Joseph Coniglio

SOMERVILLE - Striking the familiar podium pose of a law enforcement official, this time with the accoutrements of county brass behind him, GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie today vowed to reduce violent crime as governor and stem the spillover of urban gang violence into the suburbs.

"We need a governor who understands that we need to get violent criminals with handguns off our streets," said the former U.S. Attorney, standing in Veterans Memorial Plaza near the Somerset County Courthouse as all eleven Republican county sheriffs endorsed him for Governor.

"We have a lot more to do to fight violent crime," said Christie. "Anyone who travels with any frequency around this state knows we need to do much more. Mayor (Cory) Booker entered a partnership with the U.S. Attorney's Office, and it has been effective in Newark, but there is much more."

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) says that the criminal conviction of Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) doesn't change the way he feels about his former Senate colleague.

“The jury has rendered its verdict and I respect it. I have always known Joe Coniglio to be a caring and dedicated individual and this decision in no way changes my feelings for him," Codey said in a statement released this afternoon.

Even with the promise of bipartisan support, this governor has failed to get his package or any meaningful ethics legislation through the Legislature. It's no wonder voters are questioning whether the governor really wants reform or if his September announcement was merely an attempt to pander to the polls in an election year.

Former Republican state Sen. Louis Kosco said that he occasionally gets calls from his friends who follow politics asking if he feels happy to see the Democrat who beat him in 2001 in legal trouble.

With Coniglio convicted today of six counts of mail fraud and extortion, Kosco, who moved to Lacey Township from Paramus four years ago, said he's just sad.

"People call me and say ‘aren't you happy about this,' I say ‘absolutely not,'" he said.  "It's not something that I'm gloating over, believe me," he said.

Kosco spent eighteen years in the Assembly and state Senate representing District 38, which was then a swing district.  Like Coniglio, he served on the Paramus Borough Council before the moving up to the Legislature.  He even lived ten doors down from Coniglio, though he said he did not know him well.

"I spent all those years in the legislature keeping that district as clean as it could possibly be. It just makes it look bad for all the honest politicians that are there, and there are a lot of them that do the right thing," said Kosco.

Former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio

Former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) was convicted today on five counts of mail fraud and one count of extortion connected to his $5,000-per-month plumbing contract with Hackensack University Medical Center, which then received state funds at Coniglio's urging.  Federal prosecutors called plan  to secure millions of dollars of Christmas Tree" budget items an "influence-peddling scheme."

Coniglio was found not guilty on two counts of the indictment, and a ninth count a mistrail was declared.

He was charged with negotiating a consulting contract with the hospital in 2004, after he was named to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.  According to the indictment, the hospital was his new firm's first client, even though he had represented that he was "engaged in the business of hospital relations."

Coniglio, a 66-year-old former plumber, was elected to the State Senate in 2001, defeating three-term Republican Louis Kosco.  He was re-elected in 2003.

The Record reports that the jurors are deadlocked on the final charge in the corruption trial of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio and that the jury foreman reports that they will be unable to reach a unanimous verdict.  The full jury is in the courtroom now.

Update from The Record: "District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh brought the entire jury back in to poll the members individually on whether they feel they are 'hopelessly deadlocked.'  The first juror responded that he did not think the deadlock was hopeless. The judge asked whether he wanted to go back and keep deliberating. The juror said he thought they could, 'give it one more shot.'The judge has now called the attorneys to a conference at sidebar."

Update from The Record: "Cavanaugh told the jury to continue deliberations based on one juror's response that he thought the jury could try one more time to reach agreement on the one count that stymies them. The judge read a standard set of instructions to the jury advising them to change their opinions if they come to believe they are erroneous, but not to surrender their beliefs simply to come to a unanimous verdict. The jury is now back in the deliberation room. They are expected to take a lunch break soon. After the judge left, he said to attorneys, 'We'll see where this takes us.'"

Update from The Record: "The jurors in the corruption trial of former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio have sent back another note. Attorneys are on their way to the courtroom. A law clerk told defense attorney Gerald Krovatin that the jurors' note indicated that they are 'done.'"

Update from The Record: "The jury foreman again told the judge that he does not think there is a reasonable chance that they could reach agreement if sent back to deliberate further."

Update from The Record: "All 12 members of the jury told District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh that they think there is a hopeless deadlock that will not be resolved by further deliberations."

Update from The Record: "Attorneys have just agreed that there must be a mistrial declared on the one count on which jurors are deadlocked. Defense attorney Gerald Krovatin went so far as to move for a mistrial."

Update from The Record: "District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh just declared a mistrial only on the one count on which jurors are deadlocked. Attorneys have asked for the jury to give their verdicts on the other eight counts before being told of the mistrial."

Left to right: Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus), Louis Kosco (R-Paramus), and Rose Heck (R-Hasbrouck Heights)

Joseph Coniglio, described during his federal corruption trial as a man with unspectatular intellectual aptitude, was elected to the New Jersey State Senate in 2001, defeating three-term Republican State Sen. Louis Kosco (R-Paramus) by 3,543 votes, a 53%-47% margin. 

Redistricting altered the 38th district, which had been a competitive legislative district through the 1980’s, in favor of the Democrats 2001.  Two large Democratic towns, Fair Lawn and Fort Lee, were added to the district.  Joseph Ferriero, who was in his fourth year as the Bergen County Democratic Chairman, picked Coniglio, a 58-year-old plumber and union official, to run for the Senate with the hope that the former two-term Paramus Councilman would hold down Kosco’s hometown Paramus plurality and build margins in other parts of the district.  The strategy worked: Coniglio won Fair Lawn by 1,145 votes, Fort Lee by 2,141 and Cliffside Park by 1,989.  He lost Paramus by just 877 votes.  In 1997, Kosco won Paramus by 2,781 in his 57%-43% victory over Democrat Valerie Vainieri Huttle.

Besides redistricting, Coniglio benefitted from some coat tails at the top of the ticket.  In the race for Governor, Democrat James E. McGreevey carried District 38 by a 61%-39% margin over Republican Bret Schundler. In the race for two State Assembly seats, Republican Rose Heck won re-election by a narrow 468 vote margin, but Democrat Matt Ahearn ousted GOP incumbent Nicholas Felice in a race where just 803 votes separated the top vote getter from the candidate in fourth place.

After the ’01 election, Republicans and Democrats each had twenty Senate seats and Republicans viewed Coniglio as one of their top targets in 2003 as they sought to regain control of the Senate.  Heck gave up her Assembly seat to run for the Senate, but the GOP could not compete with Democrats financially and Coniglio won his Democratic-leaning district 56%-44%, by a margin of 4,756 votes.  Republicans also lost Heck’s Assembly seat.

The Record is reporting that jury deliberations in the federal corruption trial of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus) will have a slight delay after the closure of part of Route 21 created a major traffic jam.  Coniglio, according to the published report, was also late arriving to the federal courthouse in Newark.

Uh Oh, Coniglio!

Look for a verdict today in the federal corruption trial of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus).  Jury selection began on March 23, and yesterday the jury notified the Judge that they have reached a decision on eight of the nine counts of the indictment; they are deadlocked on the final count.  After four weeks in court, the jurors will likely want the trial to end and not come back on Monday. 

U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh is presiding over the federal corruption trial of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio

Today's words of inspiration come from U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh:  "Do not hesitate to reexamine your own views.  Do not surrender your honest conviction solely because of the opinion of fellow jurors."  These were Cavanaugh's comments to jurors as they completed their fourth day of deliberations in the federal corruption trial of former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio.