# New Jersey Corruption \[Scandal\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093 "2009-07-24T06:47:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/1 "2009-07-24T06:47:46Z")
Story [here](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090724/ap_on_re_us/us_nj_corruption_arrests). I have some questions, because it’s not clear in the article. Were New Jersey politicians involved with a money laundering scheme in cooperation with operatives in Israel? Was the Israeli government part of it, or just an Israeli criminal organization? What exactly will the international political fallout be from this? The article makes it very clear that New Jersey politicians got rounded up and arrested for charges ranging from conspiracy to commit extortion to accepting bribes. This is bad news for Democrats, since the article claims all but 1 of the offending politicians were Democrats. It’s going to be really hard for Democrats to make any kind of corruption noise about Bush-era Republicans now that they have so much egg on their own face. Anyway, reading this story left me in awe of just how big a rat’s nest can get before anyone knows about it. This is almost unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/2 "2009-07-24T07:04:26Z")
Why will it be hard to make noise about Republican corruption? I’m a Democrat and I complain about corruption in both parties. Are you saying that, because there are both corrupt Republicans and corrupt Democrats, only Libertarians and Greens can complain about corruption? 😕 Oh by the way, I have NO egg on my face. I’m not the person who was corrupt. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/3 "2009-07-24T07:54:04Z")
Most of the politicians involved were Democrats because Democrats control New Jersey. Basically, there are two related investigations and sets of arrests going on here. First, there’s bribery and illegal fund raising. Politicians in close elections were accepting cash in exchange for favors and promises of favors. The second, is money laundering. Some rabbis in and around the town of Deal and one in Brooklyn were laundering money from criminals in Israel, Switzerland and the US by passing them through charities related to their congregations for a fee. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/4 "2009-07-24T07:59:30Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Most of the politicians involved were Democrats because Democrats control New Jersey. > > Basically, there are two related investigations and sets of arrests going on here. First, there’s bribery and illegal fund raising. Politicians in close elections were accepting cash in exchange for favors and promises of favors. > > The second, is money laundering. Some rabbis in and around the town of Deal and one in Brooklyn were laundering money from criminals in Israel, Switzerland and the US by passing them through charities related to their congregations for a fee. So the politicians weren’t involved with the laundering, but were involved with extortion, bribery, and illegal fund raising? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/5 "2009-07-24T08:22:13Z")
Right. The only connection was that the cooperating witness the feds had, who was one of the people whose money was being laundered, was a real estate developer who had also bribed a Jersey City building inspector in exchange for approvals for some of his deals. So the feds, who were already investigating the money laundering ring started investigating the bribery ring too. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/6 "2009-07-24T09:51:55Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > This is bad news for Democrats, since the article claims all but 1 of the offending politicians were Democrats. It’s going to be really hard for Democrats to make any kind of corruption noise about Bush-era Republicans now that they have so much egg on their own face. Only if it turns out to involve more than just New Jersey. Probably not unless someone can drag Obama into it somehow. This isn’t nearly as much “egg” as got splashed onto the Republicans; the Democrats didn’t conquer anyone and hand over no-bid contracts and bales of money to it’s cronies who were running/exploiting the conquered nation, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/7 "2009-07-24T10:23:42Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Story [here](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090724/ap_on_re_us/us_nj_corruption_arrests). > > I have some questions, because it’s not clear in the article. Were New Jersey politicians involved with a money laundering scheme in cooperation with operatives in Israel? Was the Israeli government part of it, or just an Israeli criminal organization? What exactly will the international political fallout be from this? Why would you assume the Israeli government is involved? Why should there be any political fallout? I mean, has the U.S. Government ever expelled the Italian ambassador because of the Mafia? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/8 "2009-07-24T13:07:50Z")
Essentially there was a big time Jewish (Syrian) wheeler dealer real estate guy named Dweck, who, when the market turned south and his empire crumbled, resorted to bank fraud, and was immediately caught. He agreed to be an undercover witness for the FBI, and ensnared all sorts of people he knew or knew of in the Jewish community and local politicians throughout the state. He was a good candidate for this type of sting operation because he had the personality for it, had the contacts, and knew the ropes. The connection to Israel is that Dwek happens to be Jewish. If they would have had a guy from another background, they would have found guys connected to people in other countries. One uninvolved guy who it does NOT help is NJ gov. Jon Corzine, who is already facing a tough re-election battle against former US Attorney Chris Christie (who was presumably involved in the sting operation before he resigned). ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/9 "2009-07-24T14:28:36Z")
