in return for county contracts and that he rewarded friends and county workers with ghost jobs on the county payroll.
The two-term county executive, who left office in January, has denied all charges and pledged to be proved innocent.
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Carbone, Ravilla admitted recommending three no-bid repair contracts for United Gunite Corp. between late 1999 and April 2000, when he was the county engineer. The Irvington-based firm won $50 million in municipal contracts throughout New Jersey during the 1990s, according to court records.
"Did you condition the award of county contracts to United Gunite upon the payment by United Gunite of contributions to the Treffinger for Senate campaign?" Carbone asked.
"Yes, I did," Ravilla replied.
"And did you do so at the direction of James W. Treffinger?"
"Yes, I did."
Ravilla acknowledged committing the crime when he mailed the firm a county check for $141,000 in March 2000 as part of the contract-for-contributions scheme. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, but Ravilla is likely to face no more than 18 months under federal sentencing guidelines, and could receive far less based on his cooperation.
He was the first of three Treffinger aides who, when confronted by FBI agents, agreed to become a government witness and tape record conversations with Treffinger. Among the first was a May 10, 2000, meeting with Treffinger and other aides at a secluded county-owned building during which Treffinger allegedly coached Ravilla on how to create phony county records and evade questions from prosecutors.
The other cooperating witnesses disclosed their plea agreements on Wednesday. Michael DeMiro, a former special counsel to Treffinger, admitted to conspiring to obstruct the FBI probe, while Matthew Kirnan, Treffinger's former campaign manager and treasurer, pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of tax evasion.
A third witness, Cosmo Cerrigone, a Cedar Grove barber and Treffinger friend, said he embezzled more than $30,000 in county funds by accepting a "no-show" job as political reward from Treffinger.
Like Ravilla, each agreed to testify against Treffinger, a move designed to spare them a prison term.
The case is also expected to include testimony from Jerry Free, the former United Gunite salesman who has admitted bribing public officials in Paterson, Camden and other municipalities. Prosecutors say Free arranged $10,000 in campaign contributions for Treffinger in return for no-bid contracts with the county.
Bissell ordered Ravilla to return for sentencing on Sept. 11. Ravilla left county government shortly after his cooperation became public. His attorney, Joseph Burns, said Ravilla is working for a New York-based firm and travels extensively throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region.
John P. Martin covers federal courts and law enforcement. He can be reached at jmartin@starledger.com or (973) 622-3405.
Janiszewski lists payers of bribes at trial of Colon
|
Saturday, May 31, 2003 |
NEWARK - Former Hudson County Executive Robert C. Janiszewski on Friday said waterfront developer Joseph Barry and political consultant Paul Byrne were among seven people who paid him tens of thousands of dollars in bribes for favors.
The revelation came during questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey D. Clark on the second day of testimony in the corruption trial of longtime Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Davila Colon.
Colon is facing charges of mail fraud and aiding and abetting extortion for allegedly delivering two $5,000 cash payments to Janiszewski from her former boyfriend, psychiatrist Oscar Sandoval, in 1999.
In return for the payments, Janiszewski said, Sandoval's contracts to provide psychiatric services to the county jail and hospital were renewed and expanded.
Janiszewski, the once-powerful Democrat who served six years in the Assembly and 16 as Hudson's top elected official, pleaded guilty in October to receiving $20,000 in bribes from Sandoval.
As part of a deal, he said, he agreed to work with the FBI and secretly recorded conversations with associates in the hope that his cooperation will win him a more lenient sentence.
Detailing a litany of "other illegal acts," Janiszewski disclosed that he accepted cash payments "directly" from Barry, president of the Applied Companies, a major developer of housing in Hoboken, Jersey City, and North Bergen.
Janiszewski also said that on two occasions before his cooperation, Byrne - his boyhood friend and confidant - acted as an intermediary for payments of $30,000 and $20,000 from Barry in connection with his developments.
