It's our money. "Incentives" (tax holidays for corporations) are a source of corruption everywhere. Southern states are particularly notorious for bribing businesses to locate in their borders. But as Jimmy Durante once said, "everyone's getting into the act.' See criminal indictments in N.J. doling out "incentives" as part of a criminal enterprise. Here in St. Johns County, there's no County Ethics ordinance, no Ethics s Commission, no reports of any background investigations of "incentive" seekers, no and meaningful disclosure of beneficial ownership of corporate "incentive" applicants, and no disclosure of the existence or subjects of secret County Commissioners meetings with seekers of "incentives." This is all a potential "badge of fraud." In 1957, I was born in Camden, N.J., a corrupt town, not as lovely as St. Augustine, but still run by one-party rule in 2024. When St. Johns County, Florida Commissioner ISAAC HENRY DEAN citizen-shamed me for asking questions about ex parte contacts with applicants for 'incentives," he sounded uneducated and unsophisticated. He seemed to think the term only applies to quasi-judicial hearings in zoning matters, contrary to the weight of authority. I question DEAN's lack of respect for concerns about ex parte contacts. barking at me, publicly and ineffectively. God forgive our friend, HERNY, for so often arrogantly discouraging First Amendment protected activity, as in the Pearl Harbor Day (December 7) contrived 4-1 censure of Commissioner Krista Keating Joseph for her Commissioner comments about rocking the vote in the August 20, 2024 closed Republican Primary (in which DEAN is seeking a third term). Pray for them.
Top Democratic Power Broker Is Charged With Racketeering
New Jersey’s attorney general said George Norcross, who built a political empire from Camden, N.J., had been running a “criminal enterprise” for 12 years.
Reporting from Trenton, N.J.
George E. Norcross III, an insurance executive who for decades has been one of New Jersey’s most powerful Democratic kingmakers, was charged on Monday with racketeering in what prosecutors say was a 12-year scheme that involved his brother, his lawyer and a former mayor of Camden, N.J.
The 13-count indictment unsealed by New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, accused Mr. Norcross and five co-defendants of unlawfully obtaining property and property rights along Camden’s waterfront, fraudulently collecting millions of dollars in government-issued tax breaks and influencing government officials.
“Instead of contributing to the successes of the city of Camden,” Mr. Platkin said as he announced the charges, Mr. Norcross led a “criminal enterprise” that “took the Camden waterfront all for themselves.”
The indictment accuses Mr. Norcross of bullying rival developers who were also trying to capitalize on a push to revitalize the waterfront in Camden, a poor city outside Philadelphia long plagued by violent crime.
“Are you threatening me?” one developer asked, according to a recorded telephone call mentioned in the indictment.
“Absolutely,” Mr. Norcross replied.
Mr. Norcross’s brother, Philip A. Norcross, the chief executive of a Camden-based law firm, and the city’s former mayor, Dana L. Redd, were also charged with racketeering in the first degree, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
On Monday afternoon, George Norcross, 68, who now lives in Florida, showed up, uninvited, to a news conference Mr. Platkin held in Trenton, N.J. Dressed in a suit and loafers without socks, he stared from the front row of the room as the attorney general described the charges contained in a 111-page indictment. Mr. Norcross’s team of lawyers and at least one co-defendant, William Tambussi, a lawyer who has represented Mr. Norcross and the city of Camden, sat behind him.
Soon after, in an impromptu news conference, Mr. Norcross accused Mr. Platkin of carrying out a personal vendetta, calling him a “coward” and a “politician masquerading as an attorney general.”
“He’s innocent,” his lawyer, Michael Critchley, added. “He’s not afraid of the accusations.”
Kevin H. Marino, a lawyer for Philip Norcross, called the allegations “bogus” and said Mr. Platkin had been “blindsided by his own ambition.”
The charges against George Norcross, a feared political survivor, immediately served to further tarnish the already blemished reputation of New Jersey politics. The state’s senior senator, Robert Menendez, is in his sixth week of a corruption trial, charged by federal prosecutors with accepting cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for doling out favors for allies.
