NYC NOW - June 17, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office unsealed an indictment Monday against unofficial political boss, George Norcross. He and five co-conspirators are accused of racketeering and other crimes. WNYC’s Sean Carlson and Nancy Solomon discuss the latest developments.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We begin in the Garden State, where the man once widely regarded as the most powerful, unelected person in New Jersey, has been indicted. South Jersey Insurance Executive and unofficial political boss, George Norcross, and five associates are being charged with racketeering. The indictment says the longtime Democratic power broker led a quote, criminal enterprise that used threats and extortion to promote business and political interests in his home turf of Camden County,

securing lucrative tax credits and development rights along the Camden waterfront. For more, my colleague Sean Carlson talked with WNYC's Nancy Solomon, who has been covering Norcross for years. She was at the news conference in Trenton Monday when they announced the indictment. Here's their conversation. The man once widely regarded as the most powerful unelected person in New Jersey. Jersey has been indicted. South Jersey Insurance Executive and unofficial political boss, George Norcross, and five associates are being charged by New Jersey's Attorney General with racketeering. The Unitement says the longtime Democratic power broker led a, quote,

criminal enterprise that use threats and extortion to promote business and political interests in his home turf of Camden, securing lucrative tax credits and development rights along the city's waterfront. WNIC's Nancy Solomon has been covering Norcross for years. She was at the news conference, announcing indictment in Trenton today, and she joins us now. Okay, Nancy, let's get right into it. Tell us what's in the indictment. Well, the Attorney General is using RICO, the racketeering laws that were established to take down the mob. Basically, the Attorney General alleges that George Norcross ran what he calls the Norcross Enterprise. And all throughout the indictment, the N, of course, is capitalized, but so is the E.

So he is the chairman of the Norcross Enterprise. And, you know, this is a criminal enterprise, as the Attorney General puts it, and that the enterprise used political power to obtain tax breaks, to influence, manipulate, and retaliate against elected officials, to coerce business people, and ultimately to make money and burnish the reputations of the leaders of this criminal enterprise. Now, you've been covering Norcross, his political and business empire, and the controversial attack breaks on the Camden Waterfront that are at the heart of New Jersey's case here. Did you learn anything new in this indictment?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of detail about the fight that George Norcross was having with a Philadelphia developer named Carl Dronoff. Now, Drenoff held both rights to develop the Camden Waterfront, and he had he had, he had, view rights. So he had a building, a residential apartment building, and he had the rights for his people in his apartment building to have a view of the Delaware River and the city of Philadelphia across the river. And George Norcross and his business associates wanted to build a 15-story tower, office tower, between the Dronoff building and the water, and they tried to get him to give up his rights. Drenov didn't want to or wanted more money for. them than what they were offering. And in the indictment, Norcross is quoted saying to Dron

off, if you F this up, I'll F you up like you've never been Fed up before. I'll make sure you never do business in this town again. So it's as, I mean, it's almost like a B movie with the language. I mean, it's kind of crazy. So, and then there were, you know, so the retaliation is a big part of these charges. There's another interesting detail about how George Northcross didn't want a written agreement about the deal to build the office tower on the Camden waterfront with these two other business partners, allegedly because that would show that they didn't need the tax credits to move to Camden. So the whole point of the state giving away that those tax breaks,

and to Norcross and his allies, it was worth $1.1 billion for him and people connected to him to get these tax breaks. And the whole point of that program was to incentivize businesses to come and invest in Camden. So they couldn't show that they already had a deal to build the 15-story office tower on the Camden waterfront, because if they already had the deal, then why did they need tax breaks to come to Camden? So that was another little interesting addition that I didn't know about. Now, as we said, Norcross is not the only person being charged here by state AG, Matt Placken. Can you tell us more about some of the others and what they're being accused of? Right. So there's Phil Norcross. This is George's brother. He's a lawyer and a lobbyist. And he worked to get many of his clients the tax breaks in Camden that I was just talking about. In fact, he actually helped write the bill that supercharged the tax break program for Camden in the first place. And he also met with top leaders at Camden City Hall every week and gave orders. And he also met with top leaders at Camden City Hall every week and gave orders.

to city staff about development projects, despite having no actual position to do so. I mean, these are things that we had reported on, but now these are part of the indictment. There were two businessmen. I mentioned the Camden Office Tower. There were two businessmen, the owner of NFI Trucking and the owner of the Michael's organization. These are large, big businesses who built the office tower, and each business got a $79 million dollar tax break and then George Norcross's company also got I think it was a little more than 79 maybe 82 million dollar tax break and the three of them went in on the building that building

so the owners of those two are also indicted and then there's Dana Redd she's a former assembly woman and a former mayor of Camden she was a key ally of the Norcross brothers and so she's been indicted as well and then one that I find really quite interesting is Bill Tambusse He's the Norcross lawyer. He's also the lawyer for the city of Camden, the county of Camden, and several other government entities. And by using RICO and defining this as a criminal enterprise, the attorney general is basically saying the Tambusi can't hide behind attorney-client privilege, and he's basically, you know,

and he's being charged. So that was pretty surprising to see. This part, Nancy, blows my mind. It was not just journalists attending today's announcement in Trenton, right? George Norcross himself decided to show up. Did he address the charges at all when he was there? This was really wild. So George Norcross and a bunch of attorneys in their suits came walking into the conference room as we were waiting for the AG to come out and speak to us.

Most of them sat in the empty second row, and George Norcross sat in the empty second row. and George Norcross sat in the front row, and the seats were all reserved, and the, like, AG staff members hadn't come in yet. But apparently that one seat didn't have the reserved piece of paper on it. And at one point, the members of the AG's office came out and tried to get him to move, and he refused. So that was kind of interesting. I asked Mr. Norcross afterwards whether he was trying to intimidate the attorney. General, and he said he had a right to be there. His lawyer tried to ask a question of the AG, but wasn't allowed because they only take questions from reporters. And Attorney General Matt Plattkin

to be making a little bit of a comment about the situation when during his remark, he seemed to go a little off script and say that the public officials have been harassed and intimidated by the Norcross Enterprise when they're just trying to do their jobs and provide. good government service. So, but yeah, it was, it was really crazy to see them there. Now, in our last minute here, Nancy, a lot of these names are familiar with people who follow politics closely in New Jersey, but why does something like this? This scandal mattered to folks in New Jersey who aren't involved in the political goings on?

Yeah, I mean, I would say it matters a lot because George Norcross has been able to exercise power over governors, the state legislature, city council, county commons. county commissioners. And, you know, that tax break we were talking about alone was worth $1.1 billion in taxpayer money. So, you know, and then you have the business people who were extorted allegedly from being able to develop property in Camden. And they're the people of Camden. Like, do they really need this office tower on the Camden waterfront? Or, you know, should the tax break program have been focused on providing residents with more amenities in their city. And then let's not forget the connection that this case has tangentially to the murders of

John and Joyce Sheridan. You know, there were documents on their dining room table when the, you know, the night that they were murdered that were about John Sheridan's fight over a building on the Camden waterfront that the Norcross Enterprise was trying to take a, you know, control of and did take control of. And the Attorney General talked about that today. And so, you know, I think this is very important to everybody in the state. That's WNYC's Nancy Solomon talking with my colleague, Sean Carlson. Nancy's been following this story for years. And in fact, she made a podcast where you can learn a lot more about George Norcross and his backstory. Look for dead end wherever you get podcasts. We're celebrating Pride Month by sharing the voices and experience

of New Yorkers in the LGBTQ-plus community. That's after the break. Throughout this Pride Month, we're spotlighting the diverse experiences of LGBTQ-plus New Yorkers. We recently sat with individuals at the Brooklyn Community Pride Center in Crown Heights

to explore the challenges, triumphs, and the meaning of pride in their lives. My name is Danny Figuero, and I am 24 years old from Brooklyn, New York. I am your local gender-fluid creature. I realized I was queer around like 15, maybe even younger. I was always questioning, like, oh, why could girls do one thing? Why can't boys do one thing?

It's so annoying. Like, leave it, leave it. I could do whatever I want. I love being genuine flu. I love doing what I want. Believe it or not, a friend had to tell me about it, because I was just wondering, dang, sometimes I feel like a girl. Dang, sometimes I feel like a boy.

And I was like, well, I guess this is normal behavior. And the fun was trans. They were a trans guy. And they were like, you know there's a term for them. I'm like, what? So they told me, it was liberating. So there's a sense of like freedom of like, oh yeah, gender is ridiculous. I got a nice group of like trans people get to get along with, especially like other Caribbean people.

Like I'm Puerto Rican, so it's like nice to know there's other queer Latinos out there. So it's just like a sense of camaraderie. Pride is like this idea that you're happy with yourself and that you're living for yourself. without really minding other people's opinions? Because let's be real, everyone judges everyone. Your first initial reaction is to judge someone. It's a thing. The thing that becomes the problem is if you let your judgment carry despite lack of evidence. Or if you get new evidence, like, why are you holding on to that? Like, cut out, cut out, cut out. So just pride in being yourself and pride in knowing that you are a human being and you are worthy of life and that you have to give the

same grace to others too. So other young queer kids out there, one, relax. You don't have to find out everything. One shot. Like, you could take your time. Do not let someone take your agency away from you. And if they try to, find a way to get it back no matter what. You have the time to do that and you are going to live.

I hope everyone has a good pride mark. and just keep being you, okay? Danny Figueroa lives in Brooklyn. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.