Anne Milgram

Gov. Jon Corzine flanked by Attorney General Anne Milgram, East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser, Jose Cordero of the AG's Office, and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo

EAST ORANGE - As New Jersey's media and political classes focus on corruption and former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie stands astride the backwash of arrests from nearly two weeks ago selling a message of change as the Republican candidate for governor, Gov. Jon Corzine redirected the public spotlight to violent crime and murders with numbers from the state Attorney General's Office that show a reduction in both.

“We are winning important battles in the war against violent criminals and gangs,” said Corzine, standing in Memorial Park with Mayor Robert Bowser; Attorney General Anne Milgram; Jose Cordero, New Jersey's first statewide director of gangs, guns and violent crime and the former police director of East Orange; Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo; Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow and a buttressing platoon of law enforcement officials.

“Thanks to the efforts of Attorney General (Anne) Milgram and the New Jersey law enforcement community, county task forces, police departments, and partner agencies, more than  4,200 offenders have been arrested for crimes including murder, assault with a firearm, armed robbery, and gun and drug trafficking," added the Democratic Party incumbent. "We know more work remains.  Even one act of violence against a New Jersey citizen is one too many.”

Some Democrats may wish Attorney General Anne Milgram would take the summer off, especially since it's an election year.  Instead, Milgram has been going after Democrats in Essex, Middlesex and Union counties.

The Star-Ledger reported tonight that investigators from Milgram's office seized a computer last week from the office of the Essex County Superintendent of Elections in connection to their indictment of Antonio Santana, a volunteer on the 2007 campaign of State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark).  Santana is accused of changing an absentee ballot in Ruiz's favor - a tactic that had no effect on the final results of the election.  But an investigation into the Ruiz campaign is an annoyance to her political mentor, Newark Democratic leader Stephen Adubato, and to Essex County, where Ruiz works as Deputy Chief of Staff to the County Executive. 

Milgram has also won an indictment against Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), and has been conducting a probe of Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo.  State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan have formed a legal defense fund to help pay for DeFilippo's lawyers.

Lesniak and State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden), both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are battling with Milgram over her pick to run the state Division of Civil Rights, Chinh Le.  Lesniak and Scutari sent a letter to Gov. Jon Corzine complaining that Le is not licensed to practice law in New Jersey, according to a Star-Ledger report

As Gov. Jon Corzine continues his search for a Democratic Lt. Governor candidate, it seems that he is ruling out more potential running mates than he considers.  Part of the problem is that every legitimate contender comes with a group of Democrats opposed to his or her candidacy.  That appears especially true for State Senators Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), who for a time looked like the front runners.  Corzine also faces considerable pressure to pick an African American for the post, although Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), Newark Mayor Cory Booker, State Senators Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence), Nia Gill (D-Montclair), Ronald Rice (D-Newark) and Sandra Cunningham (D-Jersey City), Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer, Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange), and Assemblyman Herbert Conaway (D-Delanco) are, for a variety of reasons, not under serious consideration.

Corzine might be missing one LG candidate with enormous gravitas and few political enemies: U.S. District Court Judge Anne Thompson, who was the first woman and the first African American to serve as a federal judge in New Jersey.  She became the first Black to serve as a county prosecutor when Gov. Brendan Byrne appointed her in 1975 (after a stint as a public defender and as the Trenton Municipal Court Judge), and has spent the last thirty years as a federal judge.   Thompson is 75, slightly older than Weinberg and a decade younger than U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.  Attorney General Anne Milgram was Thompson's law clerk.

Former Atlantic City Council Vice-Presdient Cassandra McCall-Clark pleaded not guilty today to official misconduct, the AP reports.

Clark was indicted by a state grand jury in April for allegedly arranging for a straw buyer to purchase two parcels of land from the city for $3,000 a piece.  Clark voted for the sale of the parcels, now valued at $110,000, while on the council.  

The Press of Atlantic City followed up the next week with a piece about how McCall-Clark bought 21 properties for a total of $786,503 over the last decade that are currently valued at $3.7 million.  

