U.S. Lawyers Escape Prosecution for Torture -- Unethical?

David Cole, "The Case Against the Torture Memo Lawyers," in The New York Review of Books, October 8, 2009, at p. 14.
Scott Shane, "2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 9/11's Wake," in The New York Times, August 12, 2009, at p. A1.
Eric Lichtblau & Eric Lipton, "E-Mail Reveals Rove's Key Role in '06 Dismissals," in The New York Times, August 12, 2009, at p. A1.
Scott Shane & David Johnston, "Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic," in The New York Times, June 7, 2009, at p. A1.
Adam Liptak, "Justices Void Ex-Detainee's Suit Against 2 Officials," The New York Times, May 19, 2009, at p. A16. (Torture, including beating of innocent detainee, not grounds for law suit against former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, but others may be sued.)
Scott Shane, "Ethics Complaint Is Filed Against Lawyers for Bush Over Torture Policy," The New York Times, May 19, 2009, at p. A16. (Ethics grievance will probably be dismissed because of lack of standing, one complaint has been dismissed already.)
David Johston & Scott Shane, "Toture Memos: Inquiry Suggests No Prosecutions," The New York Times, May 6, 2009, at p. A1.
Neil A. Lewis, "Official Defends Signing Interrogation Memos," The New York Times, April 9, 2009, at p. A12. (Jay S. Bybee, a U.S. Federal Circuit Court judge signed torture memos.)
"The State-Secrets Privilege, Tamed," (Editorial) The New York Times, April 30, 2009, at p. A26. (Abuse of state secrets power by government to "stone wall" and deny "free speech" rights to citizens.)
David Kocieniewski, "Report Finds Patronage Rife At a University: Federal Monitor Studies a New Jersey School," The New York Times, April 4, 2006, at p. B1.
Thomas Shaffer, "Christian Theories of Professional Responsibility," 48 So. Cal. L. Rev. 721, 752-759 (1975).
Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (New York: Vintage, 1962).
Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Rumfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values (New York: MacMillan, 2009).


" ... Get the legal people in on this Watergate Thing."
-- Richard M. Nixon, Esq.

"An internal Justice Department inquiry has concluded that Bush administration lawyers committed serious lapses in judgment in writing secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations but that they should not be prosecuted, according to government officials briefed on its findings."

"The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask state bar associations to consider possible disciplinary action, which could include reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said."

New Jersey's OAE is guilty of horrifying human rights violations and yet unethical actions by agency lawyers continue to go unpunished, every day, making a mockery and fraud of N.J. Supreme Court ethics decisions and contaminating all legal proceedings in that foul-smelling territory called, "the Garden State." Each day that the cover-up continues, Mr. Rabner, is a renewal of twenty-one years of torture for many victims. There is still time to prevent further suffering by many innocent persons. Your continued indifference to such suffering, Mr. Rabner, borders on evil.

Very little (if anything) will happen to these crooked and corrupt lawyers -- despite the broken lives and murdered victims at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, or in New Jersey. This is to say nothing of the damage to the integrity and well-deserved decline in respect worldwide for the U.S. legal system, along with trashing the priceless American Constitution. Censorship? Cybercrime? What does the "E" in "OAE" stand for, Mr. Rabner?

"The conclusions of the 220-page draft have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials said that it is possible that the final report might be subject to further revision but that they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or recommendations."

"The findings, growing out of an inquiry that started in 2004, would represent a stinging rebuke of the lawyers and their legal arguments."

Do you speak to me of legal ethics, Anne Milgram, Esq.? "Ass covering," Peter ("See-No-Evil") Harvey, Esq.?

"... but they would stop short of the criminal referral sought by human rights advocates, who have suggested that the lawyers could be prosecuted as part of a criminal conspiracy to violate the anti-torture statute. ..."

"The draft report is described as very detailed, tracing e-mail messages between the Justice Department lawyers and officials at the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency. Among the questions it is expected to consider is whether the memos were an independent judgment of the limits of the federal anti-torture statute or were deliberately skewed to justify the use of techniques proposed by the C.I.A."

