Quote of the Day: Corrupt People edition

by: Jason Springer

Sat Mar 01, 2008 at 12:45:44 PM EST

Yesterday, Robert Stears was sentenced to 27 months in prison for his role in the routine over billing of the Burlington County Bridge Commission to the tune of $2.7 million. All along, I've been asking if the other shoe would drop as i felt Stears was the fall guy and yesterday he all but confirmed that before the judge...

But before sentencing, he told Judge Jerome Simandle that he was forced to contribute between $3,000 and $4,000 every month to the Republican Party as a condition of keeping his lucrative contract with the bridge commission.
"I got sucked into a group of corrupt people," Stears said. "I allowed myself to engage in fraudulent schemes."
"The contributions were mostly in Burlington County, but there were other contributions they would ask us to make."
"You're saying that money was paid back in political contributions that wouldn't otherwise have existed?" Simandle asked.
"Yes," Stears responded, adding that "I wish my case were unique, but it's not."

I wonder who directed him to make those contributions and who benefited from the money donated, possibly his partner and GOP State Chair Tom Wilson, County boss Glenn Paulsen or Ms. No-Show Job herself Martha Bark? Paging U.S. Attorney Christie...

Jason Springer :: Quote of the Day: Corrupt People edition

Tags: QOTD, Burlington County Bridge Commission, Tom Wilson, Strategy Group, Glenn Paulsen, Burlco GOP, (All Tags)

Print Friendly View

Send As Email

Quote of the Day: Corrupt People edition | 2 comments

Evidence of Partisanship? (4.00 / 2)

Everyone knew that the Burlco Bridge folks were corrupt, and Stears was the one thrown under the bus.

If Stears told the judge about the forced contributions (which, according to ELEC records were not made in Stears' name) then he would have told the FBI and the US Attorney about them. Part of why he got only 27 months was because he agreed to tell all.

Stears plead guilty in November 2006, giving Christie 16 months to put together a case for these obviously illegal Republican kickback scheme.

Yet there's nothing yet. Christie is either going to spend part of this Presidential and Congressional election year announcing major charges against Burlington County and State GOP leaders based on Stears comments, or he is going to let it go.

I wonder which way it will go?

by: huntsu @ Sat Mar 01, 2008 at 19:10:44 PM UTC

Cristie Could Have Had A Thousand Convictions... (0.00 / 0)

.....since he took office; if he wasn't just a partisan hack.

Robert Stears is just the tip of a very large and bipartisan iceberg.

The whole SYSTEM is corrupted by dirty money. Most of that corruption is actually legalized; but a truly aggressive application of even existing laws (including the federal RICO statutes) would have easily netted a thousand "fish" (or maybe "canaries" might be a better metaphor).

Everything we talk about here; everything is in some form or another affected by or outright determined by who benefits and who loses MONEY! And the interests/individuals with the most money to slosh into the system get the results they want, with rare exceptions.

This is not sustainable indefinitely. More and more shit will be hitting more and more fans until we really clean up the mess or the state of NJ collapses into chaos or some kind of authoritarian regime (actually that applies to the whole of the USA too).

What we have here is not some kind of mildly harmful parasitism; but a toxic tumor feeding off of the body politic that can't stop itself, and can only be removed by the force of lots of searingly bright light, lots of scalpels and lots of tough love.

by: Nick Lento @ Mon Mar 03, 2008 at 19:29:26 PM UTC