Steve Neavling

Saying the 20-year federal ban on sports betting is unconstitutional, New Jersey is challenging the law in hopes of legalizing sports betting at casinos and racing tracks, NJ.com reports.

But the U.S. Department of Justice struck down the argument Friday, saying New Jersey can’t challenge the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, NJ.com reported.

The DOJ intervened on behalf of a lawsuit filed by the National Collegiate Athletics Association and professional leagues – the NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL.

“(The federal law) is a constitutional exercise of congressional authority,” the lawsuit reads, “and it should be upheld.”

New Jersey officials claim the law is unconstitutional because, for one, four states are allowed to bet on sports but the others, including New Jersey, are not.

Steve Neavling

Before FBI agents raided the office a South Florida eye doctor accused of paying for young prostitutes for Sen. Bob Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey helped used his influence to advocate for a $1 billion business for the doctor, the Miami Herald reports.

The Herald wrote that Menendez was urging the Obama administration in July to help Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Palm Beach County eye doctor, intervene in a contract dispute with the Dominican Republic.

According to the Herald, Melgen was hoping to enforce a contract his business won to X-ray Dominican Republic port cargo.

“You have another company that has American investors that … has a contract actually given to it by the — ratified by the Dominican Congress — to do X-ray of all of the cargo that goes through the ports,” Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said at the July 31 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. “And they don’t want to live by that contract either.”

Menedez’s office said the senator did nothing inappropriate.

Steve Neavling

Prominent New Jersey attorney Paul Bergrin, who is accused of using his law firm to commit crimes, including drug trafficking, prostitution and the murder of an FBI informant, is on trial in Newark federal court, Reuters reports. 

The trial began Tuesday and is the prosecution’s second attempt at landing a conviction against Bergrin.

The 57-year-old is charged with 24 counts of charges, including orchestrating the 2004 murder of Kemo DeShawn McCray, an FBI informant who was a witness against one of his clients.

The first trial ended in a hung jury in November 2011.

Steve Neavling

Trenton, N.J. housing projects started under former Mayor Douglas Palmer are the subject of an FBI corruption investigation, the Trenton Times reports.

Developer Robert Kahan, who was involved in all five projects, is named in the subpoena obtained by the Trenton Times.

Palmer, who often used Kahan as a developer, told the Times he has not been contacted by the FBI and believes the probe is directed at Kahan and not the city or him.

The investigation appears to be unrelated to another investigation that led to the indictment of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, who pleaded not guilty to six corruption charges in December.

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Steve Neavling

 Eight New Jersey residents will share $295,000 as part of a settlement in a lawsuit that alleges their homes were raided without warrants, the Associated Press reports

U.S. citizen Ana Galindo said officers pointed a gun at her 9-year-old son during the pre-dawn raids.

The residents filed a lawsuit in 2008 against more than 30 ICE officers involved, the AP reported.

The Center for Constitutional Rights provided legal help.

Mayor Tony Mack

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, who was arrested in September for allegedly extorting bribes from a parking garage developer, is now under fire for carpeting contracts in former city libraries, the Trenton Times reports.

The FBI became suspicious of the carpeting contract after questions were raised in newspapers about Mack’s decision to bypass city council and convert several closed libraries into learning centers, the Trenton Times reported.

“They just wanted to know what was going on. They saw the stuff in the paper,” said Roy Summers, who owns Justin’s Furniture & Carpet, which won a $17,000 contract to re-carpet  a library. “The gist of it was, they were fed up, frustrated with what’s going on in the city of Trenton.”

Summers said Mack’s aide, Anthony Roberts, hand-picked vendors instead of taking bids.

Christopher Christie/campaign photo

What’s a little exaggeration among friends?

The Newark Star-Ledger and PolitiFact called ex-U.S. Attorney turned N.J. Gov. Chris Christie on his exaggeration the other day.

Christie said at a town hall meeting  that as Newark U.S. Attorney he put behind bars  10 percent of the state legislature for various crimes. The figure is actually less than 3 percent, the story says.

“Really?” Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said in an e-mail responding to the challenge by the paper. “Every other person in the audience understood the Governor was making a rhetorical point about his extensive record in combating political corruption as U.S. Attorney and not, as you seem to be suggesting, citing, with great exactitude, some baseball statistic.”

“The Governor was emphasizing, conversationally, the gravity of the corruption which in those years reached into the highest levels of the legislature as well as high-ranking party bosses and operatives, and former legislators across this state – an extensive and politically powerful rogues gallery. Honestly, if you were actually in attendance at the town hall, heard his tone and inflection when he made this remark — and were around in those years in New Jersey — you would know that,” Drewniak said.

Still, the paper wrote, the “governor can make a point about his record on corruption without saying he put 10 percent of the state Legislature in jail. That’s just not true.”

 

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Mayor Roque

Reasons to ‘Recall Roque’, the Mayor of West New York, N.J., seem to be apparent without visiting the website by that name.

For starters, Felix Roque and his 22 year old son Joseph were arrested by the FBI Thursday for allegedly hacking GoDaddy.com, where the anti-Roque website’s domain was registered, reports Politico. The pair allegedly shut down RecallRoque.com, though GoDaddy.com reports no effects to its own infrastructure.

But that’s not all. Politico says the unsealed criminal complaint also accuses the Mayor of making threatening phone calls to the government official in Hudson County, N.J. responsible for the online recall campaign.

The Roques are scheduled to appear in Federal court on Thursday.

The good news is that the internet is a bastion of learning: the Roques apparently learned Hacking-101 for free by surfing the web.

To read more click here.