The first of, (hopefully) many federal indictments of the members of the New Jersey State senate are in.

The first fat cat is senator Wayne Bryant, the former chairman of the State senate Budget Committee has been indicted on corruption charges for allegedly bilking the New Jersey tax payers out of millions of dollars. He used his position on the State budget committee to steer millions of dollars to UMDNJ's School of Osteopathic Medicine and others in exchange for no-work jobs in order to triple his taxpayer-funded pension.

Millennium Radio New Jersey

"When you read this indictment" says U-S Attorney Chris Christie, "you will see the lengths to which Senator (Wayne) Bryant went to be able to defraud the New Jersey taxpayers of their money in order to put it in his own pocket…, what you see in this indictment is unparalleled greed bore naked for the public to see."

Christie says Bryant faces mail fraud, wire fraud and bribery charges for taking salaries from UMDNJ, Rutgers University-Camden and the Gloucester County Board of Social Services for allegedly doing little to no meaningful work, "all to feed his own insatiable desire for more public money to put in his own pocket."

The jobs helped Bryant boost the pension he would receive from $28,000 to $81,000, prosecutors allege. Mark Perkiss, a spokesman with the State Department of Treasury says Bryant is not currently collecting a pension. He has applied according to Perkiss, but the pension board has not yet acted on the application. Typically, if charges are pending against an applicant, a pension decision will not be made until such time the case is adjudicated.

Christie says, "He (Bryant) leveraged his position as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and the power that was given to him by the senate leadership to distribute money in order to put money in his own pocket." He adds, "This is pretty brazen conduct….every time I think I can no longer be shocked in this job it seems like somebody else comes along to shock me." Christie explains, "As the evidence was unfolding in this case, I found it just incredible that someone would act in such blatant and brazen way, such a transparent way for his own self-enrichment."

The indictment says UMDNJ created the job for Bryant in 2003 and that he showed up only one morning per week at most and did little more than read newspapers, yet earned up to $40,000 per year and brought millions in state money to the school. The charges also claim Bryant worked just 14.8 hours for Gloucester County Board of Social Services over four years, yet received about $200,000, largely by billing the board for work performed by others. He is also alleged to have done little work in exchange for the income he received from Rutgers-Camden.

The most serious charges against Bryant carry maximum penalties of 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. A 20 count indictment adds up to about 275 years in the slammer.

It's about time. These slugs have to go to jail.

Could the federal investigation into the New Jersey Legislature's budget process be the cause for the sudden exodus of Senators from the New Jersey State Legislature?

More than likely if you ask me.

The deplorable trough swilling may be drawing too much attention now for some of the thieves Senators in Trenton, with the people of New Jersey finally getting their heads out of the sand and speaking up with strong demands for ethics and property tax reform, along with the Federal government looking over their shoulders and into the outrages and illegal things they have done to the State's budget over the past years.

Retiring senators remaking Trenton

By '08, 11 of 40 seats are sure to change.

State Sen. William Gormley's announcement in January that he was leaving the Legislature hardly seemed the start of something seismic.

The South Jersey Republican had, after all, mixed it up for three decades in what he called the "contact sport" known as Trenton politics, and with a primary challenge looming, he wanted to go out on his own terms, with his legacy and winning streak intact. Two other veteran senators had already made it clear for more than a year that they were serving their last terms.

But then came another retirement. And another. By the time Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny announced Monday that he, too, would call it quits at the end of his term, the ripples had become a political tsunami.

Eleven senators -- more than a quarter of the 40-member upper chamber -- have now said they will not seek re-election in November, ensuring the biggest turnover in the Senate since the Watergate era, when voters swept 13 Republicans from office.

The number could grow even higher before next month's filing deadline: There's been no word on re-election yet from Sen. Sharpe James (D-Essex), the subject of a federal investigation, and several other senators face pressure from their parties to move on.

The departing politicians and political observers say the exodus has been driven by a confluence of factors: aging lawmakers, political infighting, a sense that politics has become too nasty a game in Trenton -- and the cloud of a federal investigation into the Legislature's budget process.

