Kean Campaign Cancels
Film on Menendez,
Producer Says
By JIM DWYER, NYTimes
on the Web, November 3, 2006
Back in June, during the opening
weeks of the campaign for United States Senate in New Jersey, the Republican
candidate, Thomas H. Kean Jr., and his aides said they were making a documentary
film that would prove grave charges of corruption in the early career of the
Democratic incumbent, Senator Robert Menendez.
Now, with only a few days to go before the election, there is no sign that the
film has been made, and Mr. Kean has yet to provide any proof for those
accusations.
“They pulled the plug, it was July, I think,” said Peggy Pacy, an independent
producer who had been hired to make the movie.
Asked yesterday about the fate of the film, Mr. Kean’s spokeswoman, Jill
Hazelbaker, wrote in an e-mail message: “We’re not making any of our media
strategy available in the final five days of the campaign.”
Ms. Hazelbaker did not reply when asked if Mr. Kean stood by his claims.
The film project was being run by Matt Leonardo, a Washington consultant to the
Kean campaign. He predicted in June that the film would have the same
negative effect on Mr. Menendez that the advertisements run by the independent
group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had against Senator John Kerry, the 2004
Democratic presidential nominee.
Mr. Leonardo did not respond to phone calls or messages this week.
Mr. Kean has made corruption a central theme of his attack on Mr. Menendez,
beginning in June with the most serious charges. He asserted that as a
young man in Union City, N.J., during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr.
Menendez had taken part in a major kickback and extortion scheme involving
organized crime but had saved himself by turning on his political mentor.
A film purporting to prove those claims would face a possibly fatal
complication: A substantial archive of public records from that period —
including trial transcripts, tapes and newspaper articles — flatly contradicts
Mr. Kean’s assertions.
A criminal trial stretching from late 1981 into the spring of 1982 focused on
the relationship between powerful public officials in Union City and a
construction company controlled by organized crime figures. Five city
officials were convicted of taking kickbacks from the construction company,
which had contracts with the school system.
The testimony in the trial showed that, far from being part of the scheme, Mr.
Menendez — then in his early 20s, and the secretary to the school board — had
helped to thwart it, first by refusing to sign checks and then by testifying in
court.
“Bob Menendez did the right thing, and he did it at great personal risk,” said
James Plaisted, who was the lead federal prosecutor.
As for the Kean campaign’s assertion that Mr. Menendez acted only to save
himself, Mr. Plaisted said: “Ridiculous.”
His account of the criminal prosecution was virtually identical to descriptions
from the three other federal prosecutors who worked on the case, Richard L.
Friedman, Samuel Rosenthal and Mark Malone.
This reporter, who covered Union City from 1980 to 1982, was asked in early June
to appear in what was described as a documentary on Mr. Menendez. The
request was made by Chris Lyon, an opposition researcher for Mr. Kean who did
not disclose his affiliation with the campaign. When The New York Times
learned Mr. Lyon’s connection, there were no further conversations about the
film.
Ms. Pacy, the independent producer, said she had been paid for a few days’ work
before being told by Mr. Leonardo that the project had been dropped. She
said she was not sure why.
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