"At issue is whether the lawyers acted ethically and competently in writing a series of Justice Department legal opinions from 2002 to 2007."

This episode is yet another black eye for America's compromised and discredited legal profession. It is indicative of a legal culture of "going along to get along" and of the massive HYPOCRISY that is characteristic of the nation's legal work-product.

The pretense of "holier-than-thou" ethics on the part of prominent members of the profession not only in America's legal dungeon, New Jersey, but also in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere (New York is probably the best place in the U.S. to practice law), is grating on the nerves of observers everywhere. Nations cannot accept the sincerity of America's alleged human rights concerns when this spectacle of legal corruption is ignored. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

Bias in outcomes is the first word associated with American legal decisions, both within the U.S. and globally:

"A Pakistani Muslim who was arrested after the September 11 attacks may not sue John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller, III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for abuses he says he suffered in a Brooklyn detention center, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday."

Among the things for which this Muslim man may not hold the Attorney General accountable are daily "beatings," various forms of psychological torture that involved insults of Islam, denigrations of the humanity of "little brown persons" -- presumably including the world's 1 BILLION Muslims -- and worse actions.

Ethics grievances brought by a coalition of Left-wing advocacy groups against Bush's torture lawyers -- who are still serving as judges and "prominent members of the bar" -- will probably be dismissed because of "lack of standing" on the part of litigants. Sure enough, they were dismissed.

On the other hand, New Jersey's OAE is rewarded by corrupt and tainted tribunals for soliciting grievances against secretly (and politically) targeted attorneys, like me, then allowed to "cover-up" their own unethical and possibly criminal actions, including theft and various assaults, together with obstructions of justice.

Censorship. Cybercrime. Theft. Slanders behind the back. Breaches of fiduciary relations. Solicitation and manufacturing of grievances, violations of the sanctity of attorney offices, bribery of employees, threats to generate complaints against a lawyer. Are those things unethical, Mr. Rabner? ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")

Lawyers rationalize what is convenient or serves "our" national interest, find ways to circumvent the law as political lawyers, in order to serve personal or career interests, or for cold hard cash. Senator Bob? "We must protect the public!" These crooked lawyers are fond of such laughably absurd statements -- absurd when uttered by them. ("New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead" and "New Jersey's Mafia Culture in Law and Politics.")

International human rights laws, international criminal laws, global forums and mechanisms are regarded, too often, as the playthings of the U.S. government. We are concerned with international law when it serves our political interests. We disregard those same laws when they are inconvenient or obstruct our purposes, sometimes criminal purposes. Much the same is true of legal ethics rules.

We are at center stage in the world in "promoting" principles of the rule of law and due process of law that we set aside, easily, when it is useful to do so. However, we insist that others respect these international legal principles, including prohibitions of torture whose violations are rationalized by America's lawyers with transparently false reasoning. I wonder how many Pakistani children have died today in drone attacks in our secret war in South Asia? Will India be next? China? Cuba? Korea? Syria?

We are, allegedly, against censorship and suppression of speech. However, I am censored and prevented from using images, my book is suppressed every day, publicly, and my requests for the truth concerning the tortures and rapes to which I have been subjected is ignored. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

Mr. Rabner, each day that the cover-up continues is further defecation by your tribunal's "members" on the Constitution of the United States of America, especially the Bill of Rights. How can you wear those sullied judicial robes, Mr. Rabner? Does the stench of corruption in Trenton not bother you at all? Have you made an "accomodation" with evil, Mr. Rabner? ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")

We see ourselves as "superior" or "set apart" from the rest of the global community because we are the "embodiment" of ethics and legality, yet we condone with a patina of legitimacy provided by sold out lawyers "crimes against humanity" in order to accomplish our objectives, both at home and internationally. We often fail to detect a contradiction in this reality. The global community detects a contradiction. They are correct to do so. Mr. Rabner, is the OAE "ethical"? I do not think so. ("Mr. Putin's Advice to America.")

