Guilty Plea Expected From Former Senate Leader in Trenton
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By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: September 15, 2006
TRENTON, Sept. 14 — A former New Jersey Senate president whose political machine made him the state’s most influential figure is scheduled to appear on Friday in federal court, where he is expected to plead guilty to charges of tax evasion and misusing his public office to enrich his own business, lawyers involved in the case said on Thursday.
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John A. Lynch Jr., the former president of New Jersey’s Senate.
At the height of his power, the Democratic boss, John A. Lynch Jr., served as political mentor to a little-known state senator named James E. McGreevey, whom he guided to the governor’s office in 2001.
At the heart of his criminal case are business deals in 1998 and 1999, the lawyers said.
The tax evasion charges reportedly stem from a commission, or “success fee,” that Mr Lynch and his business partner, Jack Westlake, received for the sale of a property on Route 1 in Middlesex County in 1999. Mr. Westlake received a $350,000 commission that he did not declare as income, his lawyer, John Whipple, said, and he will plead guilty to a single count of tax evasion, which carries a sentence of at least 10 months in prison.
Mr. Lynch declined to return calls requesting comment about the case. But others familiar with the plea negotiations said that Mr. Lynch failed to declare income of more than $30,000 from that transaction, and that he will plead guilty to tax evasion.
People involved in the case said that the corruption charge against Mr. Lynch involved a business deal in 1998, when he was still Senate president, but no other details were available. Mr. Lynch is expected to face a prison sentence of 33 to 41 months, lawyers involved in the negotiations said.
The indictment of Mr. Lynch — who is widely referred to as one of New Jersey’s five major Democratic Party bosses — is a major achievement for the United States attorney, Christopher J. Christie.
Mr. Christie, a former Republican fund-raiser, had no experience in criminal investigations when he took the post in 2001, but his office has won a wide assortment of corruption convictions against Democratic and Republican officials alike, a record that has made many of his party leaders urge him to run for statewide office.
Mr. Christie declined to discuss the case, and his press office would not confirm any details about the court appearance, which is scheduled to take place before Judge Stanley R. Chesler of Federal District Court.
Mr. Lynch, 67, has often bristled at the term "party boss," a phrase that does not capture his intellect (he finished fifth in his class at Georgetown Law School) or the policy expertise that made him a widely respected expert on urban renewal. Although he was frequently criticized for mixing politics and business and for his close relationship with real estate developers, Mr. Lynch has long insisted that he never misused his position.
’The state has to have some development, so you try to achieve a balance," he told The New York Times in an interview late last year. "That’s why I’m proud of what I’m doing."
As mayor of New Brunswick from 1979 to 1991, he was credited with reviving the blighted city. Mr. Lynch then moved to the State Senate, where he won respect for his skill at balancing politics, policy and fiscal restraint. In 1990, he followed in his father’s footsteps and was elected Senate president.
Mr. Lynch was also quick to realize that money was the fuel of modern politics, and his skill at raising it gave him vast political reach and won him access to business leaders, diplomats and powerful Washington Democrats.
After seeing Democrats run out of power in Trenton by a voter backlash to Gov. Jim Florio’s tax increases, Mr. Lynch honed his fund-raising skills and methodically plotted the party’s comeback strategy.
He stepped down from his State Senate seat in 2000 but continued to work behind the scenes, and by November 2001, when his protégé Mr. McGreevey was elected governor, Democrats one again controlled both the executive branch and the State Legislature.
But the investigation that led to his legal woes stemmed from a billboard deal that occurred a month before Mr. McGreevey took office.
In 2002, federal authorities began investigating whether Mr. McGreevey’s chief of staff and chief counsel used their positions on the transition team to inflate the value of a billboard company they later sold at a profit.
No criminal charges have ever been filed for the billboard deal itself, but a consulting firm called Executive Continental — owned by Mr. Lynch and Mr. Westlake — made a profit from the transaction, leading federal investigators down the trail that led to the charges against the two men. |
