Gov.-elect Jon S. Corzine and the head of his transition team, Richard C. Leone, both said Thursday they hope to "set a tone" for the next four years with tight ethical standards from the start.

Corzine has pledged to cut down on the number of political appointees in the government work force, and Leone indicated his team would begin working on that goal.

"We're going to look into the numbers and the positions, as well as try to get a line on the quality of performance," Leone said. "It's not a disqualification to have come via the political route, but it does mean, I think, tightened scrutiny."

Documents from powerful Democrat and developer partner sought in corruption probe

FBI agents yesterday raided an office shared by former state Sen. John Lynch and a politically active developer, bringing into the open a longstanding corruption probe involving one of the state's most powerful political figures.

A Hoboken developer and attorney convicted of passing bribes to former Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski was disbarred this week by the state's Office of Attorney Ethics.

Joseph Barry, already serving a 25-month prison term, voluntarily consented to disbarment last month, according to court records.

Colorful Hudson County political insider and admitted bribe bagman Paul J. Byrne was found dead in his Downtown Jersey City residence yesterday afternoon.

Byrne, 59, already blind from diabetes, suffered congestive heart failure and a stroke on March 31, less than a week before he was to be sentenced on charges that he took bribes for disgraced former Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski.

While Byrne was in the hospital, doctors determined he needed a bypass operation, but Byrne said he was ready to die. He returned to his Washington Boulevard home after 11 days in the hospital, telling his doctors and family members that he did not want to be resuscitated if he lost consciousness.

Robert Janiszewski and Paul Byrne shared a friendship for nearly a lifetime, political power for a generation and the infamy of corruption during the last few years.

Yesterday, the former Hudson County executive and his once- loyal bagman parted for the last time in quintessential New Jersey fashion.

Janiszewski reported to prison.

Byrne died.

Among the saints and scoundrels of New Jersey politics, there are few lives as colorful as that of Paul J. Byrne.

A streetwise kid from Jersey City, he rose to become the guru of backroom politics for the state's most powerful Democrats.

There were heady times, fueled by power and graft. And a spectacular fall marked by two final betrayals: first, his lifelong pal, Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, ratted him out to the FBI; then, his own body quit on him.

Now, Byrne says, he's ready to die.

11/22/2004
Hoboken Reporter

How quickly they forget

Dear Editor:
 
Selective memory. That phrase characterizes the actions of a small group of "reformers" who were associated with, or ran with me in the 2001 municipal election. Council members Soares and Marsh and former CFO Michael Lenz have been very vocal on the issue of campaign finance reform, practically implying that the former method was corrupt.  In fact, they are actually treading on new levels of hypocrisy by their actions.

NEWARK - Hoboken-based developer Joseph Barry was sentenced yesterday to two years and one month in federal prison, ordered to make $1 million in restitution and fined $20,000 for making kickbacks to disgraced Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski.

Barry pleaded guilty in June to four counts of making illegal payments in connection with a federal program. The remaining counts, conspiracy and five mail fraud charges, were dismissed as part of a plea-bargain arrangement.

Former Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon is now prisoner 25094-050.

The former seven-term freeholder from Jersey City, who was convicted on corruption charges in June, has begun her 37-month prison term at a federal minimum security facility in Connecticut.

In one of Hudson County's highest profile political corruption trials in years, Davila-Colon was convicted of passing bribes in 1999 to then-Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, now one of the most notorious government witnesses in North Jersey, who made his debut on the stand during her trial.

Davila-Colon, a county freeholder for 20 years, was committed to the Danbury Federal Correction Institution's "camp," on Friday, said Carla Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prison in Washington.

A federal judge yesterday sentenced former Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Dávila Colón to 37 months in prison for passing bribes to the county executive for her boyfriend, a psychiatrist with county contracts.

U.S. District Judge William Bassler said Colón was a kind and compassionate person who had been "heartbroken" and "humiliated" by Oscar Sandoval, the boyfriend who secretly recorded her for the FBI.

But the judge also said Colón, a freeholder for 19 years and the state's longest serving female in elective office, had become a victim of her own ambition.

Former Irvington Mayor Sara Bost reported to a federal prison camp in West Virginia yesterday after losing a bid to remain free while she appeals her sentence on corruption charges.

Bost arrived for a year-long stay at the women's minimum-security camp in Alderson, a prison official confirmed.

The town is a mountainside hamlet of barely 1,000 people in the southern part of the state, near the Virginia border. It's also 480 miles from the New Jersey township where Bost served two terms as mayor, before her once-rising political star crashed.