Janiszewski described the payments as "essentially a kickback" for approval of low-interest loans and grants and said the agreement called for an "ultimate amount of $305,000" to be split between him and Byrne. He also referred to the payments as "bribes."
Barry, whose Hoboken offices were raided by the FBI last year, has denied any wrongdoing. Neither he nor his attorney could be reached for comment Friday.
Byrne had only one comment on the testimony: "This is the political equivalent of John Gotti ratting out his bookies."
Janiszewski said he also accepted periodic cash payments of $2,000 to $3,000 from Byrne, bond underwriter John "Jay" Booth, and three accountants who had county contracts.
Janiszewski said Byrne "fashioned himself as a government consultant" who helped clients obtain county contracts and grants and access to Janiszewski.
Janiszewski testified that Booth paid him a total of $9,000 over the years in connection with bond underwriting deals, including the financing of construction of the county jail.
He said Booth acted once as an intermediary for an engineering firm. Booth could not be reached for comment Friday.
Prosecutors, who sought to keep the vendors' names secret but were overruled by the judge on Thursday, declined to answer any questions about their status. On Thursday, they said some were cooperating and others might never be charged.
Janiszewski detailed the payoffs he received from Sandoval, who began cooperating with the FBI in June 1999 and helped snare Janiszewski.
Accustomed to receiving campaign checks from Sandoval, Janiszewski said he was surprised when he met Colon at her political club in 1996 and she handed him an envelope with $10,000 cash. She told him the money was from Sandoval and that he could do whatever he wanted with it, he testified.
Although it wasn't his first bribe, Janiszewski said, the transaction was "burned into my memory" because it was the first time he had accepted cash from another elected official. It also meant Colon knew he was on the take, he said.
Sandoval once tried to give him an envelope in his county office, but fearful of being "exposed," Janiszewski said, he encouraged the doctor to take it back by writing a note on a pad saying something like "wrong time, wrong place, not now."
Janiszewski said he avoided Sandoval for more than a year after that until Colon told him that the doctor wanted to get back in his good graces.
"She asked me if she could be the liaison between Dr. Sandoval and I," he said, and believing that "Sandoval would not intentionally hurt Ms. Colon," he agreed.
Shortly after that, he said, Colon passed him envelopes with $5,000 from Sandoval in September and October of 1999, first in the hallway outside his office in the old county courthouse and then at a political event.
The trial was recessed until Tuesday, when Janiszewski is to resume his testimony.
Peter Sampson's e-mail address is sampson@northjersey.com
Janiszewski testimony leads corruption trial
Friday, May 30, 2003
BY JOHN P. MARTIN AND WILLIAM KLEINKNECHT
Star-Ledger Staff
Robert Janiszewski, the once-powerful Hudson County executive who was snared in a corruption sting, debuted as a government witness yesterday -- and a defense attorney promised to make his appearance neither brief nor easy.
Janiszewski, a Democrat, was the first witness called in the corruption trial of longtime Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon. She faces charges of mail fraud and aiding extortion for allegedly funneling $10,000 in cash payments to the county executive from Oscar Sandoval, a psychiatrist who won more than $2 million in county contracts.
 |
Janiszewski's testimony -- and, more important, his scrutiny under cross-examination -- has been hotly anticipated since he emerged from a year in seclusion last fall and pleaded guilty to bribery charges.
He spent less than an hour on the witness stand yesterday before U.S. District Judge William Bassler recessed the trial for the day. Most of that time was spent answering background questions from one of the prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Clark.
Janiszewski spoke clearly and in detail about his guilty plea. He acknowledged that he hopes his cooperation will persuade prosecutors to recommend leniency when he is sentenced.
At one point, Clark asked Janiszewski if he had failed in his duty to serve the people of Hudson County.
"I did fail to meet that duty," he said in a courtroom packed with prosecutors, FBI agents, members of the media, Colon supporters and others from Hudson County. "On a number of occasions, I accepted bribe money in return for assisting various individuals to garner (government) contracts."
