McGreevey, Chapter 2
By JEFF PILLETS,
Bergen Record (NorthJersey.com) from the Web, August 7, 2005
In the coldest and loneliest winter
of his life, Jim McGreevey went off to the poorest corner of Appalachia in
search of a story.
He spent two days in a place called War, a faded West Virginia mining hamlet
whose 900 or so remaining residents like to plan their days around the 90-minute
drive to Wal-Mart.
He told the people of War that he was traveling to the Mississippi delta, the
forgotten Indian reservations and the barrios of East Los Angeles to write down
the stories of America's neediest people.
Before New Jersey's ex-governor left town, the dignitaries of War and McDowell
County feted him to a dinner of turkey casserole with all the trimmings.
When McGreevey drove off, one or two ladies cried.
"I kept thinking to myself, 'What a waste. What a terrible waste,''' said
52-year-old Marcia Timpson, a lifelong resident who is in charge of education
programs at the community center. "How could such a wonderful, caring,
talented man be out in the cold when there is so much that government needs to
do?''
Friends say McGreevey's Appalachian sojourn, and his plan to write an oral
history of poverty in America, are only the first steps back from the bitter
exile he entered after announcing his resignation one year ago this week in a
gay sex scandal.
By the end of summer, they say, McGreevey will accept a high-profile job with a
nationally known public policy organization. Without naming any names,
McGreevey's friends say anti-poverty groups, childhood education foundations,
even stem cell advocates, are all vying for the services of New Jersey's 51st
governor.
In addition to his ongoing writings on poverty, which McGreevey hopes to publish
in a major magazine, the ex-governor has sold his memoirs to tell-all imprint
Regan Books of Manhattan. The deal, announced last week, will bring
McGreevey a six-figure advance for the gubernatorial confession.
McGreevey also will assume a much more visible role in the gay community.
Laura Pople, president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition, says she and
McGreevey are working on a plan to create counseling programs for school-aged
lesbians and gays.
"Jim's coming out is encouraging many young people who were too afraid to do the
same,'' Pople said. "They need support.''
Since leaving office Nov. 15, McGreevey has struck up a close friendship with
David Mixner, the Bill Clinton friend and wealthy Democratic donor Newsweek
magazine called "the most powerful gay man in America.'' McGreevey has
also grown close to Scott Widmeyer, the media consultant and gay rights advocate
who specializes in helping old politicians segue into the post-electoral world.
Widmeyer's famous clients include Walter Mondale, Jay Rockefeller and New
Jersey's own Thomas H. Kean.
"Jim's been through some rough times but he's put his life back together and
he's going to be unstoppable,'' Widmeyer said in an interview last week.
"He's getting ready to reclaim his life."
McGreevey did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.
A new Comeback Kid?
McGreevey's life in recent weeks has been a blur of activity as he prepares for
his comeback. He's traveled to Washington, D.C., for discussions with
national and international labor union leaders and met with openly gay U.S. Rep.
Barney Frank to talk about Democratic politics. Back in New Jersey, he sat
down with Kean to talk about the delicate process of returning to private life.
There have been meetings with his publisher, contracts to read, job offers to
consider, an outline for the poverty piece. Friends say McGreevey has been
deeply moved by his long conversations with America's poor, whom he believes are
in danger of being forgotten by the political establishment.
"In some ways Jim McGreevey is the same guy that he always was. Constantly
busy, constantly consumed with public service -- the guy's always making plans
to do good somewhere,'' says Sen. Ray Lesniak, the ex-governor's longtime friend
and mentor.
"But after all the pain he's been through, he's really a changed man at heart.
This time around, you're going to see a Jim McGreevey with some different
priorities."
McGreevey, a former altar boy from a staunch Irish Catholic family, has always
been a regular churchgoer. But Lesniak said his protégé has undergone "a
profound spiritual transformation'' and now attends weekly prayer meetings,
partakes in church focus groups and spends time doling out food at a soup
kitchen in Newark.
As the Democratic leader of Union County and chief partner in one of the state's
savviest law firms, Lesniak is a powerful political boss who has sponsored the
careers of countless councilmen and freeholders. McGreevey, a former
Woodbridge mayor, traces his party pedigree directly to Lesniak and other
Central Jersey kingmakers like retired state Sen. John Lynch.
McGreevey even worked for Lesniak's law firm, briefly, after he resigned.
But when news leaked that McGreevey was doing legal work on issues he championed
as governor, he was forced to quit to quiet critics who said he had a conflict
of interest.
Several sources say McGreevey received a generous severance package from Lesniak.