Mr. Norcross, who was a member of the Democratic National Committee until 2021, was for decades the most powerful unelected political official in New Jersey. He formed alliances that often blurred the lines between the Democratic and Republican parties. For years he was both a close friend of the former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and a member of former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
By donating generously to political campaigns and assembling an ironclad voting bloc of South Jersey lawmakers, he was instrumental in selecting governors, steering bills through the Legislature and influencing state policy.
About a year ago, Mr. Norcross suggested he was stepping backfrom politics after a series of embarrassing legislative defeats. His public statements coincided with news reports that the attorney general’s office had revived its investigation into more than a billion dollars in tax breaks awarded to South Jersey companies through legislation backed by former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and close ally of Mr. Norcross.
Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, had railed against that tax incentive program during his first term and sparred openly with Mr. Norcross — tension that defined much of his first two years in office. Mr. Platkin was Mr. Murphy’s chief counsel when the state began investigating the program, the Economic Opportunity Act of 2013, and was later tapped as attorney general.
Crafted with help from a well-connected Democratic lawyer, the program gave out nearly $7 billion in tax breaks but provided few guardrails to protect the state against fraud.
Controversy over the corporate tax breaks prompted legislative hearings and subpoenas to companies and at least one state agency, but charges were never filed.
Mr. Platkin, Mr. Norcross said, carried his “agenda” with him to the attorney general’s office, where he “forced people in his building to implement his will.”
The friction between Mr. Norcross and the Murphy administration peaked in 2019, when Sue Altman, then the leader of the left-leaning Working Families Alliance and closely aligned with the governor, was forcibly removed from a standing-room-only hearing on corporate tax breaks after troopers indicated she had caused a disruption. She was led past Mr. Norcross, who was at the hearing to testify in support of the economic incentive program that Ms. Altman had criticized harshly.
Ms. Altman, a Democrat who is now running for Congress against Representative Tom Kean, called the indictment “monumental.”
“Like Donald Trump,” she said in a statement, “George Norcross and his South Jersey cronies are finding out that breaking the law for personal gain has consequences.”
The feud between Mr. Murphy and Mr. Norcross began to ease as the governor was running for re-election in 2021. Mr. Murphy signed off on his own $14 billion tax incentive package in late 2020, and he and Mr. Norcross began appearing together in public, a scenario that for years was unheard-of.
Last year, as Mr. Murphy’s wife, Tammy Murphy, was vying to run for U.S. Senate, the Camden County Democratic Committee, an influential group controlled by Mr. Norcross, was one of the first political organizations to back her. The endorsement came at a crucial time for Ms. Murphy, a first-time candidate, helping to bestow an air of inevitability to her campaign.
Ms. Murphy dropped out of the race in March, days before a crucial building block of Mr. Norcross’s success — a practice unique to New Jersey in which party leaders gave preferential treatment to their favored candidates on primary election ballots — was declared unconstitutional, first by Mr. Platkin and then by a federal judge.
As a result, Mr. Platkin’s relationship with Mr. Murphy, once one of his closest allies, has since frayed.
On Monday, in an odd twist to an already stunning series of events, Mr. Norcross heaped praise on Mr. Murphy, his former archenemy who in 2019 he called a politically incompetent “liar” who “thinks he’s the king of England” in an interview with a reporter for nj.com.
He said the governor had been “incredibly supportive” and “generous” toward the city of Camden.
A spokesman for Mr. Murphy said the governor had no comment about the indictment.
In addition to Mr. Norcross and his brother, the others charged are:
Mr. Tambussi, 66, of Brigantine, N.J., the longtime personal lawyer for Mr. Norcross.
Ms. Redd, 56, of Sicklerville, N.J., the chief executive officer of Camden Community Partnership, and the former mayor of Camden.
Sidney R. Brown, 67, of Philadelphia, the chief executive of NFI, a trucking and logistics company.
John J. O’Donnell, 61, of Newtown, Pa., who has been in the executive leadership of the Michaels Organization, a residential development company.
Mr. Tambussi, who was part of the large group that joined Mr. Norcross, Mr. Critchley and Mr. Marino at Mr. Platkin’s news conference, said he was “proud of the work” he had done for the city of Camden.
“I kind of wonder why I’m here,” he added.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years. More about Tracey Tully
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