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They've bickered over whether she knew he was gay, whose tell-all book would sell better, whether a poster of a nude man hanging over his new lover's bed had to come down before she'd allow their 6-year-old to visit. Divorce has been exceptionally bitter for former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey. Unless they can resolve the custody and money issues that have arisen since their acrimonious parting, the state's estranged former first couple is heading for a May trial. Celebrity divorce lawyer Raoul Felder, whose list of clients includes exes of Mike Tyson and...

She knew. Despite claims to the contrary, Dina Matos McGreevey knew former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey was gay long before he announced it to the world....... "By 2002, just before Golan Cipel resigned, she knew," said a friend.... McGreevey says he had an affair with Cipel, whom he appointed as his homeland-security adviser in January 2002. In his memoir, McGreevey recounts how his wife - catching him on the phone with Cipel in the summer of 2002 - angrily asked, "Are you gay?" Cipel resigned August 2002. The couple began dating in 1997........ By 1999, those in McGreevey's inner circle...

Jim McGreevey yesterday shot back at his estranged wife - who claimed in bombshell divorce papers that the gay ex-gov lets their young daughter sleep overnight in bed with him and his boyfriend......she also accuses her soon-to-be-ex of displaying a "life-sized" photo of a male nude model in his bedroom.....featured in Blue, a gay men's magazine, Dina called the photograph "totally inappropriate" and "yet another example of [McGreevey's] poor judgment and deficient parenting skills." In court papers, Dina also: * Claimed that Jim took Jacqueline to an out-of-state media event without her knowledge, and "put his daughter's safety and welfare...

Since the case made waves on two continents over two years ago, Golan Cipel has been hiding from the media. The story of the relationship between the governor of New Jersey and the advisor from Israel was all over the American and Israeli papers, but until now Cipel has refused to be interviewed. With the publication of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey’s tell-all book The Confession, Cipel has decided to break his silence. Since the story died down, Cipel has attempted to lead a quiet life. “It took me a long time to find work,” he notes. “At first...

Here's my Confession: Last week, I actually wondered if I was being too hard on former Gov. Jim McGreevey, the lying, cheating, sleaze hawking a new book claiming he's a changed man. But then I spent the weekend reading an increasingly sickening war of words between McGreevey and his supposed former lover, Golan Cipel. Now, the most charitable thing to say about the disgraced leader is that he's lucky he wasn't investigated for attempted rape - and luckier today's much-hyped Oprah appearance is not live, but taped. Leave it to McGreevey to usher in a new low for sexual politics:...

In his highly anticipated memoir, former Gov. James E. McGreevey writes of his deep love for the man who ended his political career, the destruction of his second marriage and the events that forced him into his stunning admission on national television that he is gay. In "The Confession," the former governor also touches on New Jersey's sometimes seamy political landscape, where cash, cronyism and a handful of powerful men intersect. But the 384-page book focuses mostly on McGreevey's secret life, from his frequent sexual encounters with men at highway rest stops to his infatuation with Golan Cipel, the Israeli...

Charles Kushner, the Port Authority commissioner who is New Jersey Governor James McGreevey’s choice to be the agency’s next chairman, may soon find the dreaded appellation "embattled" attached to his name. Mr. Kushner is facing a whistle-blower lawsuit that could jeopardize his appointment to head the Port Authority—an appointment he doubtless helped to secure through generous contributions to New Jersey Democrats. He was the single largest donor to Mr. McGreevey’s campaign fund last year; to Hillary Clinton’s in 2000 and 2001; and to Senator Robert Torricelli’s in 1999 and 2001. Kushner companies collectively provided the largest bundle of contributions to...

WASHINGTON - Shortly after being elected New Jersey's governor, Democrat Jon Corzine speculated aloud that he might appoint a woman to fill out his unexpired Senate term. Then he singled out black state Sen. Nia Gill, calling her an "extraordinarily capable woman." Gill did not shy away from the hint. "I have the qualifications," she told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "If I am chosen by Jon, I am more than qualified to rise to the occasion." If Corzine does select Gill — a 57-year-old attorney — she would become only the sixth black, and second black woman ever to...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) _ Anyone other than the governor and members of the Legislature will be required to submit to a background check before being allowed access to confidential security information under a measure that moved through the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. The so-called "Golan Bill" is named for Golan Cipel, the Israeli national hired by former Gov. James E. McGreevey as a top security aide. Cipel, who was found to be ineligible for top security clearance because he was not a United States citizen, was later identified as the governor's lover after McGreevey resigned amid a gay-sex scandal. Republican...