We have lost credibility with China, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Middle East countries and billions of persons around the world who know that we censor and silence critics -- they can see it at my sites every day -- as we torture, rape, steal and call it "legal." The very people responsible for a massive criminal conspiracy against me, unfolding over several decades, feign outrage and shock at my alleged "ethical flaws" even as atrocities and heinous abuses of law are renewed with each day that New Jersey's cover-up and cybercrimes persist. The OAE's stone-walling defense is shameful, Ms. Milgram. Enjoy the lesbian "love-fest." ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!")

I am unable to reach my MSN group which is, allegedly, "closed" along with MSN to be replaced by something called, "Windows Live." Is "Windows Live" really part of "Microsoft.inc" and part of MSN replacing MSN Groups? Is MSN really in Mimi, Florida? What is the true number of visitors to my blogs and books? (Again: "How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

I am still denied the use of images. I cannot see my own books on-line, if they continue to exist. Why are you frightened of what those images depict if you believe that the U.S. has done nothing wrong?

President Obama should release all photographs of U.S. tortures under First Amendment principles. Over one thousand photographs of heinous abuses and sanctioned atrocities are being withheld from the people, even as the truth about my life is concealed from me.

Why does the voice of one tortured dissident -- curiously ignored by the so-called "free media" -- frighten powerful people in American society?

Prominent members of the bar and judiciary are protected from the consequences of obvious incompetence, at best, or malice and deliberate cruelty, theft, disappearing millions, racism, disdain for the consequences of their actions, together with cover-ups of unethical and criminal actions, for example, by N.J. lawyers and judges as well as Mr. Bush's misnamed "Justice Department." ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" as well as "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")

" ... the report [by Judge Stern concerning New Jersey's Medical School and Hospital] details a broad range of financial irregularities that it said plague the university, including influence peddling, abuse of expense accounts, and sweetheart deals to steer contracts to politically powerful vendors."

The alleged "influence peddling" included prominent N.J. lawyer-politicians, like Senator Bob Menendez and others. When combined with New Jersey's usually protected child porn and prostitution rings, sexual favors as payoffs to officials, the largest influence for the mafia in any state political and legal system -- the very word "ethics" in the context of New Jersey's disgraced Supreme Court and tainted legal system, profession, and academy is disgusting and absurd.

As I recall, the total amount of "questionable billing" by this N.J. hospital was in the neighborhood of $400 MILLION. Ms. LaVecchia's vanishing $300 MILLION in the HIP scam is a trifle by comparison. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")

How do officials escape responsibility? By declaring evidence of criminality on the part of prominent judges and other legal officials "secret" and not subject to review by the public nor, at least, made available to their victims:

"Of the many ways that the Bush administration sought to evade accountability for its violations of the law and the Constitution under the cover of battling terrorism, one of the most appalling was its attempt to use inflated claims of state secrecy to slam shut the doors of the nation's courthouses." ("Obama Says Torture is a Secret.")

New Jersey's OAE and AG have tried to do the same for years, to cover the actions of state torturers and "service" providers, like Diana Lisa Riccioli (still keeping Debbie "happy"?) -- by declaring evidence "secret" and not subject to discovery in violation of both the federal and state constitutions, also statutory as well as case law. This is to describe as "ethical" lying and unethical or criminal conduct by state entities entrusted with enforcing the law. This means you, Anne Milgram, Esq. ("A Letter From the DRB, in New Jersey!" and "Another Letter From the DRB, in New Jersey!")

The bitter farce that is N.J.'s legal ethics process is derived from a twisted, Kafkaesque interpretation of government lawyers' responsibility to "protect the public" -- a public which needs to be protected from these would-be protectors.

Mr. Rabner, do you claim to be unaware of these facts? Again: each day that the cover-up continues is a renewal of the tortures experienced by many victims, not just me, and most especially harmful to the U.S. Constitution. Publish America?

This is a continuing injury that your legal system, Mr. Rabner, is perpetuating against many victims, on a daily basis, in a disgusting effort to find ass cover for a few politically connected offenders in New Jersey. ("New Jersey Lawyers' Ethics Farce.")

