New Jersey Officials Arrested for Taking Bribes

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and FBI Special Agent in charge of the investigation, Weysan Dun, announced today the arrest of numerous public officials in New Jersey on charges they took bribes in order to uses their influence in awarding public contracts.

Those arrested on September 6, 2007 include five members of a local school board in Atlantic County, two state Assemblymen, one from Passaic county and one from Essex County, the mayor of Passaic, one current as well as one former member of the Passaic city council and lastly the chief of staff to the president of the Newark City Council.

Each of these 11 officials, as well as one associate, are accused of accepting payments from companies in the business of offering either insurance brokerage services or roofing services to school districts and/or the cities.

The investigation has been ongoing for over a year, having begun in mid-2006 when evidence first surfaced that corruption was going on in the Pleasantville School District. When this was brought to their attention, the FBI established an undercover insurance brokerage company. There were two cooperating witnesses who posed as employees of the company. Other employees were undercover agents.

It is alleged that members of the Pleasantville School Board took thousands of dollars in bribes from the cooperating witnesses. Then the School Board members referred the cooperating witnesses to public officials in norther New Jersey and they also took bribes and then they referred the cooperating witnesses in touch with more corrupt officials and so on and so on.

The evidence in the investigation includes hundreds of tape and/or video tape meetings. At these meetings, the officials stated their desire to use their public positions and the influence that comes with them to add to their personal bank accounts. They accepted illegal payments going from $1,500 to $17,500. In most cases they tried to establish a connection with the cooperating witnesses so they could do more business in the future.

Those arrested on various charges of attempted extortion or conspiracy to commit extortion are