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BRIEFING: If a judge’s gavel falls in a courtroom and no one is there to hear it…
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…the media will tell you it dosen’t make a sound.
Your two options for Fumo news in the papers, wire services, and blogs today is as follows: a) Yes, the trial is still postponed for a week, or b) nothing.
Vincent Fumo III has been picked up posting on his blog, which, as we pointed out last week, is here.
So, yeah. Go spend an extra few minutes at the coffee shop this morning. I’ll have more news and feature posts up today. If I missed something worthwhile, send it in.
For you corruption trial addicts, I can only say I sympathize. Here’s the Star-Ledger’s account of former New Jersey Democratic State Senator Wayne Bryant’s hearings, which are happening in Newark. It’s a pretty interesting case. (”Jersey?!” you ask, “all you have to offer me is Jersey?” Yes, yes it is.)
The Star-Ledger:
At the opening of the federal bribery and fraud trial of former Democratic state senator Wayne Bryant yesterday, prosecutors described how he conspired with a South Jersey medical school dean to funnel millions of dollars in state funding to the school in exchange for Bryant getting a “trumped-up job” that boosted his pension.
Bryant took a job at the School of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and essentially “lobbied himself” as the influential Senate budget committee chairman to ensure the medical school reaped more than $6 million in state grants, Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Drew told the jury of 10 women and seven men in Trenton. Bryant took what prosecutors have referred to as the no-work job as program support coordinator in 2003 for $35,000 a year.
He also made $50,000 as an attorney for the Gloucester County Board of Social Services, where he allegedly delegated work to junior associates in his private law practice. His pension, which he sought in 2006, jumped from $36,000 to $81,000 a year.
“With 20 years in the state pension system, he was going to cash in,” Drew said.
But Carl Poplar, Bryant’s attorney, said there was “nothing nefarious” about his client’s job at the medical school. He performed tasks such as arranging meetings between the school and prominent state officials to expand critical programs benefiting abused children and senior citizens, Poplar said.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
he just wanted to give himself a gift that kept on giving. his attorney doesn’t think it’s nefarious, how about immoral, greedy, unethical, unfair to everyone of his constituents.