A fundamental principle of legal ethics is that judges -- especially Supreme Court justices -- should avoid "the appearance of impropriety." Despite the vanished $300 MILLION from the HIP deal Jaynee LaVecchia has the nerve to remain in office and to judge the ethics of others, others who must be ethically preferable to LaVecchia's duplicitous and mendacious self.

How can you presume to judge others when so many questions remain unanswered concerning the HIP deal and so many victims' medical bills were unpaid? Have you no shame, Ms. LaVecchia? Should you, Ms. LaVecchia, not resign from your judgeship immediately? Do you, Ms. LaVecchia, continue to judge the ethics of others with a straight face? Mr. Rabner, you cannot protect your friends and yourself while complying with ethics rules and the law in this matter. ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")

LaVecchia should have resigned from the judgeship that she has now disgraced years ago, before she voted to sanction a Latino colleague -- who will smile and say "thank you," of course, as he has been taught to do -- for giving someone his business card.

Was LaVecchia acting on behalf of unidentified political bosses when she cast that hypocritical vote? Perhaps she was doing a little favor for her "godfather"? Kay Luchese, Bob? Virginia Long? Debbie Poritz?

Is there any word other than "hypocrisy" to describe these events? "Justice" LaVecchia has befouled her office, to the amusement of Mr. Rabner and his cohorts, as well as the reputation of America's judiciary everywhere in the world? Do you speak to me of ethics, Mr. Rabner? Does Mr. Prisco approve of Rabner's "legal ethics"? Are these persons in New Jersey well placed to comment on the lives and ethics of others? Do they still presume to "judge" lawyers' or anyone's relationships and sex lives? 1988-today. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.")

New Jersey judges and justices are ethically worse than most persons in the legal profession because of hypocrisy and self-love, but mostly because of the presumption in rearranging or prescribing the private lives of others. Further defacements and alterations of these writings must be expected at all times. ("Does Senator Menendez have mafia friends?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.") Give my regards to the "twins," Senator. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes.")

Who do you think you are to meddle in the private lives of others? Who authorized Mr. Tuchin's and Ms. Riccioli's entry into my life in 1988? I certainly did not do such a thing. Under what conditions and for how long were they to have contact with me?

There is no such thing, legally, as "therapy by adhesion." Nor "secret" treatments that involve theft and rape, along with the violation of "fiduciary relations." Where are those reports and records prepared by Tuchin and Riccioli? 1988-today? How many of you had sex with Marilyn Straus? Was Marilyn under hypnosis at the time of those rapes or assaults? Was that "therapy"? How many others in New Jersey are subjected to such secret "therapy"? I want all tapes, video and audio of hypnosis and interrogation sessions. How many inmates are raped in New Jersey? ("Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey.")

How much did you steal from my office, Diana? How many others were in on the thievery? How many lawyers and others (including family members) did you recruit to assist in your behind-the-back efforts against me, Terry?

You say: "It's for your own good." My Constitutional rights are for my good. I am confident that, for a fee, a so-called "psychoanalyst" like Tuchin will proclaim the Abu Ghraib tortures to be for the "good" of their victims. Are most of your victims African-Americans and Latinos, Terry? Do you see them as "slaves"? How many Palestinians have you tortured, Terry? How does a Jew, of all people, become Dr. Mengele? Try inserting some more "errors," Terry. Mr McGill?

"What seems to tie together these instances of [ethical] failure [by lawyers] is that they did what everyone else was doing. In every instance the plea in defense is vita temporis (everybody is doing it). And in every instance the moral destination of these undistinguished, unchosen professional lives is loss of responsibility and even of the ability to respond. This is the estate which is evil. These were the men [and women] whom Jesus judged -- who seemed to have condemned themselves, rather than to have been condemned. They were unable to respond to God when God chose to seek a response from them, and they were therefore unable to respond to God in more ethereal garb, when He proposed to welcome them to immortality [now]."