Colon's defense attorney was more pointed. In his opening statement minutes earlier, Peter Willis made it clear that Colon's defense hinged in part on discrediting the fallen county executive.
"He is from his soul a liar, dishonest and corrupt," Willis told the jury. "Just because he got married to the government for this trial doesn't change that."
Willis told the jury that Colon's trial will expose how business was done in Hudson County -- that no one got county business without paying off Janiszewski and his party.
"It went on for year after year after year. It went on from the late 1980s and all of the 1990s. And guess what? Mr. County Executive wanted to be governor of the state of New Jersey -- until he got caught," Willis said.
"It is impossible to determine the amount of money that went into his pockets," he said. "I am talking cash. He doesn't even know. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from contractors and businessmen and builders and developers and doctors and lawyers. Everybody had a price."
The case could include new disclosures about one of the state's longest-simmering corruption investigations.
Last week, Willis revealed in court that FBI agents had for nearly a year tapped the phones of Paul Byrne, one of Janiszewksi's closest confidants and a consultant who regularly talked with some of the state's most notable politicians.
During his four terms as county executive, Janiszewski became one of those king-makers. But after FBI agents videotaped him accepting a cash bribe in an Atlantic City hotel in 2000, he spent a year cooperating with investigators and secretly recording his conversations with an untold number of public officials and contractors.
Willis argued that Colon was a pawn between Janiszewski and Sandoval, who also became a government witness. He said Colon had been a patient of Sandoval's, later fell in love with him and believed he would leave his wife and marry her.
"The good doctor never got the divorce he promised Nidia Colon," Willis said. "He betrayed her, and he set her up to be a conduit to make bribes to the county executive."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Kwon, in his opening statement, agreed that the trial would highlight the practices in Hudson County. But Kwon said Colon was a knowing participant.
In September 1999, he said, Colon delivered an envelope with $5,000 to Janiszewski during a political function. Kwon said Colon also delivered a message: "This is from Oscar; more is on the way."
Another $5,000 payment followed weeks later, Kwon said. In between, the county renewed contracts it had with Sandoval to provide services at the county correctional center and a county-run psychiatric facility.
Janiszewski will resume his direct testimony when Bassler reconvenes the case this morning, and could face cross-examination from Willis as soon as today. The trial is expected to last about two weeks, but Janiszewski could be on the witness stand again in the near future.
Another Hudson freeholder, William Braker, is slated for trial this summer on charges that he took bribes from a county vendor. That case stems from the same investigation.
Hudson corruption trial: So much money, where to hide it all?
Saturday, May 31, 2003
BY ANA M. ALAYA
Star-Ledger Staff
Former Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski testified yesterday that envelopes bulging with cash bribes flowed to him at such a routine pace that he had trouble hiding it all.
In his second day on the stand, Janiszewski, a once-powerful Democratic Party boss, described how he began stuffing the envelopes in his desk at work or a file at home.
|
"That file cabinet got rather thick over time," he said in a deep, calm voice.
The bribes came from vendors, associates and consultants who handed him cash-filled envelopes so openly that he eventually worried he could be caught, he said.
In one case, he described how he accepted a $5,000 cash bribe from Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon behind a pillar in the Hudson County Courthouse rotunda, and worried that the bulging envelope would be noticeable when he gave a speech for the hundred or so guests gathered for an event there.
"I was concerned that it would be observed," Janiszewski said. "So I put it in my hip pocket."
Janiszewski was the first witness called in the corruption trial of Davila-Colon, who faces charges of mail fraud and aiding extortion for allegedly funneling $10,000 in cash payments to the county executive from Oscar Sandoval, a psychiatrist who won more than $2 million in county contracts.
The former assemblyman and four-term county executive's testimony before U.S. District Judge William Bassler in Newark came on the second day of the first political corruption trial to result from Janiszewski's undercover work for the FBI. He pleaded guilty to bribery charges last fall.
