Top Democratic power broker is charged with racketeering

“Instead of contributing to the successes of the city of Camden,” Platkin said as he announced the charges, Norcross led a “criminal enterprise” that “took the Camden waterfront all for themselves.”

The indictment accuses Norcross of bullying rival developers who were also trying to capitalize on a push to revitalize the waterfront in Camden, a poor city outside Philadelphia long plagued by violent crime.

“Are you threatening me?” one developer asked, according to a recorded telephone call mentioned in the indictment.

“Absolutely,” Norcross replied.

Norcross’ brother, Philip A. Norcross, CEO of a Camden-based law firm, and the city’s former mayor, Dana L. Redd, were also charged with racketeering in the first degree, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

On Monday afternoon, George Norcross, 68, who now lives in Florida, showed up, uninvited, to a news conference Platkin held in Trenton, New Jersey.

Dressed in a suit and loafers without socks, he stared from the front row of the room as the attorney general described the charges contained in a 111-page indictment.

Norcross’ team of lawyers and at least one co-defendant, William Tambussi, a lawyer who has represented Norcross and the city of Camden, sat behind him.

Soon after, in an impromptu news conference, Norcross accused Platkin of carrying out a personal vendetta, calling him a “coward” and a “politician masquerading as an attorney general.”

“He’s innocent,” his lawyer, Michael Critchley, added. “He’s not afraid of the accusations.”

Kevin H. Marino, a lawyer for Philip Norcross, called the allegations “bogus” and said Platkin had been “blindsided by his own ambition.”

The charges against George Norcross, a feared political survivor, immediately served to further tarnish the already blemished reputation of New Jersey politics.

The state’s senior senator, Democrat Bob Menendez, is in his sixth week of a corruption trial, charged by federal prosecutors with accepting cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for doling out favors for allies.

Norcross, who was a member of the Democratic National Committee until 2021, was for decades the most powerful unelected political official in New Jersey.

He formed alliances that often blurred the lines between the Democratic and Republican parties. For years he was both a close friend of the former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and a member of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.

By donating generously to political campaigns and assembling an ironclad voting bloc of South Jersey lawmakers, he was instrumental in selecting governors, steering bills through the Legislature and influencing state policy.

About a year ago, Norcross suggested he was stepping back from politics after a series of embarrassing legislative defeats.

His public statements coincided with news reports that the attorney general’s office had revived its investigation into more than $1 billion in tax breaks awarded to South Jersey companies through legislation backed by former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and close ally of Norcross.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, center, discusses racketeering and other charges against influential Democratic power broker George Norcross, sitting in the front row, right, with white hair, Monday, June 17, 2024, in Trenton, N.J. (AP Photo)

Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, had railed against that tax incentive program during his first term and sparred openly with Norcross — tension that defined much of his first two years in office.

Platkin was Murphy’s chief counsel when the state began investigating the program, the Economic Opportunity Act of 2013, and was later tapped as attorney general.

Crafted with help from a well-connected Democratic lawyer, the program gave out nearly $7 billion in tax breaks but provided few guardrails to protect the state against fraud.

Controversy over the corporate tax breaks prompted legislative hearings and subpoenas to companies and at least one state agency, but charges were never filed.

Platkin, Norcross said, carried his “agenda” with him to the attorney general’s office, where he “forced people in his building to implement his will.”

The friction between Norcross and the Murphy administration peaked in 2019, when Sue Altman, then the leader of the left-leaning Working Families Alliance and closely aligned with the governor, was forcibly removed from a standing-room-only hearing on corporate tax breaks after troopers indicated she had caused a disruption.

She was led past Norcross, who was at the hearing to testify in support of the economic incentive program that Altman had criticized harshly.

Altman, a Democrat who is now running for Congress against Rep. Tom Kean, called the indictment “monumental.”

“Like Donald Trump,” she said in a statement, “George Norcross and his South Jersey cronies are finding out that breaking the law for personal gain has consequences.”

The feud between Murphy and Norcross began to ease as the governor was running for reelection in 2021. Murphy signed off on his own $14 billion tax incentive package in late 2020, and he and Norcross began appearing together in public, a scenario that for years was unheard-of.

Last year, as Murphy’s wife, Tammy Murphy, was vying to run for U.S. Senate, the Camden County Democratic Committee, an influential group controlled by Norcross, was one of the first political organizations to back her.

The endorsement came at a crucial time for Murphy, a first-time candidate, helping to bestow an air of inevitability to her campaign.

Murphy dropped out of the race in March, days before a crucial building block of Norcross’ success — a practice unique to New Jersey in which party leaders gave preferential treatment to their favored candidates on primary election ballots — was declared unconstitutional, first by Platkin and then by a federal judge.

As a result, Platkin’s relationship with Murphy, once one of his closest allies, has since frayed.

On Monday, in an odd twist to an already stunning series of events, Norcross heaped praise on Murphy, his former archenemy who in 2019 he called a politically incompetent “liar” who “thinks he’s the king of England” in an interview with a reporter for nj.com.

He said the governor had been “incredibly supportive” and “generous” toward the city of Camden.

A spokesperson for Murphy said the governor had no comment about the indictment.

In addition to Norcross and his brother, the others charged are:

— Tambussi, 66, of Brigantine, New Jersey, the longtime personal lawyer for Morcross.

— Redd, 56, of Sicklerville, New Jersey, chief executive officer of Camden Community Partnership and former mayor of Camden.

— Sidney R. Brown, 67, of Philadelphia, chief executive of NFI, a trucking and logistics company.

— John J. O’Donnell, 61, of Newtown, Pennsylvania, who has been in the executive leadership of the Michaels Organization, a residential development company.

Tambussi, who was part of the large group that joined Norcross, Critchley and Marino at Platkin’s news conference, said he was “proud of the work” he had done for the city of Camden.

“I kind of wonder why I’m here,” he added.