Will you come with me, then, for fellowship?

"At any rate, Thomas More, as I wrote about him, became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began and left off, what area of himself he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of those he loved. It was a substantial area in both cases. Since he was a clever man and a great lawyer he was able to retire from those areas in wonderfully good order, but at length he was asked to retreat from that final area where he located his self. And there this supple, humorous, unassuming and sophisticated person set like metal, was overtaken by an absolutely primitive rigor, and could no more be budged than a cliff."

Mr. Holder, it is much worse than a mistake not to prosecute these lawyers, tacitly excusing torture, or to disregard their professional lapses in order to protect the CIA, Bush and Cheney, or your sadly discredited legal profession in America. The whole world is watching.

N.J. Senator Joe Coniglio Convicted!

Spacing may be affected in this essay and other attacks against these writings must be expected from the Jersey Mafia.

Coniglio Convicted on 6 of 9 Charges.

(by Mark J. Bonamo - April 28, 2009)

Took bribes to steer millions to Hackensack Hospital.

A federal jury found former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio guilty on April 17 of selling his office for $103,900 in bribes camouflaged as consulting fees in exchange for steering more than $10 MILLION in state grants to Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC).

After five days of deliberation in U.S. District Court in Newark, the jury convicted the Paramus Democrat on five counts of using the mails to defraud the public of his honest services and a single count of extortion for accepting bribes for official action. The jury found Coniglio not guilty on two of the mail fraud counts and deadlocked on the third remaining mail fraud count. A mistrial was declared on that count.

Although each of the six counts carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, Coniglio could receive a 6 ½ to eight-year prison term according to federal sentencing guidelines. A tentative sentencing date was set for July 27.

Resounding Reactions

Coniglio, 66, represented Bergen County’s 38th Legislative District from 2002 to 2007. The defendant sat impassively while the verdict was read and retained his deadpan expression as he left the courtroom with his attorney, Gerald Krovatin, without offering comment. Visibly upset friends and family members of Coniglio left wearing sunglasses.

Outside the courthouse, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown set the verdict against a local landscape that has been littered by the corruption convictions of more than 100 politicians in the past few years.

[More like 200.]

"Unfortunately, Senator Coniglio now joins the ever-expanding list of New Jersey politicians and legislators who have disgraced their public offices, who have forgotten the oath they took as public servants that requires them to act in the public’s interest and not their own," she said.
"We want to send a message out to New Jersey politicians who continue to believe they can use their public office as a personal piggy bank; they cannot," added Brown.

A slew of statements from Garden State politicians followed the verdict, including one from the former U.S. Attorney who presided over Coniglio’s February 2008 indictment.

"I commend the U.S. Attorney's Office for its continued success in fighting political corruption," said Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie, praising his former staff in a statement released by his campaign. "The result validates the confidence the office had in seeking the indictment in the first place. Senator Coniglio's guilty verdict is just the latest example of why a comprehensive reform plan is so badly needed in Trenton."

[In an unusual move, the New Jersey Democrat machine has targeted Mr. Christie for attacks that are aimed at helping his opponent, Steven Lonegan, who is a Right-winger and fundamentalist against Christie's moderate Republican campaign. The Jersey Boys do not want an honest, corruption-busting former federal prosecutor to be governor of New Jersey.]

Christie’s possible opponent in November, Gov. Jon Corzine, noted that Coniglio’s conviction "sends a clear message to the public that no one is above the law."

[Where was Corzine's Attorney General when Coniglio was arrested? Why is Anne Milgram only interested in Republican corruption? When will you come clean about those reports and records filed by Terry Tuchin, Anne? Who are you trying to protect, Debbie Poritz? Stuart Rabner? "Clean as a whistle," Anne?]

"To those who knew Senator Coniglio as one of the voices for working families in the Legislature, his conviction is all the more disheartening," Corzine continued in a statement. "We must embrace the fact that a jury of his peers heard the facts of the case, drew a conclusion and the system of justice prevailed."

State Senate President Richard J. Codey (D – Essex) also weighed in on the result of his former colleague’s case.

