Joseph Coniglio

Former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) reports to federal prison today to begin serving out his 2 ½ year sentence, The Record and AP remind us.

The 66-year-old Bergen County Democrat, who served in the state Senate between 2002 and 2008, was convicted for steering state grants to Hackensack University Medical Center, which employed him as a consultant.  Coniglio will serve out his term in a satellite camp next to the federal prison in Lewisburg – in central Pennsylvania.  

The Record reports that former Paterson School Board President Chauncey Brown III – who ran for Assembly as a Republican in 2007 – is serving a sentence in the same facility for his own corruption conviction.

Since Coniglio’s conviction, two other top Bergen County Democrats have fallen: former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero – who was convicted on three corruption counts last month – and the party’s powerful former counsel, Dennis Oury, who was indicted with Ferriero and pleaded guilty just before his trial started.  

Jurors in the federal corruption trial of former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero will begin deliberation at 9:45 AM. 

Few corruption cases have actually gone to trial: it took three days to convict former Hudson County Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon and former State Sen. Wayne Bryant (D-Lawnside), four days to convict former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus), and six days to convict former Newark Mayor/State Sen. Sharpe James. 

If Ferriero is found not guilty, it would be the first acquittal on a federal corruption charge in more than eight years.

Former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio received a 30 month prison sentence following his conviction on federal corruption charges.

Convicted in April of fraud and extortion in connection with his job at Hackensack University Medical Center, former state Sen. Joe Coniglio (D-Paramus) today received two and a half years in federal prison, according to the Star-Ledger.

While receiving payments from the hospital as a consultant totaling over $100,000, Coniglio as a senator helped secure at least $1 million in state grants for the hospital, a federal court determined.

Federal prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 63 to 78 months, although U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh can impose any sentence within or outside of sentencing guidelines.

“Justice has been served and we are satisfied with the sentence,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra. “The ex-senator from Paramus now joins a coterie of once powerful political figures whose greed, arrogance and betrayals landed them in federal prison. He has only himself and his calculated criminal conduct to blame for that.”

Federal prosecutors are seeking a 63 to 78 month prison sentence for former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio, above

Former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus), convicted last April on five counts of mail fraud and one count of extortion connected to allegations of influence-peddling, will be sentenced tomorrow morning before U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh.  Federal prosecutors are recommending a sentence of 63 to 78 months, although Cavanaugh can impose any sentence within or outside of sentencing guidelines.

Prosecutors charged Coniglio, a Bergen County Democrat who served in the Senate from 2002 to 2008, with a scheme to trade a $5,500-per-month consulting contract with Hackensack University Medical Center in exchange for millions of dollars in grants from the state budget.

Nicholas Lonzisero and Judith Fisher, the Republican candidates for State Assembly in the 38th district.

Bergen County Republican Chairman Bob Yudin said today that the corruption allegation against Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez helps put the 38th Legislative District in play.

"It is in play because of the rampant Democratic corruption, first with Senator (Joseph) Coniglio and now with Mayor Suarez," said Yudin.

The 38th is considered a relatively safe Democratic district, although Republicans have indicated that they're keeping an eye on it this year.  Even after Coniglio (D-Paramus) had to drop his candidacy for re-election to a third term after receiving a target letter from the U.S. Attorney's office in 2007, the Democratic slate, led by Robert Gordon (D-Fair Lawn) as Coniglio's replacement, won easily.

But Yudin thinks the corruption issue may have reached critical mass there.  Republican candidate Nick Lonzisero is council president in Suarez's town, and, if Suarez resigns, he will become interim mayor.  

In April, Coniglio was convicted of steering state funds to Hackensack University Medical Center, which employed him as a consultant.  Former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero and ex-BCDO counsel Dennis Oury are set to have corruption trials that parallel the general election.  Yudin thinks all that, combined having former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie - who got the ball rolling on the investigations that ensnared the Democrats - at the top of the ticket, will make corruption a winning issue.

