Court filings show Justice Department declines to file charges against George Norcross in 2023

Federal authorities in Philadelphia tapped George Norcross’s phones for months in 2016 as part of a wide-ranging investigation into his relationship with the Philadelphia labor leader. John DoughertyThe allegations include suspected money laundering involving raising money for a concert during the Democratic National Convention and potential abuse of New Jersey’s tax credit program, according to court filings released Wednesday.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office ultimately did not file any charges and decided last year not to pursue a federal case.

“Based on the available admissible evidence, applicable law, the likelihood of a successful trial, and a review of the office’s prosecutorial standards, we believe this matter should not be the subject of federal prosecution,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney KT Newton. he wrote in an April 2023 letter to one of the FBI agents handling the case.

That letter and hundreds of pages of documents detailing the agents’ closed investigation were released Wednesday as part of a court filing filed by one of Norcross’s co-defendants in the state’s racketeering case against the New Jersey power broker and five key allies.

Although the existence of the previous federal investigation and the FBI tapping Norcross’ phone Reported by The Inquirer as early as 2018Documents filed Wednesday reveal for the first time what caught the FBI’s interest.

“The intercepted phone calls also revealed Norcross’ influence on many New Jersey politicians,” FBI Special Agent Jason Blake wrote in a July 2016 affidavit supporting a partially redacted wiretap application.

The documents made public Wednesday did not show whether and how the investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia developed in the years between the 2016 wiretaps and the decision to officially close the case last year.

Still, Norcross, an insurance executive, Cooper University Health Care board chairman and longtime Democratic leader in South Jersey, argued that the decision by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia not to file an indictment exposed significant weaknesses at the heart of New Jersey. The current case of Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin.

Grand jury indicted Norcross and five co-defendants in June for allegedly using them in connection with blackmail and other crimes. Threats and intimidations from rival developers to acquire valuable waterfront real estate in Camden. They all pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to throw out the case. The indictment Platkin announced in June was based in part on some of the same wiretap evidence collected during the earlier investigation.

Lee Vartan and Jeffrey S. Chiesa, attorneys for Norcross’s co-defendant William Tambussi, said in a statement: “It was only the Attorney General who had a different ‘opinion’ based on the exact same evidence.” “There is only one conclusion to be drawn: The Attorney General values ​​headlines over prosecutorial standards.”

In Wednesday’s filings, Tambussi’s lawyers said they had received only some of the FBI’s wiretapping applications from the 2016 investigation, which they included in their motion. They sought to gain full access to these documents so that he and others could prepare to defend themselves in the racketeering case. Some of the same FBI agents and U.S. attorneys involved in the earlier federal investigation are now working as part of Platkin’s prosecution team, they noted.

“The principal evidence before the grand jury…was wiretaps obtained from federal wiretaps authorized by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District Courts of New Jersey. Tambussi’s attorneys wrote that more than five months after the State returned the indictment, the Defendants were deprived of their underlying wiretapping applications and affidavits. “Worse still, it is completely unclear when, or even if, the defendants will obtain this discovery.”

A spokesman for the AG’s Office said: “We disagree with the application and will respond publicly in the case file.”

While Platkin’s case covers the same time period and many of the same issues, including New Jersey’s tax credit program and Camden waterfront redevelopment, it differs significantly from some of the areas of focus laid out in the FBI’s wiretap affidavits.

The affidavits show how the federal investigation has grown, at least in part, from an existing probe into Philadelphia labor leader Dougherty, who was convicted in 2021 and 2023 on bribery and embezzlement charges. sentenced to six years in prison.

Authorities had been tapping Dougherty’s phone for more than a year, records show; On June 10, 2016, a federal judge signed a wiretapping order authorizing agents to listen to Norcross’ communications for the first time. Norcross remained a wiretapping target for at least two more applications in July and October of that year.

Agents told the judge they were investigating Norcross’ fundraising for a Lady Gaga concert during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July 2016 and were also looking into contributions from the group led by Dougherty. Local 98 FBI agent Blake, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, told the judge he believed Norcross was trying to “conceal the source of the money” and may have been involved in money laundering.

Additionally, the representative wrote, there is probable cause to believe that the intercepted communications show “official acts that Dougherty caused to be taken on behalf of George Norcross and any items of value provided to Dougherty in return.”

Authorities said they hope to learn more about Norcross’s involvement in Philadelphia-based Liberty Property Trust’s development of the Camden waterfront and whether Dougherty used his influence on the Delaware River Port Authority board to help Norcross obtain the land he owns. financial interest according to the declaration.

As of October 2016, investigators focused on Norcross and his business partners’ plans to apply for New Jersey tax credits to finance construction of an office tower and apartment complex in Camden. Investigators wanted to know whether Norcross made false statements to the state when applying for tax credits, FBI Special Agent Stephen Rich wrote in another wiretap application.

To obtain court permission to wiretap a person’s phone, investigators must show only probable cause, not evidence that a crime has been committed. And it is not uncommon for agents to abandon certain investigative theories or find that they are not supported by additional evidence after approval is obtained and the investigation continues. The files released Wednesday do not show what evidence, if any, the agents uncovered through wiretaps to support the theories they put forward to the judge.

Ultimately, but Norcross was not charged in connection with the Dougherty cases and his name was not mentioned in the labor leader’s hearings. With a letter from Newton last year, federal prosecutors closed their separate investigation into Norcross. His lawyers have denied any wrongdoing and cited the lack of any federal charges against him as a sign that he did nothing wrong.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey also looked into the tax credit issue with the help of FBI agent Rich, and in 2018 prosecutors told Norcross’ attorney Michael Critchley in a letter that they were closing the investigation.

This wasn’t the end of the story.

“Mr. Rich determinedly crossed the river and continued his investigation with the assistance of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,” Tambussi attorney Vartan wrote in his filing Wednesday.

According to the file, the state attorney general’s investigation began in 2019. According to the filing, several federal prosecutors and investigators in Philadelphia — including Rich and Newton, who wrote the 2023 letter closing the Philadelphia investigation — were designated as special state agents who report to the AG’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. Some continue to work as part of Platkin’s prosecution team.

“Although the ‘available admissible evidence’ was not sufficient to meet the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s ‘prosecution standards,’ the same evidence was clearly sufficient to meet the Attorney General’s much lower ‘prosecution standards,'” Vartan and Vartan wrote. others wrote, citing the language used in the 2023 letter.