"I have always known Joe Coniglio to be a caring and dedicated individual and this decision in no way changes my feelings for him," he said.

Codey’s name was prominently mentioned during the three-week trial. As part of a defense strategy named the "No-juice Joe" argument by the prosecution, Krovatin, Coniglio’s attorney, tried to prove through testimony that his client lacked the political stature to garner seven-figure funds for the hospital. He pointed to politicians such as Codey as the hospital’s true "go-to" guys when it came to fundraising.

Krovatin also suggested Coniglio, a plumber turned politician, had neither the flair nor mental acuity to run any complicated corruption scheme.

[Krovatin has a point there.]

"No disrespect to Joe Coniglio… I submit to you, he is no George Clooney."

[What's so great about Clooney? Was Richard J. Codey, Esq. in on these shenanigans?]

The Ghosts of Christmas Trees Past.

The government’s case had its roots in part in the U.S. Attorney’s Office long look into the former State House funding format known as the "Christmas tree" program. The program awarded millions in state grants to legislators’ pet ventures with next to no public oversight. (The state’s budget process was ultimately changed.)

[Rudy Garcia, Esq., are you getting nervous? Brian Stack?]

In its case against Coniglio, the prosecution maintained that Coniglio had concealed what it called "a stream of corruption payments" that began with $5,000 per month payments that later rose to $5,500 under the cover of a sham corporation. In exchange, Coniglio agreed to use his influence as a member of the powerful Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee to funnel millions in state grants to HUMC in what amounted "to little more than a no-show job," according to Brown. During the time Coniglio worked for the hospital (May 2004 to February 2006), authorities maintained that Coniglio helped direct over $10 MILLION into the medical center’s coffers.

A critical witness for the prosecution, Robert Torre, is the vice president in charge of fundraising at the HUMC Foundation. Testifying with the immunity of a non-prosecution agreement, Torre recounted how he had no need for Coniglio’s services but was pressured to hire him during a conference call with John Ferguson, the medical center’s president and CEO. Also participating in the call were two notable members of HUMC’s boards, Joseph M. Sanzari and Joseph Simunovich. State Senate President Codey also called Torre to promote the hiring of Coniglio by the hospital.

According to Weysan Dun, head of the FBI’s Newark office, Coniglio made sure that he told his employees at the medical center who was boss during his time there.

"Senator Coniglio even reminded hospital executives that he was ‘their’ state senator and he could decide what was right or what was wrong in directing state money to the hospital," Dun said.

Breaking the corruption cycle?

With his conviction, Coniglio is the latest of six state legislators, a group including former state Senators Sharpe James of Newark, Wayne Bryant of Camden County and John Lynch of Middlesex County, to be successfully prosecuted by federal authorities since 2006.

[There's more coming, I am sure.]

Speaking after the courthouse press conference, Brown looked at the litany of liable legislators when considering the prospects for institutional change in New Jersey politics.

"We have been prosecuting for years and years these people who have been disgracing their public offices," she said. "It shouldn’t be that difficult to learn the lesson, but somehow it is."
Dr. Joseph Marbach, a political scientist and dean at Seton Hall University, noted the practical difficulties in attempting to tackle New Jersey’s culture of corruption.

"Proposals have been floated to create a full-time legislature. But when you talk about a salary range of $80,000 to $100,000 a year, which would reflect the responsibility of running a state with a $30 billion budget, the public reacts negatively," he said. "Then if you want to pass legislation to create more oversight, you have to remember that the people who benefit from the system are the ones who make the rules."

Marbach noted that there is a general lack of confidence in the way business is done in Trenton.

[You don't say.]

"The legislature is unable to police itself," he said. "This case shows once again that it takes an external authority to do it. Maybe creating a way through the state constitution to have a referendum to make change could have an impact. But I worry that the public has gotten almost numb, or even apathetic, about corruption."

After Coniglio’s conviction, reporters asked why HUMC officials had not been prosecuted. Brown replied that the investigation is continuing.