NEW YORK (CBS) A routine traffic stop leads to the arrest of a terror watch list suspect in our area. What's more, CBS 2 has learned 39-year-old Sami Ibrahim Isa Ardel Hadi had a valid I.D. to work as a painter on the George Washington Bridge. Hadi was arrested yesterday afternoon by Bergen County Police, say sources, on Route 46 by Ridgefield Park. He was stopped for tailgating. When the officer called-in the North Carolina plates of Hadi's car, the Bergen County Police report indicates the officer was told Hadi was on several federal agency terror watch lists, and there...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The state has paid nearly $159,000 in legal fees to a lawyer who represented former Gov. James E. McGreevey in two high-profile cases this year, according to a published report. William E. Lawler III, a Washington-based defense lawyer, has received more than $71,000 for work related to claims of sexual harassment allegedly involving former aide Golan Cipel and nearly $88,000 for work on a federal corruption case involving David D'Amiano, a major Democratic fund-raiser, The Record of Bergen County reported in Friday's editions. The fees were determined from records released Thursday by the Office of the...

New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is the embodiment of a new reality, in which homosexuality is the last refuge of scoundrels. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey has managed to snatch martyrdom from the jaws of damnation. He would have the public believe that he didn't resign his governorship on August 12 because of the scandals that sprouted from his administration like crabgrass, but because he was the victim of a homophobic society. Since August 12, the socialist, mainstream media have worked their butts off, painting sympathetic portraits of McGreevey, who in spite of having resigned, refuses to leave office. McGreevey...

While the socialist, mainstream media have worked their butts off, painting sympathetic portraits of "gay" New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who sort of resigned on August 12, but who refuses to leave office, some hard-heads have insisted on committing journalism. McGreevey, the man who campaigned that he would "change the way things are done in Trenton," has proved to be as corrupt a chief executive as any in the history of a state that my colleague from New Jersey, Alan Caruba, has argued is the most crooked in the country. Caruba wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "If anyone thinks his...

The trumpeted sexual harassment suit against Gov. James McGreevey by former aide Golan Cipel would no doubt be the most sensational employment case in state history. The threat alone led the governor to resign and acknowledge that he is gay. So who did Cipel, identified by McGreevey aides as the man with whom the governor had a consensual, adulterous affair, turn to as his lawyer? (snip) (Allen) Lowy has no visible labor and employment experience, is not admitted in New Jersey and, according to a close friend and colleague, is not a litigator. Lowy has brought on co-counsel, but that...

Attorneys for the college that oddly figured into negotiations over a former aide's threatened sexual harassment lawsuit against Gov. James E. McGreevey say they may sue one of the aide's lawyers because he was not authorized to use Touro College's name. McGreevey administration sources said Golan Cipel demanded millions of dollars and a charter for a New Jersey-based medical school for Touro College in exchange for remaining silent about his relationship with McGreevey. Cipel, who sources said had an affair with the governor, worked for the Manhattan college for three months last fall when it was trying to establish a...

Where is Golan's Blue Dress? trentonrevolution In the ultimate anti-Clinton political moment, New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey came out ahead of the curve to admit, "he had sex with that man, Mr. Cipel" in a mutually accepted adult consensual relationship. Rather than wagging his finger in our faces a la Bill Clinton, Governor McGreevey appeared with his family to share the joy of his coming out with his constituency and those around the country and around the world. McGreevey's father appeared to be extremely proud to be appearing behind his son at that wonderful moment of which every father...

(KRT) - Jim McGreevey met Golan Cipel during a goodwill tour to the Holy Land four years ago. Yesterday, that relationship helped trigger the governor's resignation, people close to McGreevey said. When they first met in Israel in March 2000, Cipel was a dark-haired, 31-year-old poet, a press aide for a midsize Israeli city, Rishon Le Zion. McGreevey, 43, was the boyish mayor of New Jersey's sixth-largest city, Woodbridge, and the likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the next election. The two men became quick friends. That fall, Cipel (pronounced "sa-PELL") joined McGreevey's campaign for governor. Key fund-raiser Charles Kushner helped...

Ex-McGreevey aide's credentials exaggerated - originally published 12/22/02The Israeli national's expertise was in public relations. TRENTON -- Despite his statements to the contrary, Gov. McGreevey, from the beginning, intended to make his now-departed Israeli adviser and friend, whose expertise was public relations, the state's point man on terrorism, documents obtained last week under the federal Freedom of Information Act show. Using the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11 to justify the hiring, the governor's chief lawyer wrote a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service on McGreevey's inauguration day, telling the federal agency that New Jersey wanted Cipel to coordinate...

After getting elected on a promise to look out for the people's money, Gov. James E. McGreevey has spent much of his first year explaining away junkets, helicopter rides and a mysterious $110,000-a-year aide. Even poetry has proved poor politics for the Democrat: He has been accused of racism for trying to remove New Jersey's poet laureate over a Sept. 11 memorial verse critics called anti-Semitic. "This administration seems to create their own problems and then rather than solve them, try to cover them up," said Carl Golden, a Republican political analyst and former aide to former Gov. Christie Whitman....

NJ has within its borders a scandal which makes the Clinton/Lewinsky matter a walk in the park. The press has danced around the real issue. It will be revealed that what has occured in the Garden State is a scandal of the greatest importance. It will lead to the resignation of its current Governor James McGreevey due to his abuse of office and the NJ tax payers to prop up Golan Cipel. The nature of their real relationship is on the verge of breaking into the spotlight. This will be earth shattering.