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The New York Times
Jury Convicts Former
Newark Mayor of Fraud
By JONATHAN MILLER
and RICHARD G. JONES, From nytimes.com on the Web, April 16. 2008
NEWARK -- A federal jury today
convicted the former longtime mayor of Newark, Sharpe James, of fraud for
conspiring to sell city-owned properties to a former girlfriend, who quickly
flipped them and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.
On the sixth day of deliberations, the jury found Mr. James, 72, guilty on all
five counts he faced. His former girlfriend, Tamika Riley, 39, was
convicted on the same fraud and conspiracy charges as well as eight others for
numerous tax violations in connection with what the authorities said was her
failure to file income tax returns for her public relations firm.
Under federal guidelines, prosecutors say the two face up to about eight years
in prison. For now, both are free on bail and will face sentencing on July
29. Mr. James’s lead attorney, Thomas Ashley, said he intended to appeal
the verdict.
Mr. James stood stony-faced and Ms. Riley appeared stunned as the jury foreman
delivered the verdict, then quickly left the courtroom. Mr. James then
took an elevator to the first floor of the federal courthouse, where he kissed
his wife, Mary, on the cheek. They drove away with Mr. Ashley.
It was a precipitous and somewhat tawdry fall from grace for Mr. James, who was
the powerful Democratic mayor of New Jersey’s largest city for 20 years, until
2006, and a state senator from 1999 to 2008.
It was a major victory for the United States attorney for New Jersey,
Christopher J. Christie, who in six years in office has won indictments against
Republicans and Democrats alike and has obtained convictions or guilty pleas
against more than 125 public officials without losing a case.
“Justice has finally been done,” Mr. Christie said in a news conference outside
the courthouse. “Justice for the city of Newark.”
Mr. Christie said that Mr. James had acted in a “grossly inappropriate way.”
“For 36 years, Sharpe James has reigned over this city and today he is taught
the lesson,” Mr. Christie said.
That lesson, Mr. Christie said, was that for an elected official who betrays the
public trust, “the only place for you is federal prison.”
The case centered on the purchase of nine city-owned properties that Ms. Riley
bought through a special program to help revitalize Newark’s struggling South
Ward. She bought the parcels in three separate transactions for a total of
$46,000 then sold them for a profit of more than $600,000.
Prosecutors also said that Ms. Riley did not report the income she earned from
the sale of the properties.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. James improperly used his influence to steer the
properties to Ms. Riley. But defense lawyers said that Mr. James had made
no extraordinary or unlawful efforts on her behalf. They also countered
that Mr. James had limited ability to control the program because all sales had
to ultimately be approved by the Municipal Council.
Several crucial prosecution witnesses — including the city’s former housing
director, Basil Franklin, and a councilman who voted to approve the sales,
Augusto Amador — said that Mr. James did not pressure them to sell the
properties to Ms. Riley, a businesswoman from Jersey City who ran a public
relations firm and once owned a clothing store in Newark.
For her part, Ms. Riley’s lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, acknowledged on the first day
of arguments that she and Mr. James had had an extramarital affair that lasted
about six months in 2002. The timing was significant, Mr. Krovatin said,
because by the time their relationship had turned romantic most of the property
sales had been completed.
But prosecutors tried to establish that the relationship between Mr. James and
Ms. Riley had continued long after 2002. Witnesses testified that as
recently as 2006 Mr. James and Ms. Riley had traveled together to the Dominican
Republic.
Even before opening arguments began on March 4, the prosecution said that its
case would produce little in the way of courtroom fireworks or star witnesses
and that their presentation would rely on the dense paper trail left by Ms.
Riley’s purchase of the properties.
Through 16 days of testimony from 33 prosecution witnesses, the six-man,
six-woman jury appeared attentive and patient. Federal District Judge
William J. Martini tried to keep the trial moving at a steady pace, and kept
boredom to a minimum by sometimes dismissing jurors in midafternoon or giving
them the day off entirely.
When it was the defense’s turn to try to rebut the prosecution’s case, lawyers
for Mr. James called just two witnesses — two former councilwomen who tried to
bolster the assertion of Mr. James that he could not approve property sales
unilaterally.
Ms. Riley’s defense consisted of about a half-dozen witnesses, including two
lawyers who handled the sale of her properties. The lawyers for Ms. Riley
contended that she had not been aware that she had to file income tax returns
for her public relations firm, and that she had received bad legal advice about
satisfying requirements for buying the property from the city.
One lawyer who testified, James Ezeilo, said that he had almost no experience
dealing with real estate sales before handling Ms. Riley’s transactions.
Witnesses also testified that at the same time Ms. Riley was selling city
property she was improperly receiving about $27,000 in federal housing subsidies
for her apartment in Jersey City.
Deliberations began on April 9, and in what provided some indication about the
verdict, jurors asked Judge Martini to clarify that neglecting to file tax
returns was not necessarily an indication that someone intended to willfully
refuse to file them.
For Mr. James, Wednesday’s verdict means that his legal odyssey is only halfway
over. He still faces a federal corruption trial — which has yet to be
scheduled — on charges that he improperly used city-issued credit cards to incur
more than $58,000 in travel and other expenses for trips that he took with Ms.
Riley and other women.
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