The Changing Face of ORGANIZED CRIME IN NEW JERSEY – A Status Report – State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation 2004 Report
ORGANIZED CRIME AND CORRUPTION

At its worst, organized crime teams up with public officials, including police, to create powerfully linked criminal forces severely challenging the control efforts of law- abiding citizens and honest officials. First Assistant United States Attorney Marra testified that in his opinion government institutions, law enforcement networks and political processes are less vulnerable to infiltration and corruption by organized crime than in previous decades:
Over the years, I think that has lessened. That’s certainly one indication to me that that problem is less of a problem now. We still, of course, seem to pick up a case or two every few years. I can think of the [Mayor and State Senator William] Musto [racketeering] case [involving payoffs permitting huge cost overruns on school construction contracts] in Union City, and as recently as the [Mayor Milton] Milan case [involving] … a very clear link between organized crime figures and public officials and a manipulation of the political process. But I would say those cases seem to be the exception these days rather than the rule, which is, I think, good for all of us. That’s been our observation at the federal level.

The trend toward less organized crime influence over public officials could easily take a turn for the worse as non-traditional syndicates seek to gain allies in government and as vast sums of gambling and drug money are used to tempt police and other government officials. New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice Director Vaughn L. McKoy described an example of non-traditional organized crime corrupting an important state government function:
… [A]t the state level, we saw in June ’02, the Division of Criminal Justice brought eight indictments against 30 individuals, some of whom were [Division of Motor Vehicles] employees, where we had brokers from South American and Central American countries who basically bribed DMV employees for false identification documents, and then turned around and sold those for identification documents on the street for financial profit. So I do think that we are vulnerable in those areas, particularly where … DMV clerks … don’t make a lot of money. And if someone approaches them and suggests, “Hey, look, I’ll give you $1,500 if you provide me with some false identification documents, … they do it. And then those documents are sold on the street for maybe five or ten thousand dollars, depending on what the market is asking for at that particular point in time. So I do think that there are some vulnerabilities there. However, with some of the techniques that we’re using to combat this issue, to get into some of the agencies where we see there is a pattern, we’ve been able to successfully root out this, and hopefully, we can eliminate it.

Although New Jersey, by and large, is blessed with honest and professional police forces, the tremendous temptations presented by the drug-trafficking cash cow can easily lead to instances of police corruption. The Commission’s public hearing, for example, highlighted the West New York Police Department’s tolerance during the 1990s of video gambling supported by organized criminals. Police can slip easily into such dishonesty when, as is often the case with gambling, they decide the crime is victimless. Similarly, if police deem drug trafficking to be inevitable and uncontrollable, they may embrace it corruptly, especially when the monetary temptation is great.

Return to the SCI 2004 Report Main Menu