"I can't recall this ever happening in modern times," said David Rebovich, a Rider University political science professor and longtime observer of Trenton's machinations. "It's unprecedented that there would be so many voluntary retirements."

I'm sure most are saying to themselves, there is no sense in staying now with many changes imminent. They already have their double and triple state pensions guaranteed to them for life, not to mention the fat bank accounts they managed to acquire for themselves, while draining the purses of the people of the State.

Get out while the gettin's good! Right?

Great job guys! Don't let the door hit yah...

Will the real Jon S. Corzine please stand up.

That's right, this past Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs that bought his way to the Governor's office to "Save our State" from the crooks and liars running Trenton, seems to have fallen prey to the corruption machine already.

He did little for New Jersey as our state Senator, and is doing less now as Governor. Go figure!

Gov. Corzine's budget stunts just delay day of reckoning

The trouble with Gov. Corzine is you never know which of his two faces is talking.

He came into office saying he would end one-time budget stunts. Page 66 of his new budget lists $301 million in diversions from dedicated funds. But if you throw in the $672 million they're grabbing from the surplus and $668 million in sales tax money they put in reserve that won't exist next year, the grand total of one-shot sources comes to more than $1.6 billion.

Corzine said we desperately needed a one-cent hike in the sales tax last year. Half was put into reserve — and then he allowed the Legislature to blow half of the other part on last-minute items added to the budget. U.S. Attorney Chris Christie is handing out subpoenas to find out who benefited. As a result, the rumor mill is abuzz that the FBI wired a legislator, and as many as 15 "public servants" may go down.

You hear a lot about monetizing state assets — that's like selling or leasing the Turnpike for quick cash. The idea's not going over well, so emphasis shifted to securitizing. That's like using Turnpike tolls as collateral to borrow a boatload of money. That's exactly what got this state into a mess, borrowing massive amounts. That's what Corzine promised to end.

The big ol' property tax rebates are an election-year gimmick to make you think long enough that they've reformed things so you'll re-elect the Legislature, or at least what's left after Christie does his thing. But wait till next year when there are no one-shot fixes. Big-time hurt.

Corzine promised an open, transparent administration in which appointees were vetted and squeaky clean and all would follow a high standard of ethics. Apparently, the rules don't apply to Corzine himself or selected appointees, mostly leftovers from the McGreevey era.

Two audits show the BPU is in sad shape. Corzine looks the other way.

Lobby this: Corzine hired a New York-based lobbyist, Eric Shuffler, for a few of his major speeches. What other U.S. governor would have someone lobbying state government on behalf of private interests serve as his speech writer? The conflict is obvious to all but Corzine.

Transparent? When questioned about the budget speech, Press Secretary Anthony Coley was more oblique than transparent. He said the governor wrote it.

Read full article.

Well it's about damn time this state of New Jersey gets investigated for corruption. If the investigation is honest and accurate most of the politicians in Trenton will end up in jail where they belong.

U.S. attorney says corruption fight goes on

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A day after sending subpoenas to Gov. Jon S. Corzine's office, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie on Thursday vowed to continue combating public corruption no matter where it might be found.

''I do not believe that any public corruption in the state of New Jersey by any public official is acceptable,'' Christie said. ''So whether it is a zoning board member in Monmouth County or whether it's someone high up in state government, and everything in between, no public corruption is acceptable and we're going go after whatever we can find and we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.''

Christie's office has delivered seven subpoenas to the administration as part of an investigation into how the state budget has been developed since 2004, including subpoenas delivered Wednesday to Corzine's office and his chief counsel's office. Corzine's office has said it would cooperate fully.

The grand jury subpoenas request documents relating to grants that have typically been placed in the budget without public review just before the spending plan is adopted. Christie declined to detail the inquiry Thursday, but said, ''I think the public already knows everything it needs to know about the integrity of the budget process.''

Christie has also subpoenaed budget documents from Democratic and Republican legislative leaders and their staff offices.

We the people of NJ are really sick and tired of getting ripped off by these thieves.