Zulima Farber

If Christopher Christie had disclosed that Lambertville Police issued him three tickets in the fall of 2005, Republicans would not have vigorously pursued the resignation of then-Attorney General Zulima Farber during the summer of 2006, argue Democrats who see an emerging pattern of hypocrisy in the latest Christie behind-the-wheel story.

According to police, Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, identified himself as the U.S. Attorney both at a September 2005 Lambertville police stop where he was allowed to drive away an unregistered vehicle - reported last week - and at the scene of a 2002 traffic accident in which a motorcyclist went to the hospital after Christie drove the wrong way down a one-way street, the Star-Ledger reported today.

Farber, who had been named as the state's top law enforcement official by Gov. Jon Corzine, showed up at the Fairview scene of a May 2006 police stoppage in a government vehicle, in an incident that highlighted the Attorney General's failure to satisfy Republican lawmakers who months earlier during her confirmation hearing grilled her about her blemish-heavy driving record. The incident caused her to resign eight months into her tenure and caused some political problems for the fledgling Corzine administration.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton), who said he's probably racked up more tickets than any other legislator in the Assembly, said he's never identified himself as an elected official when he gets stopped.
 
"It's a little self-serving for me to mention it maybe, but I just have never felt that you should throw your title around," said Gusciora. "I cringed in both instances - Christie's and Farber's.  It just makes us all look bad."
 
But Gusciora said he believes Christie's story is worse than Farber's, because of what he identifies as the former U.S. Attorney's hypocrisy.

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The inference in NJ 101.5's story on Christopher Christie's three tickets is that the then-U.S. Attorney had a "do you know who I am" moment when he was stopped for speeding in September 2005.  The Lambertville police director - coincidentally a former Democratic candidate for Hunterdon County Sheriff - told PolitickerNJ.com that Christie identified himself as a federal prosecutor.  This is the latest in a series of self-inflicted wounds that has dominated the 2009 gubernatorial campaign in recent weeks.

The incident occurred eight months before Zulima Farber, then the state Attorney General, became embroiled in a similar controversy.  On May 26, 2006, Hamlet Goore, Farber's live-in boyfriend, was stopped by a Fairview police officer for driving with a suspended license and an uninsured vehicle.  Farber went to the scene and a State Trooper who was driving her spoke to the police officer.

After a two-month review, a special prosecutor named by Gov. Jon Corzine said that although she broke no laws, Farber violated state ethics codes by showing up.  After initially resisting, she resigned. 

Christie is not the only statewide candidate to get a ticket over the last few years: in April 2007, Corzine suffered serious injuries when his state car was involved in an accident on the Garden State Parkway.  The trooper was reportedly driving at 94 mph and Corzine admitted to not wearing a seatbelt.  He paid a $46 fine.

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Lambertville Police Director Bruce Cocuzza thinks that the 2005 traffic stop of then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie in his town was “no big deal.”  

New Jersey 101.5 FM reported this afternoon that Christie, now the Republican gubernatorial nominee, was stopped for speeding in what turned out to be an unregistered, uninsured vehicle, but was allowed to drive the car away.

"He was agitated at the prospect of his vehicle being towed away,” said Cocuzza, a Democrat who ran for Hunterdon County Sheriff in 2007, told PolitickerNJ.com’s Max Pizarro in a phone interview. "He was worried about his family being left on the side of the road with no vehicle."

Christie was accompanied by his wife, Mary Pat, his children and former U.S. Attorney staffer Michele Brown, who is Christie’s personal friend.

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You have to wonder if Zulima Farber is kicking herself, or at least is she kicking Hamlet Goore?  As Gov. Jon Corzine continues his quest to find a running mate, it is possible that the Cuban-born Farber, who is both Black and Latina, might have emerged as a solid choice for Lt. Governor had she survived her first summer as Attorney General. Instead, her career came to an abrupt end amidst allegations that she used her office to help her live-in boyfriend, Goore, avoid getting a ticket when a Fairview police officer stopped him and found that his vehicle was not registered.  She resigned ten weeks later.

Corzine's enthrallment with outsiders played into the meteoric rise of Stuart Rabner, a career federal prosecutor whom he met for the first time during a campaign appearance at a Caldwell synagogue during the 2005 campaign.  The two hit it off, and after the election Corzine picked Rabner to be his Chief Counsel.  Rabner became Attorney General following Farber's resignation, and then was named Chief Justice when James Zazzali retired in 2007.  Some insiders suggest that Corzine has a similar infatuation with Randal Pinkett, the Rhodes Scholar-turned-Reality TV star who is now on the short list to run for Lt. Governor.