Attorney General Anne Milgram is looking to strip Livingston Councilman Gary Schneiderman of his dental license for allegedly givingprescriptions for Percocet and Oxycontin to his girlfriend.

Milgram alleged that Schneiderman, a Democrat who previously served as the township’s mayor, wrote at least 65 prescriptions to the unnamed woman,

“The misuse of prescription pain killers endangers the public,” said Milgram in a press release.  “Dr. Schneiderman violated the trust placed in him as a member of the medical community. He cannot be allowed to remain in practice.”

The Atlantic City messenger ballot fiasco has resulted in two indictments.

David Callaway and Luquay Q. Zahir – a.k.a. “Q” – were charged with two counts of voter fraud and one count of tampering with public documents by the State Attorney General’s Office.  The two were campaign workers for Councilman Marty Small, who lost in a landslide to incumbent Lorenzo Langford.  

The two allegedly submitted messenger ballots for people not eligible to receive them, and illegally designated themselves authorized messengers.  They’re charged with submitting several on behalf of residents who, in fact, never filled them out.  Callaway, the city’s former Director of Public Works, is also charged with giving a ballot to a voter and telling him to vote for small.  

There were 874 messenger ballots cast in the Atlantic City election – a hugely abnormal number for any other city-- almost half of which were thrown out by City Clerk Ed McGettigan. 

A top aide to Assemblyman and former Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas pleaded guilty today to soliciting fraudulent campaign contributions for Vas’s ill-fated 2006 Democratic primary campaign for Congress.

Raymond Geneske, 73, admitted illegally taking $30,000 in cash and distributing $25,000 of it to the campaign through straw donors.  He spent another $4,000 to $5,000 on the campaign’s ground game.

Geneske is the former Perth Amboy Municipal Chairman and was  a member of the city’s Board of Education when he was charged in March.

Vas, who served as mayor of Perth Amboy from 1990 to 2008 and remains in the state Assembly, was indicted earlier this year along with aide Melvin Ramos on multiple corruption counts by both federal and state authorities.  Two other city officials – Ana Patrana, the former recretation supervisor, and Jeffrey Gumbs, the city’s director of human services and superintendent of recreation under Vas – pleaded guilty to corruption offenses in March. 

Senator Says Governor's Action Too Little, Too late, and Calls on Attorney General to Recover Taxpayer Money That Was 'Lost in Space"

The state Attorney General’s Office today indicted former Atlantic City Council Vice President and real estate speculator Cassandra Clark, charging that she voted to sell city land to a straw purchaser who agreed to buy the land for Clark and deed it to a corporation Clark owned. 

A state grand jury indicted the 52-year old Clark on a second-degree charge of official misconduct, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison and a $150,000 fine.  

“State law strictly prohibits self-dealing by public office holders in their official actions,” said Attorney General Anne Milgram. “Ms. Clark shamelessly violated her duties in order to acquire this city land for a fraction of what it was worth. We will hold public officials who break the law accountable.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) at a green building ribbon-cutting in Hoboken this morning.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie says he hasn't thought much about U.S.-Cuba relations, but agrees with state Attorney General Anne Milgram that stepping up efforts to extradite convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard is a good idea.

"If we're moving toward normalizing relations with Cuba, it would be a sign of goodwill for that country to extradite Joanne Chesimard," Christie said yesterday. "There are a lot of issues on the table."

Asked if he believes the United States should normalize relations with Cuba, Christie said, "I haven't thought that deeply about it. It's not a state issue."

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken), the state's ranking Cuban American, disagreed.

"It is a state issue," Menendez told PolitickerNJ.com, noting that the Governor appoints members of the Free Cuba Task Force.  "While it may not be the most popular issue of the day, the Governor will have to appoint the head of the advisory council and charge what its mission should be."

Cuban-born U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) had another take on Christie's position.

"There are a lot of issues he hasn't thought deeply about," Sires said.