Walter Timpone

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Timpone was disqualified from representing the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) because his firm, McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, had represented the plaintiff in the case four years ago, according to the New Jersey Law Journal.  Superior Court Judge Claude Coleman ordered the firm to give up legal fees they have earned over the last two years in the whistleblower lawsuit.

There have been few clues as to Paul Fishman's plans for key posts in the U.S. Attorney's office after he takes the oath tomorrow morning.  For the time being, Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra will return to his old post as First Assistant (Marra took over when Christopher Christie resigned on December 1), and Marc Larkins, who became Acting First Assistant following Michelle Brown's departure, will be the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney.  Larkins has held both posts since Brown left last month.

Fishman is not expected to make any immediate announcements regarding key personnel, but new U.S. Attorneys typically assemble their own team.  That may or may not affect Marra, a career federal prosecutor.

Eight years ago, the appointment of a First Assistant U.S. Attorney was part of the deal to convince then-U.S. Senators Robert Torricelli and Jon Corzine, to sign off on Christie's nomination.  Torricelli and Corzine reportedly insisted that they have input on the selection of Christie's second in command.

I was in a campaign once with New York-based Republican consultant Arthur Finkelstein.  I always remember the advice Arthur gave to candidates or public officials who find themselves answering any questions about transparency, honesty, or integrity, or dealing with governmental actions that touched on these issues.

Arthur proposed a formulation that he called "the dance of the honest man."  What he meant is that the official or the candidate should always put themselves in the shoes of any normal honest voter who might be asked these same questions, or be required to make a governmental decision, and react according.  How the regular honest voter would react to a particular issue of this kind is the "dance of the honest man."

I recalled this advice on the occasion this week of learning that UMDNJ lost a whistle-blower lawsuit to my friend Carol Caprarola.  Carol was a governmental affairs staffer at UMDNJ who was fired because she dared to question in writing her superiors' little habit of writing illegal campaign contributions from the non-profit state agency to favored political candidates, mostly Democrats, and after she cooperated in a criminal investigation into the agency.

Carol had the courage to question this practice in writing, and was fired in 2006.  She sued UMDNJ and last week a jury awarded her nearly $400,000 in punitive damages.  The jury found that she was passed over for a promotion after testifying before a grand jury, and after a memo she wrote appeared in the Star-Ledger.

The most amazing and telling part of this affair is the reaction of the Corzine Administration, which called the whistle-blower's Court victory "disappointing."

If you apply the Finkelstein formula, ask yourself how a normal honest voter would react if he or she were Governor and in charge of an agency that lost a whistle-blower case?  Would they express disappointment?  Or would they praise the whistle-blower who ended corrupt practices?I think if the Administration were doing the "dance of the honest man" the Administration would be crediting people like Caprarola for shining public scrutiny which ended the abuses and illegal practices in our state agencies, especially since many of these abuses occurred before Governor Corzine took office.

Eight years ago, the last time the two United States Senators from New Jersey signed off on a candidate for U.S. Attorney, the appointment of a First Assistant U.S. Attorney was part of the deal.  That was when the new Republican President, George W. Bush, wanted to name Christopher Christie as the new federal prosecutor.  Because Christie had no criminal law or prosecutorial experience, Democratic Senators Robert Torricelli and Jon Corzine only agree to sign off on his appointment if they had input into the selection of Christie's number two.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Timpone was widely expected to get the First Assistant post; he was the one Torricelli and Corzine (mostly Torricelli; Corzine was a freshman) had been pushing.  He also became Christie's choice, and the new U.S. Attorney went to Washington to lobby on his behalf.  But Timpone's chances faded after FBI surveillance revealed that while acting as the defense attorney for former Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, who had allegedly been recruited by federal prosecutors to be a witness against Torricelli, was visiting Torricelli at his home.  There was a feeling that Timpone had tipped off the senior Senator, and while he avoided prosecution for tampering, his prospects of becoming First Assistant were over. 

One name that probably won't receive much consideration for United States Attorney, if Barack Obama wins the presidency:  Walter Timpone, a politically connected ex-federal prosecutor who has coveted the job for years.  Timpone gave the maximum $4,600 to Rob Andrews' campaign for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination earlier this year, and his contributions in the presidential race went to Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, not Obama.  Timpone spent eleven years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and was named by a panel of Judges to monitor elections in Passaic County.  He currently represents Laborers International Union of America (LIUNA), which backed Andrews against Lautenberg in the Senate primary.