JEFF PILLETS

The defense attorney for convicted former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) is trying to force The Record's parent company to turn over notes and recordings from its April editorial board meeting with Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie.

The parent company, North Jersey Media Group, is trying to quash the subpoena.

The legal battle stems from attorney Gerald Krovatin's post-trial motion to dismiss the original federal indictment against Coniglio on the grounds of selective prosecution.

In April, Coniglio, who resigned from the legislature in 2007, was convicted of extortion and mail fraud for steering grants to Hackensack University Medical Center, which employed him as a consultant for $5,500 per month.  Christie was U.S. Attorney during the office's investigation of Coniglio and his subsequent indictment, though he resigned before the trial began.

After reading an April 30 story about Christie's meeting with The Record's editorial board the day before, Krovatin dropped a subpoena on the paper seeking all notes and recordings from the meeting, along with any documents that identified attendees.  The paper's story, he said, contained quotes from Christie that lent credence to his argument that Coniglio was selectively prosecuted.

Read More >

Sources say that the Department of Law and Public Safety is not expected to file criminal charges against Jeff Pillets, a Pulitzer-nominated investigative reporter at The Record, after reviewing a report from the Department of Environmental Protection that Pillets removed public documents.  David Wald, a spokesman for Attorney General Anne Milgram, had no comment on the Pillets matter.  Written statements from Elaine Makatura, a spokesman for DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson, and Pillets, are essentially the same -- except on one point: the DEP says Pillets initially denied having the missing files, while Pillets says he was a model of cooperation.

The following is a written statement from Makatura, send to PolitickerNJ.com yesterday and today:

Read More >

North Jersey Media Group Vice-President and General Counsel Jennifer Borg said that, to her knowledge, Bergen Record reporter Jeff Pillets is not under investigation by anyone -- period.

“I am unaware of any investigation being conducted by the state or any other authority.  And to overstate it, nobody at North Jersey media group is aware of any investigation by the state or any other authority.  So there’s nothing for me to respond to,” said Borg. “We have not been contacted by any state or authority, and Jeff has not been contacted by any state or authority.  It’s a non-issue.  And if the state is indeed investigating Jeff, I wish someone would tell us about it.” 

Read More >

Jennifer Borg, who runs the legal department at The Record and is part of the family that owns the newspaper, continues to decline comment on the state probe of reporter Jeff Pillets, who allegedly removed state documents from the Department of Environmental Protection.  There is speculation that The Record and Pillets has retained a criminal defense attorney -- if the reporter is charged with stealing public documents, he could face time in prison -- but Borg, Pillets and his editor have not responded to numerous inquiries.  It's been a week since Pillets filed a story.

Read More >

Corrected: This is a bad week for Jeff Pillets, the Pulitzer Prize nominated investigative reporter for The Record.  On Monday, PolitickerNJ.com reported that Pillets faces allegations that he removed state documents from the Department of Environmental Protection -- a charge Pillets disputes, saying he took the public records by accident.  Now, the Chairman of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority says that Pillets' story on Xanadu was "egregiously flawed."  The Record says said that one part of their story addressed by the NJSEA was an accident, blaming it on "an editing error." (See below.)

The text of Carl Goldberg's letter to The Record:

Read More >

In an e-mail to PolitickerNJ.com, printed in its entirety, The Record's Jeff Pillets offers his side of the story regarding missing files at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection: Read More >

Often when a reporter uses phrases like "declined to answer questions", "had no comment for this article", and "did not respond to requests for an interview", it's usually not good for the person the story is about. 

At least it did not bode well for those who refused to answer questions posed by The Record's Jeff Pillets in a series of articles he wrote about EnCap that has recently earned him accolades from his peers.  The EnCap series was also "selected as a finalist in the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting," (The Record, 8/22/08).

So it seems like a double standard when North Jersey Media Group Vice-President/Editor Frank Scandale declined to confirm or deny any investigation of Pillets by the New Jersey State Police for allegedly swiping some documents from the Department of Environmental Protection.

Instead Scandale punted PolitickerNJ.com's inquires to the Attorney General Office's who also declined to comment. 

But of course.  That's standard operating procedure for law enforcement folks.  It's not for a newspaper organization.

Read More >

Officially, there is still no comment on the state police investigation of Jeff Pillets, The Record's Pulitzer Prize nominated investigative reporter who allegedly removed documents from a state agency. But state government sources say that Pillets has a problem and that the probe continues.

The Record had no comment on Pillets' status, although he did write a story for today's newspaper. It's not uncommon for a newspaper to decline to address issues with their reporters or editors, even though they expect all others connected to the public arena to answer their questions. Last week, the Star-Ledger did not return a phone call seeking comment on the difference between their editorials urging private sector benefits equality for domestic partners and their own decision to not extend these benefits in their employee buyout arrangement.

Read More >

Sources say that Jeff Pillets, a Pulitzer Prize nominated investigative reporter for The Record, is being investigated by the New Jersey State Police for allegedly swiping some documents from the Department of Environmental Protection.  The alleged theft, which has attracted considerable buzz within political and media circles today, happened while Pillets was reviewing files related to an Open Public Records Act request.  Sources say that Pillets later returned the files and was questioned by law enforcement officials.

Read More >

Page Six in today's New York Post details an incident between two reporters for The Record and a Manhattan billionaire on a beach in Bay Head last weekend. Pulitzer Prize nominee Jeff Pillets and his girlfriend, Elise Young, called local police after Patrick Denihan started "bullying" them when they set up an umbrella on a public beach near his home. Young has asked New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald Chen to investigate. Click here to read the story.

Read More >