NJ Watchdog: Corruption case undermines Christe claims as prosecutor

On the presidential campaign trail, Chris Christie boasts that he was a no-nonsense prosecutor above politics.

“The fact is that this Justice Department under this president has been a political Justice Department,” said Christie during last month’s debate on CNBC. If elected, he promised to nominate “an attorney general who will enforce the law and make justice more than just a word.”

But back in New Jersey, the Christie administration appears to be burying a corruption case involving Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, his second-in-command. An alleged $245,000 pension fraud occurred when Guadagno was Monmouth County sheriff in 2008, the year before she first ran for lieutenant governor as Christie’s running mate.

On Thursday, a New Jersey appeals court ruled the state attorney general’s Division of Criminal Justice must release two confidential documents to New Jersey Watchdog. Justices George S. Leone and Carol E. Higbee rejected a lower court’s decision to block release of the records as an “abuse of discretion.”

“We cannot agree that the fact the investigation concerned possible sensitive issues of public corruption weighs against disclosure,” the ruling stated. “In cases involving allegations of public corruption, transparency and the public’s right to know are particularly important.”

Guadagno made false and conflicting statements that enabled her sheriff’s chief officer, Michael Donovan, to improperly collect an $85,000 a year pension in addition to his $87,500 salary, as first reported by New Jersey Watchdog in 2010.

In 2011, DCJ began an investigation at the request of the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System board of trustees. From the start, the probe was riddled with conflicts of interest.

Guadagno is a former deputy director of DCJ who had supervised or worked with many of its investigators. Yet Christie did not use his authority to appoint a special prosecutor or independent investigator under the State Constitution.

What happened to that investigation is a mystery slowly being revealed through years of public records battles between New Jersey Watchdog and the Christie administration.

The complete story is online at http://watchdog.org/246981/nj-corruption-undermines-christie/.

NJ Watchdog: Appeals court orders release of corruption probe records

A New Jersey appeals court has ruled the state must release two confidential state records from a corruption probe involving Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno to New Jersey Watchdog.

The opinion released Thursday by the Appellate Division reverses a trial court decision by Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson last year not to release those records from a state Division of Criminal Justice investigation of alleged pension fraud.

In a 14-page opinion, Justices George S. Leone and Carol E. Higbee rejected Jacobson’s reasons for blocking release of the documents to the investigative news site as an “abuse of discretion.”

“We cannot agree that the fact the investigation concerned possible sensitive issues of public corruption weighs against disclosure,” the ruling stated. “In cases involving allegations of public corruption, transparency and the public’s right to know are particularly important.”

As New Jersey’s second-in-command, Guadagno frequently serves as acting governor when Chris Christie travels outside the state on presidential campaign trips. She is mentioned as a likely Republican candidate for governor in 2017 – and could take the reins earlier if Christie steps down before his term expires.

The alleged $245,000 fraud occurred when Guadagno was Monmouth County sheriff in 2008, the year before she first ran for lieutenant governor as Christie’s running mate.

Guadagno made false and conflicting statements that enabled her chief officer, Michael Donovan, to improperly collect an $85,000 a year pension in addition to his $87,500 salary, as first reported by New Jersey Watchdog in 2010. The story included links to smoking-gun documents, including an internal memo initialed by Guadagno.

In 2011, DCJ began an investigation at the request of a state pension board. But the probe was riddled by a major conflict of interest since Guadagno is a former DCJ deputy director. Christie did not use his constitutional power to appoint a special investigator or independent prosecutor.

The story is online at http://watchdog.org/246882/nj-corruption-probe-records/.

NJ Watchdog: Criminal probe secrets center on Christie's second-in-command

The public’s right to know the outcome of a criminal probe of an alleged $245,000 pension fraud involving New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno will be debated next week in state appellate court.

New Jersey Watchdog is appealing a lower court’s decision not to release the findings of an investigation by the state attorney general’s Division of Criminal Justice. Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard next Wednesday at Rutgers Law School in Camden.

Guadagno frequently serves as acting governor when Chris Christie travels outside the state on presidential campaign trips. She is mentioned as a likely Republican candidate for governor in 2017 – and could take the reins even earlier if Christie steps down before his term expires.

The alleged fraud occurred when Guadagno was Monmouth County sheriff in 2008, the year before she first ran for lieutenant governor as Christie’s running mate.

Guadagno made false and conflicting statements that enabled her chief officer, Michael Donovan, to improperly collect an $85,000 a year pension in addition to his $87,500 salary, as first reported by New Jersey Watchdog in 2010. The story included links to several smoking-gun documents, including an internal memo initialed by Guadagno.

In May 2011, DCJ began a criminal investigation at the request of a state pension board. But the probe was riddled by a major conflict of interest because Guadagno is a former DCJ deputy director. Christie did not use his constitutional power to appoint a special investigator or independent prosecutor.

Stonewalled by DCJ and the governor’s office for nearly two years, New Jersey Watchdog sued the state in 2013 for records of the investigation.

The investigative news site won a partial victory in the trial court last year when Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson ordered DCJ to reveal some of the documents it sought.

However, Jacobson also ruled DCJ was allowed to keep the findings of the investigation secret. After reviewing the documents in private, the judge determined the state’s interest in keeping the records confidential outweighed the public’s right to know.

In September 2014, New Jersey Watchdog appealed Jacobson’s decision to the State Appellate Division.