Lesniak declined to comment on this.
These days, Lesniak says, politics takes a back seat to prayer when he gets
together with McGreevey.
"I'd say the primary thing we talk about is the spirit, how to keep God as the
most important thing in your life," Lesniak said. "Sometimes we just open
up some Scripture and start to read.
"Jim knows he let his ambition get out of hand before," he added. "I don't
think you'll see that happen again because he has learned how to put balance in
his life. He will never again allow himself to slip as low as he was."
Shocking revelation
On Aug. 12, 2004, James E. McGreevey stepped before a room full of television
cameras in Trenton and announced that he was "a gay American." With his
stunned wife and stone-faced drill sergeant father at his side, McGreevey
explained how his political ambitions had forced him to conceal his attraction
to men and create the trappings of a heterosexual lifestyle acceptable to Garden
State voters.
There was more. Someone else knew his secret and was prepared to act in a
way that would hurt him and the office of governor. McGreevey said he had
no choice but to resign.
McGreevey's own aides later identified the other man as a young Israeli national
named Golan Cipel, a public-relations man McGreevey had met four years earlier
during a trip to the Holy Land. McGreevey brought Cipel to the United
States and gave him a $110,000-a-year job as his top adviser on homeland
security, despite his lack of qualifications. "He's my eyes and ears,''
the governor said in February 2002.
What really happened between McGreevey and Cipel remains a mystery. Cipel
claimed he is a straight man who was sexually harassed by his powerful patron.
But after the scandal broke he returned to Israel without filing a threatened
lawsuit against the governor.
McGreevey and those around him claimed his relationship with Cipel was
consensual and that the Israeli was threatening to blackmail him for $5 million.
But McGreevey has never explained exactly why the relationship forced him to
leave office.
There had to be more to the story, many wondered, more dirt that McGreevey was
concealing. If he had told the whole truth about Cipel and his homosexual
secrets, why would he be forced to leave office? One year later, the full
story about McGreevey's maneuverings to protect Cipel, find him a job, a visa
and a place to stay remains unknown.
How Jim McGreevey managed to pursue men while being a married father also is a
tantalizingly open question.
The public is not likely to get answers from U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie,
the aggressive corruption-buster who promised to probe "all aspects" of the
Cipel affair. While Christie's office declined to comment on the status of
its investigation, several sources close to the inquiry said it turned up
nothing criminal and no suggestion that Cipel was trying to blackmail McGreevey.
After the scandal broke last summer, one federal source said, FBI agents who
traveled to Israel found a frightened Cipel who was so afraid of being arrested
he refused to come to the U.S. Embassy to be interviewed.
"We had to interview him in his parents' apartment," the source said.
Cipel's whereabouts in Israel remain a closely held secret. Neither of his
U.S. lawyers, Allen Lowy and Paul Battista, would discuss Cipel's movements.
Meir Nitzan, the mayor of Cipel's hometown of Rishon Lezion and a former
employer of Cipel's, said he had seen or heard nothing of Cipel for a year.
"He's not living in my city anymore,'' Nitzan said.
A 'humiliated' wife
But by everyone's account, Jim McGreevey does need family. And friends say
the genuine joy of his shattered life is his 3-year-old daughter, Jacqueline.
McGreevey sees her almost every Sunday, when he picks her up for church and
breakfast.
Jacqueline came into the world just days after McGreevey won election in a
landslide in November 2001. It was because of Jacqueline that the state
finally had to remove the lead paint in the antiquarian governor's mansion,
where McGreevey and his wife, the former Dina Matos, settled in as the first
couple to use the official residence in Princeton since the Florios.
It was a touching picture, a handsome and energetic young governor, his shy and
comely Portuguese wife who had been born and raised in Newark's Ironbound
section, and a beautiful baby girl.
But Mrs. McGreevey, who married Jim just a year earlier after an awkwardly
quick-paced romance, did not know she was a conjugal prop in her husband's
elaborate ruse. Several friends of the fractured first family -- the pair
split after McGreevey came out -- say Dina was blindsided by the news that she
was married to a gay man.
That is why Mrs. McGreevey, to this day, does not speak to the ex-governor,
friends say.
"It's so, so sad,'' said one family friend. "This woman was completely
humiliated. Jim just made a fool of her. He told all his political
buddies he was gay before he told her. She was the last to find out about
Golan.''
Several sources close to McGreevey said Dina, who now lives with Jacqueline in a
modest ranch home in Springfield, is determined to exact a measure of
humiliation on her estranged spouse through the last weapon she has: the
divorce papers.