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A former political rival of Senate President Richard Codey is making a comeback: Joel Shain, the 67-year-old former Mayor of Orange who set records for campaign spending when he challenged Codey in the 1983 Democratic primary, is running for Democratic State Committeeman from Somerset County. Shain spent more than $250,000 in his bid to oust Codey, who was seeking re-election to a second term in the Senate.  Codey won easily.

Shain is the beneficiary of good political connections in Somerset, where he has lived since leaving Essex County politics.  He is the law partner of Peggy Schaffer, who was elected Democratic County Chairman last year.  (Another partner is Peter Tober, a former Assistant Counsel to two GOP Governors, and now one of the Republican members of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.)

Codey and Shain were child prodigies in Orange politics.  Shain served as Deputy state Attorney General before his election as Mayor in 1970, at age 29.  Codey was a 27-year-old Democratic District Leader when he won a State Assembly seat in 1973 – defeating George Minish, the son of popular Democratic Congressman Joseph Minish (D-West Orange).  One week later, Shain ran for Essex County Democratic Chairman, but lost by a wide margin to the powerful party boss, Harry Lerner.

Shain was a one-term Mayor (he lost to a Republican named Carmine Capone), but came back to win again in 1980.  Codey moved up to the Senate eight years later when Pat Dodd ran for Governor.  Shain was done in Essex politics in 1984 and went on to serve as the Municipal Attorney in Monroe Township.  Codey became Senate Minority Leader, Senate President, and for fifteen months from 2004 to 2006, as Governor of New Jersey.

While representing a solidly Democratic district, Codey has won some impressive victories.  Besides beating Minish and Shain, he’s successfully fought back some significant Senate primary challenges, including former Assemblywoman Mildred Barry Garvin (D-East Orange) in 1991, and Assemblyman Robert Brown, the Mayor of Orange, in 1993. 

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Thanks to Mr. Potato Head, former State Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris Plains), a slip-and-fall jury trial will need to be done over.  Martin, who served as foreman of the jury, wrote an article for the New Jersey Law Journal boasting that his fellow jurors relied on him to explain "abstract legal concepts and procedural issues" related to the case. A state appeals court ruled yesterday that Martin had influenced the 2006 verdict, where a woman was awarded $876,000 after a fall at a Shop-Rite in Wharton.

Martin did not seek re-election to the Senate in 2007, and has since won lucrative appointments to two panels: Gov. Jon Corzine named him to the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Board of Directors, and Senate President Richard Codey gave him a seat on the State Commission of Investigation.  Martin is also a Law Professor at Seton Hall University.

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Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow has asked a Superior Court Judge to terminate Dana Rone’s service as a Newark City Councilwoman following her conviction on a disorderly persons charge.  Rone has a Zulima Farber problem – she intervened on behalf of her nephew during a 2006 traffic stop.  There is some talk that the idea of removing Rone from office didn’t come from Dow, but instead from Mayor Cory Booker – once a close Rone ally (he endorsed her for his old Central Ward seat when he first ran for Mayor in 2002) and now a fierce rival.  One version of the chain of events, according to a front office source, suggests that Booker sought Rone’s removal by going through the offices of Gov.  Jon Corzine and the state Attorney General, Anne Milgram.

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Congratulations to Newark City Councilwoman Dana Rone, who has emerged as the early front runner for the 2008 Zulima Farber Award. She seems to be running ahead of Annette Lartigue, a City Councilwoman from Trenton, and former Jersey City Municipal Court Judge Wanda Molina.

And newly-elected Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. is now a candidate for the 2008 Oink! Oink! Wayne Bryant Award – a category that always has considerable competition in New Jersey.

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Zulima Farber resigned as Attorney General in August 2006 after intervening to help her boyfriend on a routine traffic stop: Getty Images Photo
Former Attorney General Zulima Farber’s boyfriend won an appeal today, getting out of a $500 fine and community service for failing to show up to a court date.

Hamlet Goore had failed to attend the start date of his trial for driving with a suspended license, assigned by a municipal judge in 2006. Instead, Goore went on a pre-paid vacation to Mexico.

The court date was related to an infamous May, 2006 traffic stop in Fairview, where Moore was charged with driving with a suspended license and having an out-of-date registration. The license, which was suspended due to an unpaid parking ticket that Goore had taken care of before the traffic stop, was retroactively reinstated and the charge was dropped.

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Anne Milgram has been a strong political ally of Governor Jon Corzine, serving as his Counsel when Corzine was in the United States Senate, and then as his First Assistant Attorney General.  Picking her as his third Attorney General in less than two years became an easy decision for Corzine.  But now, after less than five months on the job, sources close to Corzine say Milgram is “off the reservation.”  The front office does not have the same relationship it enjoyed with Zulima Farber and Stuart Rabner, and Corzine has been taking considerable heat from Democratic insiders over a subpoena served just before Election Day on the Union County Improvement Authority, where Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo is the Executive Director.

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