The NJ Blog

Malik Cupid, the Corzine administration aide who was caught stealing money from his ex-girlfriend's bank account while she was serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq, will be heading back to court on August 13.

The Westchester County District Attorney's office says that no plea has been reached.

Cupid resigned his $102,350 post as Chief of Staff to New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells on July 2.

Labels: Jon Corzine, Malik Cupid

posted by The Pot @ 1:18 PM  0 comments

"I don't think an elected official that wants to get to someplace for a photo op is appropriate. Legislators having lights and sirens I think is totally inappropriate because there's no reason they would ever have to go to someplace. They can say, "Oh it's my district I have to be there." They aren't going to save lives. They're not first responders. I have a rule with the detectives that drive the car that I use, no lights and sirens unless you check with me and only then if it is a really big."

"If it's a non-emergency situation, we would ask them to obey the traffic laws and obey the speed laws both for the safety of their occupants and the public," Fuentes said.

Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that speed might be justified for a governor racing to respond to a natural disaster, but that “an elected official trying to get a routine appointment would certainly be out of the scope of an emergency definition.”

Gov. Jon Corzine has acknowledged for the first time that, while a candidate for governor in 2005, he gave state workers union leader Carla Katz, his former girlfriend, substantial gifts beyond what he previously disclosed.

The gifts were made to avoid "ongoing financial connections" after their serious, two-year relationship ended in the summer of 2004, Corzine told The Star-Ledger.

Corzine previously said that he forgave a $470,000 mortgage on Katz's home in Hunterdon County, but he had not spoken publicly of other gifts. In an interview Friday he refused to provide the amounts or any other details, but indicated they were more than tokens.

"If you were -- I'm hypothesizing; I'm not stating anything -- if you were going to pay a tuition bill or something over a period of time ... you pre-funded it," Corzine said. "I could have done that."

Asked if he paid for Katz's children to attend the private school where they are enrolled, Corzine demurred. "I'm not saying that at all," he said. "I'm saying you could have." The school in Pennsylvania lists its day-student tuition at $22,000 a year.

Here's how it would work: The state would estimate how much money in tolls would be collected along the turnpike and parkway for the next 15 years.

It would then borrow that amount all at once.

It would pay back the money annually with interest, much like a credit card, student or mortgage loan.

The money would help build schools, improve state colleges, preserve open space, and enhance health care, but Humphreys said tolls would have to increase to help pay interest and guarantee that the loan could be repaid if toll traffic did not meet expectations.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine nominated Evan H.C. Crook of Mount Laurel on Thursday for a Superior Court judgeship in Burlington County.

Crook, 48, is the solicitor for the Burlington County Board of Freeholders. His law career since graduation from Rutgers University Law School in 1987 has focused on the public sector employment law, especially municipal and county government law.

Crook, a Republican, will fill a Republican vacancy on the Superior Court.

The new version of the bill would stop lawyers and engineers from tacking together taxpayer-funded retirement benefits from various local governments. But it carves out an exception for other professionals including health officers, tax collectors and municipal clerks.

It marks the latest of a host of reforms recommended by a special legislative panel last year to fall by the wayside as lawmakers attempt to reach consensus on pension reform.

* * *

Senate President Richard Codey, D-Essex, sponsor of the reform bill introduced Tuesday, said the professionals affected by the new provisions are distinct from lawyers and engineers, in that they generally are direct municipal employees without income from private firms.

But a list compiled last year by state pension officials showed that assessors and other professionals can rack up hefty combined salaries and retirement benefits from multiple public jobs.

When told that six of the 20 highest total paychecks on the list went to people who would be exempted from the new legislation, Codey said that provision might have to be reviewed.

The most highly paid assessor on that list, Edward L. Kerwin, collected a total of $243,124 in salaries from eight communities in Somerset and Hunterdon counties last year.

"New Jersey voters are clearly skeptical that Gov. Corzine and the State Legislature will provide meaningful property tax relief this year. Despite apparent agreement on a plan, only about a third of voters say property tax reform is likely this year and a majority disapprove of the way both the Governor and Legislature are handling the issue," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.