While no papers have yet been filed, sources said Mrs. McGreevey is playing
hardball and has threatened to release all sorts of juicy personal details about
the ex-governor's doings.
"It's going to be nuclear,'' said one source.
Dina McGreevey did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.
McGreevey now makes his home in a spacious $2,600-a-month rented apartment at
River Place, a condominium complex tucked between the river and train station in
downtown Rahway.
He can be spotted running on the river dike some mornings or walking with his
old friend Jim Kennedy, the owner of a jewelry store not two blocks from
McGreevey's apartment.
Some nights he goes to the Irish pub and steakhouse on Main Street. In the
mornings he stops downtown for a paper or walks down East Cherry Street to the
Beat Café for a coffee and croissant.
"He comes in with his friends or his sister and sits talking to people," said
Joe Levi, a worker at the café. "He's like a rock star, people always
coming up to say hello or pat him on the shoulder."
"I think he's a great guy," added Levi. "I wish he'd move to Manhattan and
run for mayor. He'd get things done."
For a while after his resignation, friends say, McGreevey was very depressed and
spent hours alone thinking about his life and his values. They say he
fought off pangs of guilt about Dina and his broken family, about the end of a
storybook political career, about the embarrassment he caused to his father, a
retired Marine.
He was also angry, friends say, at the press. At the people he felt had
betrayed him. At politicians who he thought were his friends but deserted
him when things got bad.
"But all that passed with time," Lesniak said. "He's not mad at anybody
anymore. Not even Golan.
"Not even himself."
By the time he came to War, W. Va., Marcia Timpson said, there wasn't a trace of
anger or regret in McGreevey. The ex-governor, she said, "radiated"
confidence and compassion.
Timpson said her 15-year-old son, Tyler, who suffers from a form of autism known
as Asperger's syndrome, usually runs and hides in his bedroom when a stranger
comes into the house.
But when McGreevey came calling, she said, Tyler sidled right up to him.
By the time McGreevey left, he and the boy had become great friends. Tyler
hugged him before he walked out the door.
"I don't know anything about what Jim McGreevey did in New Jersey," Timpson
said. "But I saw what he did in my own house. I saw what he did with
my boy. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
James E. McGreevey
What happened: Resigned in August 2004 in disgrace (effective November
2004) after acknowledging he was gay and had an extramarital affair.
Where is he now? Living in an apartment in Rahway. Job hunting and
writing an oral history of poverty in America.
Dina Matos McGreevey
Where is she now? Moved to a ranch home in Springfield, Union County,
continues work at a foundation for a Newark hospital; still seething over
McGreevey and preparing for divorce.
Golan Cipel
Title: Homeland Security adviser, identified as McGreevey's lover.
What happened: His threat to sue for sexual harassment forced McGreevey to
resign; denied having an affair with McGreevey.
Where is he now? Keeping a low profile in Israel, his native country.
Gary Taffett
Title: Chief of staff
What happened: resigned in 2002 amid questions over whether he used
political clout to profit from billboard deals.
Where is he now? Living off investments; settled insider trading charges
with SEC. No billboard-related charges have been filed.
Paul Levinsohn
Title: Former chief counsel
What happened: Onetime partner with Taffett, also resigned in billboard
deal.
Where is he now? Working in family's New York City textile business, never
contacted by federal investigators in billboard probe, his lawyer says.
Charles Kushner
Title: Developer, top McGreevey fund-raiser
What happened: Pleaded guilty to charges of hiring a prostitute in scheme
to blackmail his brother-in-law, a cooperating witness in federal probe into
Kushner company finances.
Where is he now? Serving two-year term in federal prison camp in Alabama,
doing a lot of praying and exercising.
David D'Amiano
Title: Waste hauler, McGreevey fund-raiser
What happened: Pleaded guilty to charges of shaking down $40,000 in
campaign contributions and cash from a Middlesex farmer in need of help to
resolve a property dispute with government.
Where is he now? Serving a two-year prison term in a federal facility at
Fort Dix .
Roger Chugh
Title: Department of State official
What happened? Resigned in June 2003 after reports of shaking down
contributions from South Asian community in Middlesex County with threats and
intimidation. Federal authorities examined his activities.
Where is he now? Living in New York. He is out of politics and fund
raising; friends say he is doing odd jobs.
Christopher J Christie
Title: U.S. Attorney
What happened: His prosecution of Kushner and D'Amiano burnished his
reputation as corruption-busting prosecutor.
Where is he now? Remains in post. Considered, then rejected,
campaign for governor.
E-mail:
pillets@northjersey.com
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