Dick Coffee's deal of the century
By Wally EdgeOne of the best bargains in New Jersey politics came in 1977, when the Byrne administration sold a mailing list of 60,000 state employees to Democratic State Chairman Richard Coffee for $114. Coffee used the list to boost Brendan Byrne's re-election campaign, and for Town Finance, a private loan business that he owned. After Republicans found out about it in 1978, a state ethics panel looked into the matter and found that State Treasurer Clifford Goldman sold the list after the Attorney General's office approved the transaction. Coffee, who had served as a State Senator from Mercer County and was briefly a candidate for the 1973 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, had purchased the same list during the Richard Hughes and William Cahill governorships.
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