In a previously published interview in The Record, jury foreman Walter Palkocki of Rahway, showing no trace of apathy, strongly urged that the government should continue to probe both Bergen County’s largest hospital and the state’s political system.

"I think heads at HUMC should roll," he said. "Their culpability is significant in this case. That is without question. And the state of New Jersey, Republicans or Democrats, need to get together to fix our system because it’s definitely broken."

E-mail: bonamo@northjersey.com

Coniglio Trial Puts a Spotlight on HUMC

(by Mark J. Bonamo - April 14, 2009)

The long marble hallways of the federal court building in Newark have echoed since March 25 with the steps of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio and his legal team. Coniglio, a plumber turned politician, was indicted in February 2008 and is now being tried on eight counts of mail fraud and one court of extortion in an alleged scheme to defraud the public of his honest services. As Coniglio makes the long walk toward his fate, the steps he took along the way when dealing with Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC), a city fixture and one of the 10 largest employers in New Jersey, have been called into question. Those actions, part of an extended two-step between Coniglio and HUMC, may echo in the hospital’s halls long after Coniglio’s trial is over.

Coniglio's case

Coniglio, 66, a Paramus resident and Democrat, who was elected in November 2001 to the 38th legislative district State Senate seat, was appointed to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee in January 2004. Shortly thereafter in May 2004, Coniglio was hired as a consultant for Hackensack University Medical Center, where he was paid $5,000 a month through his firm, VJC Consulting. Coniglio would later receive a raise, with his monthly compensation rising to $5,500 in February 2005.

During Coniglio’s tenure as a HUMC employee from May 2004 to February 2006, the hospital received several large state grants, including $900,000 for its planned cancer center and $250,000 for its children’s hospital. The hospital also received notification from the state Department of Health and Senior Services of a $9 MILLION award in state funding.

Federal prosecutors began to investigate the relationship between Coniglio’s role as a privately employed HUMC consultant and the state grants provided to the hospital, subpoenaing Coniglio’s Senate office records in March 2007. The investigation was spurred in part by an article in The Record in May 2005 that questioned Coniglio’s position as a paid consultant to the hospital.

Subpoenas to several state legislators, including State Sen. Paul Sarlo (D- Wood-Ridge), then-Assemblyman now State Sen. Bob Gordon (D- Fair Lawn) and Assemblywoman Joan Voss (D- Fort Lee) followed in April 2007 as part of a probe of state grants to the medical center. The probe was part of a wider investigation of a former State House practice known as the "Christmas tree" program. The program awarded millions in state grants as a form of political gifts to local organizations, and had next to no public oversight.

Federal investigators subsequently subpoenaed HUMC in May and a state legislative ethics panel in June 2007 seeking more information about Coniglio and his ties to the hospital. After receiving a target letter from federal prosecutors in July 2007 informing him that he [was] under investigation, Coniglio decided to drop his reelection bid in September 2007. On Valentine’s Day 2008, less than two months after a November 2007 FBI raid on Coniglio’s Paramus home, Coniglio was indicted on corruption charges.

Prosecution and defense debate

The prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Calcagni and Rachael Honig, alleges that after he began consulting work for HUMC, Coniglio used his position on the Senate Budget Committee to steer more than $10 MILLION in state funding to HUMC in exchange for $103,900.00 in "corrupt payments." The prosecution further alleges that Coniglio tried to mask these supposed payments as consulting fees by failing to completely disclose his relationship with the hospital on financial disclosure forms, withholding information from a state legislative ethics panel and misleading The Record when specifically questioned about the arrangement.

"This case is about a senator who was for sale," Honig said in her opening remarks of the trial, adding that "this senator was bought and paid for by Hackensack University Medical Center."
In the following days, the prosecution attempted to make its case for Coniglio’s conviction before the jury and U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh.