NEWARK - As one of Hudson County's best-known back-room political operators and once the bosom buddy of former Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, Paul Byrne can usually be counted on for an outrageous quip, an off-color joke or a thundering accusation.

Yesterday, as he left the federal courthouse shortly after his initial appearance on fraud and extortion charges, the 57-year-old Jersey City resident dished out a little bit of all three, with most of his comments directed squarely at Janiszewski and his wife, Beth.

"O.K., I'm guilty," he declared. "Guilty of being Bob Janiszewski's friend for 50 years."

Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon announced her resignation yesterday, three days after her conviction in federal court for her role in a 1999 bribery scheme.

In a letter dated Wednesday and sent to the clerk of the freeholders and other county officials, Davila-Colon, 49, the longest-serving member of the board, said her "reputation has been tarnished to a point that the damage is irreparable."

"The road is extremely difficult for me," she wrote. "But I take full responsibility for my actions . There is no better way to phrase it than to say, I'm sorry."

Chronology of events leading up to Davila-Colon's conviction

Sept. 6, 2001
Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski abruptly resigns after 13 years at the helm of county government and disappears. It's later revealed that he had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors after getting caught taking money from a county vendor who was secretly working for the FBI as part of an undercover operation to catch corrupt politicians in Hudson County.

Oct. 18, 2001
Dr. Oscar Sandoval, a Union City psychiatrist who held more than $2 million in contracts to provide psychiatric services to county facilities, denies reports that he was the vendor who was working with the FBI to catch Janiszewski - but it's later revealed that he is.

NEWARK - Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon was found guilty in federal court yesterday for her role in a 1999 bribery scheme involving then-County Executive Robert Janiszewski.

After deliberating roughly 10 hours over three days, the jury of five men and seven women filed into U.S. District Judge William G. Bassler's court just after 11:30 a.m. yesterday and returned its verdict, the foreman repeating "guilty" after each of the three mail fraud and two aiding and abetting attempted extortion charges Davila-Colon faced.

The seven-term freeholder from Jersey City will be sentenced by Bassler on Sept. 29.

Reaction in the local political community to Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon's conviction was muted.

Many of those who were asked for comment declined, among them U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, and Jersey City Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham, leaders of the rival Democratic factions in Hudson County. Davila-Colon is a former Menendez staffer and Cunningham is a former county director.

There also was no comment on the verdict from Freeholder Chairman Sal Vega of West New York, nor from Sen. Bernard Kenny, D-Hoboken, the county Democratic chairman. Several of Davila-Colon's freeholder colleagues also declined to comment.

The evidence against Marty Barnes included tape recordings by a cooperating contractor, photos of Barnes frolicking with prostitutes at a Brazil resort and a paper trail showing kickbacks, clothes, trips, furniture, even a new pool and a waterfall.

But Barnes, the once-defiant and reform-minded Paterson mayor, wasn't exactly contrite as he stood yesterday for sentencing in federal court.

Instead, he blamed the rigors of his job.

Barnes told a judge that the hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks and illegal gifts occurred because he had become "bogged down" trying to run New Jersey's third-largest city.

"I probably didn't pay as much attention to other things that I should have," Barnes told U.S. District Judge William Bassler, in a brief and seemingly off-the-cuff statement. "For that, I'm truly sorry."

The federal government's year-long effort to convict former Irvington Mayor Sara Bost ended yesterday with her guilty plea to a single count of witness tampering.

Bost was charged in a five-count indictment alleging she accepted bribes and tampered with a witness. She ended her nearly month-old trial by admitting before U.S. District Judge Joseph Greenaway Jr. in Newark that four years ago, she tried to get former Irvington business administrator David Fuller to lie to federal investigators probing a paving contract at the town's Chris Gatling Recreation Center.

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter serves as formal notice to the Federal Election Committee (“FEC”) that New Jersey’s 13th District Congressman, Robert “Bob” Menendez (“Mr. Menendez”) is in direct violation of 11CFR Part 300, Subpart D, “Candidates and Officeholders/” BCRA places limits on the amounts and types of funds that can be raised by Federal candidates and Officeholders for both Federal and State candidates (See 2 USC 444 I (e)). The regulations that address these limitations are found in 11 CFR, Part 300 Subpart D (“Code”).

10/28/2001
Hoboken Reporter

Dear Editor:
For the benefit of the public I must expose Mr. Lenz for his misleading statements in recent advertisements and interviews.

Mr Lenz complains about "Big Campaign contributions"
Truth: Mr Lenz had no trouble cashing those checks when he managed our campaign.