Lawyers for the state contend disclosure would undermine DCJ’s future ability to conduct corruption investigations. The investigative news site is arguing that the public has an overriding interest in knowing whether or not the probe itself may have been corrupted.

Appellate Division Judges George S. Leone and Carol E. Higbee will preside at the hearing. Judge Michael A. Guadagno, the lieutenant governor’s husband, is not assigned to the case.

The story is online at http://watchdog.org/235567/christie-criminal-probe-secrets/.

Investigator’s Tape Exposes Bill O’Reilly’s JFK Fib

Another Bill O'Reilly fabrication... He's beginning to make Brain Williams look like George Washington.

Read the story and listen to the embedded audio clips of the 1977 phone calls between O'Reilly and congressional investigator Gaeton Fonzi. The audio leaves no doubt that Bill O'Reilly is lying about his involvement in a JFK assassination investigation that he wrote about in his book Killing Kennedy.

 From JFKFacts.org:

In his best-selling book Killing Kennedy, Bill O’Reilly tells a brief tale of an intrepid reporter — himself — chasing the historical truth of JFK’s assassination in south Florida. But the story itself is a fiction, as O’Reilly reveals here in his own voice. 

In the annals of the JFK assassination story, rife with CIA and FBI malfeasance, O’Reilly’s fanciful anecdote might seem trivial. It is not the saddest feature of his book, which manages to ignore all of the high-quality JFK assassination scholarship of the last two decades. 

But as O’Reilly’s yarn is presented as fact in USA Today and the Fort-Worth Telegram; as his book dominates the best-seller charts; and as a credulous National Geographic embarks on making a documentary of Killing Kennedy, O’Reilly’s credibility matters.

In O’Reilly’s account, the dramatic incident happened on March 29, 1977. The Fox News talk show host was then a 28-year-old television reporter in Dallas seeking to make a name for himself by investigating a popular subject that other reporters disdained: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy....

Continue reading


I posted a link to this article early yesterday on my Facebook page after seeing it first posted by a friend. Since that time the story has really caught on and has been reported by many in the media. Until now Fox News has been standing behind Bill O'Reilly and the controversy surrounding his Falkland Islands "war zone" fib. It seems however that that support is waining, Fox has seemed to go silent all of a sudden with O'Reilly's obvious fabrication of JFK story

NJ Watchdog fights for Guadagno pension probe records in appeals court

For immediate release:


The mystery of what happened in a criminal investigation of an alleged $245,000 pension fraud implicating Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno may finally be solved in a New Jersey appeals court.

A New Jersey Watchdog reporter is appealing a lower court’s decision not to release three key documents that include the findings of a probe by the attorney general’s Division of Criminal Justice.

“In spite of what appears to be a clear case of high-ranking government officials aiding or participating in a pension double-dip scheme, the DCJ closed the investigation without any charges being filed,” the reporter’s attorney, Donald M. Doherty Jr., argued in a brief submitted last week in Superior Court Appellate Division.

“The lieutenant governor was the Monmouth County sheriff during the questionable activities; she is also a former deputy director of DCJ, the investigating agency,” continued Doherty. “The public should be able to learn how DCJ came to its decision and whether it even considered the culpability of the lieutenant governor.”

Guadagno would become governor if Chris Christie steps down to run for president in the 2016 election. Release of the DCJ files could lead to greater scrutiny of why Christie did not use his constitutional authority to appoint a special prosecutor or investigator and avoid the inherent conflict-of-interest.

DCJ lawyers contend that disclosing the records would undermine the agency’s ability to conduct investigations of public corruption.

“How ironic is it to have public officials making secret deals and then contending that revealing the investigation needs to be secret to preserve public confidence?” Doherty asked the court. “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

The controversy known as “Doublegate” began when Guadagno was Monmouth County sheriff in 2008 – the year before she first ran for lieutenant governor as Christie's running mate.

As sheriff, Guadagno made false and conflicting statements that enabled her chief officer, Michael Donovan, to improperly collect an $85,000 a year pension in addition to his $87,500 salary, as first reported by New Jersey Watchdog in 2010.

The full story is now online at http://watchdog.org/173842/guadagno-pension-probe-2/. The brief can be viewed or downloaded at http://watchdog.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/09/ML-v-DCJ-appeal.pdf.

STATE SUES ITSELF OVER RELEASE OF RECORDS TO NJ WATCHDOG

For Immediate Release  

TRENTON - Believe it or not, the State of New Jersey is suing itself over the possibility of releasing records to New Jersey Watchdog.

On behalf of the state Treasury, the Attorney General filed a motion of appeal Monday in Superior Court's Appellate Division, seeking to stop the state Government Records Council from reviewing its files.

In an Aug. 31 decision, the GRC ordered state pension officials to turn over 26 records for inspection.  After review, the Council intended to decide what documents, if any, should be released to New Jersey Watchdog.

The records relate to an alleged $245,000 pension scheme involving Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. Treasury officials gathered the records while reviewing allegations that Monmouth County sheriff's officer Michael Donovan Jr. improperly collected nearly $85,000 a year in state retirement pay in addition to his $87,500 annual salary. 

At the center of the controversy are false statements made by Guadagno when she was Monmouth County sheriff. New Jersey Watchdog first reported the scandal in 2010.

The stakes are high for Guadagno, whose political future could be in jeopardy.  For the complete story, go to http://newjersey.watchdog.org