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NJ corruption arrests, A broad, three-year federal investigation into international money laundering and New Jersey political corruption led to the arrests of more than 44 people.
State Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, R-Ocean, Burlington, Atlantic, was among those arrested. He was accused of accepting $10,000 from an FBI witness posing as a real estate developer who asked for help getting permits for a project in Ocean Township, Ocean County.
“This case is not about religion. It is not about politics,” said Weysan Dun, Special Agent In Charge of the FBI in Newark. “It is about crime, corruption, it is about arrogance and a shocking betrayal of the public trust.”
Starting at 6 a.m., more than 300 agents with the IRS and FBI raided 54 locations throughout New York and New Jersey, executing search warrants and bank seizures.
The accused included rabbis, the mayors of Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield, a host of Jersey City political figures and two members of the state General Assembly.
Joseph Doria, commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, was not charged but resigned after his home and office were raided. Doria, 63, had served as the Democratic mayor of Bayonne for nine years and also represented Hudson County in the state Senate. Before becoming a senator in 2004, he served 12 terms as an assemblyman.
Beyond money laundering and corrupt land deals, the arrests included Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who for more than a decade allegedly sold human kidneys for more than a decade.
Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra said Rosenbaum would typically pay $10,000 to a financially stressed person, then turn around and sell the organ for $160,000. He allegedly arranged a sale to a relative of the main cooperating witness.
Federal officials said a single cooperating witness, whom they described as a businessman and real estate developer, helped break up a money laundering ring run by Syrian Jewish rabbis in Israel, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Deal, Monmouth County, that laundered $3 million between June 2007 and this month.
Published reports identified the cooperating witness as Solomon Dwek, a 36-year-old real estate developer charged with federal bank fraud in 2006.
From there, the investigation veered into public corruption in July 2007, concentrating in Jersey City and other Hudson County officials.