Appellate court to decide whether candidates are subject to bribery law - New Jersey Monitor

The question of whether a private citizen seeking political office in New Jersey can legally accept a bribe is now in the hands of a three-judge appellant panel, which heard arguments Monday in the case of ex-Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell.

Prosecutors say O’Donnell, who unsuccessfully campaigned to become Bayonne’s mayor in 2018, accepted $10,000 in a Baskin-Robbins bag from a cooperating witness in exchange for the promise of municipal tax work.

A Superior Court judge in June ruled the Hudson County Democrat could not be charged under the state’s bribery law because he held no public or party post at the time of the alleged bribe. O’Donnell left the Assembly in 2016.

In arguments delivered Monday, Deputy State Solicitor Angela Cai charged the Superior Court judge — and a U.S. District Court judge from an unrelated but similar case — erred in ruling New Jersey’s bribery law applies only to current public officials. O’Donnell’s case relies heavily on the federal judge’s ruling.

“The defendant’s position is illogical,” Cai said. “Under his view, someone could offer an identical bribe to both candidates for the same office, one incumbent and one challenger. If both candidates accept the bribe, under defendant’s view, only the incumbent broke the law.”

The state took a broad view of the statute, arguing it would apply even to undeclared candidates who solicit or accept bribes and charging the law is reciprocal, meaning both the bribe-giver and bribe-taker are culpable.

Leo Hurley, O’Donnell’s attorney, said prosecutors overstepped their bounds and are seeking to rewrite laws set by the Legislature. Hurley noted Assemblyman Greg McGuckin (R-Ocean) has introduced a bill that would explicitly make candidates subject to New Jersey’s bribery law repeatedly for nearly 10 years and, prior to the current session, the Legislature appeared uninterested in updating the statute.

Hurley said the statute as written does not apply to candidates or even officials who have been elected but not sworn into office yet.

“We can call them candidates. We can call them people who live on Avenue A in Bayonne,” Hurley said. “We can call them any number of things, but this statute deals with bribery in official and political matters, and it covers only those individuals defined in the definitions by the statute.”

He added: “The outcome may be distasteful, but sometimes, distasteful outcomes based on how the law is written is eventually what moves the Legislature to take action and change things.”

The law offers definitions for public servants and party officials and says “a person is guilty of bribery if he directly or indirectly offers, confers or agrees to confer upon another, or solicits, accepts or agrees to accept from another” a benefit as consideration for an official act.

The law stipulates that a bribe-taker’s inability to fulfill their end of an illicit bargain because they had not taken office — or for any other reason — is not a valid defense.

“Defendant wants to pretend that certain aspects of the statute simply don’t exist or that different language exists instead,” Cai said.

The legislative fix

McGuckin first introduced his bill amending the bribery statute in 2012 after a federal judge dismissed charges lodged under the state’s bribery statute against former Assemblyman Louis Manzo. The judge who tossed the charges said Manzo could not be charged with bribery because he was a private citizen running to become Jersey City’s mayor when he was accused of accepting a bribe from a confidential informant.

The Manzo ruling drew little legislative interest to the issue, and McGuckin’s bill remained without as much as a committee hearing for nearly a decade.

It gained a Senate sponsor, Sen. Joe Cryan (D-Union), at the tail end of the previous legislative session, but it did not reach committee until this year.

The Assembly State and Local Committee unanimously approved McGuckin’s bill on Thursday, and the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared it in a one-sided vote Monday.

Though the upper-chamber panel unanimously backed the bill, Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex) voiced concerns that the bill’s language is imprecise.

“I think the language needs to be sharpened up,” he said. “Everybody, I think, is going to agree that if you’re someone taking a bribe, you should pay the penalty, but I think the way in which it’s defined in the bill is a little on the shaky side.”

The bill is due for a full vote in the Assembly on Thursday. As of Monday afternoon, the bill was not on the agenda for the Senate’s Thursday session.

source: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2022/03/21/appellate-court-to-decide-whether-candidates-are-subject-to-bribery-law/

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