In his testimony, under direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Clark, Janiszewski detailed how he received bribes from Colon, Sandoval and six other associates or county vendors in the 1980s and 1990s.
He talked about the increasing anxiety he felt as the so-called bribers became more brazen.
In one instance, he said, Sandoval himself attempted to give him a bulky envelope that appeared stuffed with cash in his Jersey City courthouse office.
"Dr. Sandoval started talking about his contractual issues and reached into his pocket and placed the envelope on my desk," he said.
"It certainly wasn't appropriate for me to take cash, but that was not what was on my mind," Janiszewski said. "I thought it was not good to be taking cash from Sandoval directly. For Oscar to have direct knowledge that I was accepting the money would have increased my level of exposure."
Noting that he had two huge office windows and feared that he might be seen taking the envelope, Janiszewski said he jotted a message for Sandoval and held it up: "Wrong time. Wrong place. Not now."
"Oscar took the envelope back," he said.
Janiszewski said he preferred that Colon, who had a romantic relationship with the doctor, be a liaison for passing bribes. He testified that Colon delivered him two $5,000 payments from the doctor in 1999, a time during which Sandoval's contracts to provide services at the county correctional center and county-run psychiatric facility were renewed.
"Dr. Sandoval's inappropriate relations with me gave him entree others would not have," Janiszewski said.
During opening statements on Thursday, Colon's attorney, Peter Willis, one of Hudson County's most noted criminal defense layers, said his client was an unwitting participant in the bribery schemes, a pawn between the former executive and Sandoval.
Willis also promised that the trial would expose patterns of corruption and the players in Hudson County politics, some of whom Janiszewski identified yesterday.
A bulk of Janiszewski's testimony focused on his longtime aide and friend, Paul Byrne, who he said funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to him from city contractors. Willis recently revealed in court that FBI agents had for nearly a year tapped the phones of Byrne, who regularly talked with some of the state's most notable politicians.
Janiszewski said Byrne gave him $2,000 a year in cash from Jerry Lisa, the county auditor, since 1994, to assure Lisa would get the contract renewed annually; a $3,000 to $5,000 cash bribe from Sandoval; and $8,000 to $10,000 from Joe Barry, a prominent developer of the Jersey City and Hoboken waterfronts.
He also said he accepted payments of $30,000 and $20,000 from Barry directly, before the executive began cooperating with federal investigators. He said Barry was seeking low-cost loans with the state in return for the bribe.
"The money was essentially kickbacks," Janiszewski said.
Janiszewski's testimony has been one of the more anxiously anticipated events in the New Jersey political world for many months. After FBI agents videotaped him accepting a cash bribe in an Atlantic City hotel in 2000, he spent a year cooperating with investigators and secretly recording his conversations with an untold number of public officials and contractors.
He also testified yesterday that he received $9,000 in cash bribes from Jay Booth, a bond underwriter seeking a contract in 1991 when the county planned to build a new correctional facility, adding that some of that money was funneled through an engineer seeking a contract.
And from 1995 to 2000, he said Charles Falon, an accountant who had a contract with the Hudson County Improvement Authority, gave him a $5,000 bribe in addition to $2,000 annually that Falon would leave in an envelope when he did Janiszewski's taxes, gratis.
He also took a $5,000 bribe from the county's former auditor, Sam Klein, in 1989.
But of all the bribes he said he took, he seemed to be most concerned about those that were delivered where the crime could be detected.
In another instance he said Colon gave him an envelope with $5,000 in cash from Sandoval in a hallway near the courthouse rotunda.
"I thought it was a pretty poor selection of location. I thought it was quite risky," he said, "to be passing an envelope where there was a chance of being seen."
Janiszewski will resume his direct testimony when Bassler reconvenes the case on Tuesday, and could face cross-examination then. The trial is expected to last about two weeks.