Yudin's focus on corruption - or the "corruption tax" that he ran last year's unsuccessful freeholder campaigns on - has drawn criticism from some Bergen Republicans in the past.

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.

There is some speculation among Democrats - and most certainly without confirmation from Gov. Jon Corzine's campaign - that State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) might be receiving more than just courteous consideration for Lt. Governor.

The arguments in support of Weinberg:

Update: "The leadership of the Hackensack University Medical Center Board of Governors consulted with the hospital administration and everyone agreed to reverse the decision regarding The Record. We apologize to our patients and our staff for any inconvenience, and we apologize to The Record.  We are putting this incident behind us and moving forward." -- Statement issued by Rubenstein Associates on behalf of the HUMC Board.

Ignoring Mark Twain's advice about not picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel, the increasingly tone deaf Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) will no longer advertise in The Record, and has banned the newspaper from being sold or distributed on hospital property.  The move appears to be retaliatory: The Record ran a story on Sunday that "detailed how various board members help to underwrite Bergen County's Democratic leadership and how several trustees do business with the hospital - a practice prohibited at some North Jersey hospitals." The Record also ran a hard-hitting story this week on contractor Joseph Sanzari, a major donor and HUMC player. 

HUMC may have a stronger case on pulling advertising than it does by banning the newspaper from their property.

The relationship between the hospital and politics was underscored recently by the conviction of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) on federal corruption charges.  HUMC, which was not prosecuted and where one individual received immunity in order to testify, had hired Coniglio as a $5,000-per-month plumbing consultant, a move a jury found was to facilitate a the receipt in millions of dollars in state funds.

The feud between The Record, which actually defied the newspaper industry with an increase in circulation this year, and HUMC can't be good news for Bergen County Democrats.  Michael Kasparian, who succeeded Joseph Ferriero as County Chairman, is also a major player at HUMC, and Bill Maer, a political consultant for the BCDO, is also a HUMC lobbyist.  Kasparian ran on a platform that included a pledge for mandatory ethics training for party leaders; he has since decided that ethics training will be optional.  (And to The Record's credit, they noted that their Vice President and General Counsel, Jennifer Borg, is also on the HUMC board.)

The Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO), which in the past year has seen indictments of its party chairman, counsel and the conviction of a state senator, set up an ethics training program for all county committee members and party officials last week.

The program, however, is not mandatory, which BCDO chairman Michael Kasparian called for when he was first seeking to replace indicted Chairman Joseph Ferriero. 

Kasparian made ethics training a major part of his campaign to succeed Ferriero, listing it as the first item of his six plank platform.  Although not mandatory, he's encouraging county committee members to go one of two routes: either attend a May 20 ethics training seminar at Bergen Community College, where Gov. Jon Corzine will be a guest, or watch a Power Point presentation online before submitting a test. 

"The county committee people are elected officials, so as a private organization, it's not the chairman's intent to make this mandatory," said BCDO counsel Joe Ariyan, who added that he did not believe that Kasparian had the legal authority to force ethics training on committee members, even if he wanted to.  "It is encouraged, because the chairman ran on a platform in part on ethics reform, awareness and transparency."

The 26-page Power Point presentation was put together by retired Superior Court Judge Daniel Mecca.  It does not delve into exhaustive detail, instead covering the basics of potential conflicts created by business relationships with local entities, fundraising, event attendance, gift acceptance and other prohibited outside activities.  It outlines when should recuse themselves, and penalties they can face if they do not. 

The hospital that hired then-State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) as a plumbing consultant to help them secure millions of dollars in state budget appropriations, is hiring a mega lawyer to help them address ethics issues following Coniglio's conviction on federal corruption charges.

Hackensack University Medical Center is expected to announce next week that they have retained Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, one of the largest law firms in the world, to review their corporate ethics policies and practices.  Separately, the HUMC Board of Trustees will retain Clifford Chance, which is viewed as the largest law firm in the world, to conduct a similar ethics review and training.