Riccio to write book: "It's my turn to punch back"

by: Jason Springer

Wed Feb 11, 2009 at 12:45:00 PM EST

Rocco Riccio, a self-described former "street thug," is trying to publish a book about his one-time friendship with Gov. Corzine, promising to expose details of the governor's breakup with former labor leader Carla Katz.

Riccio, who is married to Katz's sister Genise, blames the governor for ending his state career, for trouble in his personal life, and for financial ruin, according to an outline and partial rough draft of the untitled book.

Riccio bitterly describes Corzine's staff members as "harsh," calling them "henchmen" who coldly destroyed him because he was "no longer a valued asset for the governor's political ambitions."

"It is my turn to punch back by telling the truth," he declares in his opening chapter.

In the book proposal, he recounts a scene in which Katz had Corzine, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and former Gov. Jim McGreevey lift the Torah at her son's bar mitzvah.

However, Booker and Corzine were not at the event, and it was her daughter's bat mitzvah, not her son's bar mitzvah. Neither Riccio nor his wife was at the bat mitzvah.