The NJ Blog

In a letter sent Wednesday, Gov. Corzine's chief counsel, Stuart Rabner, directed First Assistant Attorney General Anne Milgram to hand the probe to a retired state appellate judge from Atlantic County, Richard J. Williams.

"Both the public and the attorney general are entitled to an independent, thorough, and expeditious review of this incident," Rabner's letter said, "to determine whether the attorney general sought or received favored treatment, and whether any person involved in this matter violated the law."

Farber said last week that on Friday, May 26, she was in Newark when she received a call from her boyfriend, Hamlet Goore, who sought help emptying a car before police had it impounded.

Farber said she told her trooper driver to take her to the scene, which was 13 miles away in Fairview, Bergen County. She said the trooper did not use the siren, and she did not know if he employed the flashing lights to clear the path.

Farber said she arrived to encounter Fairview's mayor, Vincent Belluci. Local police later allowed Goore, whose license had been suspended, to proceed without impounding his unregistered van.

Previously Farber had called it "absurd" that her presence, with a trooper and in a State Police car, might affect a local police officer's decision-making.

Rabner's letter said, "Media accounts report that one or more tickets were issued and voided."

posted by The Pot @ 3:49 PM