One of the more notable witnesses for the prosecution was Robert Torre, executive vice president of the HUMC Foundation. Torre, the executive in charge of fundraising for the hospital, told the jury that he had no need for Coniglio’s services but still hired the state senator after a conference call with three men who wield a lot of power in both hospital and Bergen County political circles. According to Torre, John Ferguson, the hospital’s president and CEO, as well as two key members of HUMC’s governing boards, Joseph M. Sanzari and Joseph Simunovich were in on the decision to hire Coniglio.

Torre also testified that former governor and state Senate president Richard Codey also called him to back Coniglio.

In his cross-examination of Torre, defense attorney Gerald Krovatin tried to further shift the focus to Codey. Krovatin attempted to demonstrate that it was actually Codey rather than Coniglio who was the hospital’s "go-to guy" when it came to fundraising, with Codey supposedly serving as the driving force behind the $9 MILLION state grant in September 2005 earmarked for the hospital’s new cancer center.

Krovatin got Peter Cammarano, Codey’s former chief of staff, to admit that he told a 2007 grand jury that he did not believe that Coniglio had enough political juice to get millions in state grants for the medical center.

[Codey could get the bucks to flow in the hospital's coffers? Was Coniglio sharing the loot with Codey? Or was Codey -- like Mother Teresa -- acting out of the kindness of his big heart?]

"I don’t believe that [the board members at HUMC] would have picked up the phone to Joe Coniglio, because if you can go right to the governor, you don’t need Joe Coniglio," said Cammarano to the grand jury according to a transcript read aloud April 2 by Krovatin. Cammarano was referring to several board members’ strong political ties to former Gov. James McGreevey.

The prosecution rested its case April 3 shortly after Herbert S. Friend, a retired Superior Court judge, testified that Coniglio did not fully disclose information to the state Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards in August 2006. The state panel was investigating Coniglio on ethics charges related to his relationship with the medical center.

Krovatin countered that Coniglio was being investigated as part of a slew of complaints filed against Democratic legislators by former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, [the "English Only!" guy]who is now seeking the GOP nomination for governor. Friend acknowledged before the court that only one out of 34 complaints was filed against a Republican legislator, and that all but two of the complaints were tossed out by the committee.

Krovatin also noted that Lonegan copied then-U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie on the Coniglio complaint, adding that Christie is now battling Lonegan for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. However, Friend disagreed with Krovatin’s suggestion that since the retired judge was a Republican appointee to the ethics panel, his vote against dismissing Coniglio’s complaint was a politically partisan move.

[The politicizing of the judiciary in New Jersey, along party lines, has become so blatant -- a matter of common knowledge -- that this corrupt reality is discussed matter-of-factly by political operatives and lawyers unaware that such partisanship is both unethical and criminal.]

Effect of Coniglio's case on hospital's reputation remains to be seen

While Krovatin made the case for Coniglio’s defense, Ben Dworkin, Teaneck resident and director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, examined how the Coniglio corruption trial will affect HUMC’s reputation. The timing of the trial may be poor. The medical center currently is fighting a difficult battle for approval to open a 128-bed hospital at the site of the former Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood. (The former hospital was bought by HUMC for $45 million at a bankruptcy auction.) But Dworkin wasn’t sure that the trial would markedly affect HUMC’s future plans.

"Hackensack University Medical Center is such a big enterprise that things can happen on one side that really don’t impact anything else," he said. "The trial seems to be a bit of an embarrassment for the hospital leadership, but the trial isn’t over yet."

Dworkin also wasn’t certain that the medical center’s capital campaigns would be adversely affected by any bad publicity generated by the trial.

"When people give to the hospital, they give because the hospital performs a community service," he said. "That’s their motivating factor, and they see that it’s important that Bergen County, with almost a million people in it, needs an outstanding medical facility."

However, with the Coniglio trial proving once again that relations between many Garden State politicians and business institutions remain murky at best, Dworkin pointed to one approach for arresting the seemingly endless cycle of pay-to-play scandals in New Jersey.

"One way to deal with this is to make New Jersey’s legislature a full-time legislature, and therefore prohibit them from having any kind of outside income," he said. "It’s an idea that has been brought up in past discussions and may be brought up again in the future."

Email: bonamo@northjersey.com