I don’t see it mentioned in this thread but the local news (I’m in the Philly suburbs near the Jersey border) has also mentioned human organ trafficking. :eek: It seems there was a guy who could get you a kidney for $160,000. He would convince people to give up a kidney for $10,000. Quite a markup! I imagine he was caught in this net because he was using the services of the apprehended money launderers. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/10 "2009-07-24T14:31:43Z")
Corruption in New Jersey? I’m shocked… SHOCKED to hear it! ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/11 "2009-07-24T14:48:28Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > It seems there was a guy who could get you a kidney for $160,000. He would convince people to give up a kidney for $10,000. Quite a markup! Before you decide to go into the business yourself, he also had a lot of medical and other related expenses that came out of the $160K. What’s sad about it is the desperation that would lead people to sell their kidney for only $10K. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/12 "2009-07-24T15:41:07Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Before you decide to go into the business yourself, he also had a lot of medical and other related expenses that came out of the $160K. > > What’s sad about it is the desperation that would lead people to sell their kidney for only $10K. True but I suspect that he still made at least a few hundred percent markup. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/13 "2009-07-24T17:17:40Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Why would you assume the Israeli government is involved? > > Why should there be any political fallout? I mean, has the U.S. Government ever expelled the Italian ambassador because of the Mafia? I was not assuming the Israeli government was part of it. The article seemed to go out of its way to be unclear on the issue. The difference between this and the mafia is that it seems this money laundering operation was undertaken by Israeli citizens who lived in Israel. The Mafia was just a bunch of Americans of Italian descent. I don’t know if there will be political fallout in this case, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/14 "2009-07-24T17:24:12Z")
I don’t see anything in the article that even remotely hints that the Israeli government might in any way be involved. Can you point it out to me? American criminals in America employed the services of Israeli criminals in Israel; just as mobsters occasionally collaborate with the Mafia in Italy (and other criminals of various ethnicities make use of connections in the “old country”). I see no real difference here. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/15 "2009-07-24T17:25:23Z")
New Jersey: even the _rabbis_ are on the take! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/16 "2009-07-24T20:06:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don’t see anything in the article that even remotely hints that the Israeli government might in any way be involved. Can you point it out to me? > > American criminals in America employed the services of Israeli criminals in Israel; just as mobsters occasionally collaborate with the Mafia in Italy (and other criminals of various ethnicities make use of connections in the “old country”). I see no real difference here. Like I said, the article wasn’t clear about Israel’s involvement, beyond saying “Israel”. It did not say who in Israel was involved, and what organizations they have ties to. If someone wrote an article and claimed “The United States” was part of a criminal conspiracy, it would not be out of line to question whether the United States government was involved or not. I’m still not clear on who was involved, and who they had ties to. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/17 "2009-07-24T20:07:29Z")
Ok, I don’t really have anything to debate here, but I figured it’d be an interesting debate topic, so I am sure SOMEONE can find a way to make it germaine to this forum. If not move it to MPSIMS or IMHO or whatever. But this seems to me to be one of the biggest stories of the year, way more important than that idiot Harvard Professor and the Idiot Cop who arrested him. [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/nyregion/24jersey.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/nyregion/24jersey.html) > [@](#): > > A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said. > > The case began with bank fraud charges against a member of an insular Syrian Jewish enclave centered in a seaside town. But when that man became a federal informant and posed as a crooked real estate developer offering cash bribes to obtain government approvals, it mushroomed into a political scandal that could rival any of the most explosive and sleazy episodes in New Jersey’s recent past. > It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms; of nervous jokes about “patting down” a man who turned out to indeed be an informant; and, again and again, of the passing of cash — once in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000. I am surprised this isn’t getting as much coverage as say whether or not Sanford or Spitzer dipped their wicks. I mean sales of body parts? WTF. So what’s this all about, how deep does it go and what does it mean? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/18 "2009-07-24T20:34:27Z")
Are you referring to the line - > [@](#): > > Federal prosecutors in the U.S. said the investigation focused on a money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, N.Y.; Deal, N.J.; and Israel - by any chance? Because it looks like a list of locations in which the money laundering network operated, nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/19 "2009-07-24T21:42:45Z")
Reaction here seems to be along to the lines of **Malthus** and **John Mace**. I’m not surprised at the politicians involved but am disgusted at the involvement of rabbis. Scanning the article I don’t see it mentioned, but one of the arrested rabbis was head of a national organization for Syrian Jews. ETA I forgot that my location no longer shows. I’m in Philadelphia so this is local news. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093/20 "2009-07-24T21:44:35Z")
- Why do they call him The Rabbi? - Because he’s a rabbi. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-jersey-corruption-scandal/504093.md?page=2)