heres some proof:
Ex-investigator’s suit alleges corruption, coverup
Thursday, September 30, 2010
A former organized-crime investigator for the state Attorney General's Office claims his bosses squelched an investigation into alleged "wrongdoing and potential corruption of high-ranking members" of a New Jersey prosecutor's office — apparently the one in Bergen County.
Among the allegations in James Sweeney's lawsuit is that a "prominent employee" of the unnamed prosecutor's office had a "personal and business relationship" with a reputed mobster. In the lawsuit filed in Bergen County last month, Sweeney says he was terminated in retaliation for pursuing an investigation.
Sweeney claims he told supervisors that the relationship may have provided a possible motive for the still unsolved murder of the Lucchese crime family member, identified as "FL" — an apparent reference to the late Frank Lagano of Tenafly. The complaint includes the dates of Lagano's 2007 murder as well as his December 2004 arrest by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office in an anti-gambling sweep that netted some 40 alleged mobsters and associates.
The so-called "prominent" member of the unnamed prosecutor's office that arrested FL is identified in the suit only as "MM." At the time of Lagano's arrest and murder, Michael Mordaga was the chief of detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.
Mordaga, who retired in mid-2007, did not return two phone messages. His attorney, Martin Garbus, declined to comment. Attempts to reach a Lagano family member were unsuccessful.
Robert Tandy of Montvale, Sweeney's attorney, would not discuss why the lawsuit doesn't identify "MM" or "FL" by name.
"I'm not going to comment as to the initials and the identities at this time," Tandy said.
Asked if the county referenced in the suit is Bergen, Tandy said: "The allegations contained within the complaint speak for themselves."
Although the lawsuit alleges wrongdoing by "members" of the prosecutor's office, MM is the only individual employee referenced.
"FL and MM's personal and business relationship consisted of the lending of money by FL to MM, multiple business ventures together, social visits to each others homes, vacationing together, assisting with the plans for the construction of MM's family room for his new home, family dinners together, and dinners with FL's brothers …," the lawsuit states.
The suit says that sometime after FL's arrest, his relationship with MM "soured" and he became a source for Sweeney and the state Division of Criminal Justice.
Sweeney also alleges that after the arrest, FL was brought into MM's private office and MM handed him a business card for an attorney. FL was then told, according to the complaint, "that the attorney and MM could make ninety percent (90%) of his legal problems go away. MM further advised FL to provide the attorney with a $25,000 retainer for his legal representation."
The suit was brought in part under the New Jersey RICO or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. It names as defendants the state of New Jersey, the Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Law and Public Safety and the Division of Criminal Justice.
Gregory Paw, former director of the Division of Criminal Justice, Paul Morris, chief of detectives for the division, and Deputy Attorney General Mark G. Eliades are also cited for their "role in an unlawful enterprise under NJRICO." Sweeney is seeking damages in part for economic losses and emotional distress.
Asked if federal or any other authorities were contacted about the claims in the suit, Tandy said: "I'm not going to comment on that at this time."
Morris, Eliades and Paw declined to comment.
Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli declined to comment through a spokesperson.
Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, said the office does not comment on pending litigation. Asked if the state will examine Sweeney's claims, Loriquet would "neither confirm nor deny that an investigation will take place."
Sweeney spent most of his 44-year career in law enforcement as an organized-crime investigator, first for the New Jersey State Police and then for the State Commission of Investigation and the state Division of Criminal Justice, the suit says.
Loriquet said Sweeney was an "at-will employee," meaning that he served "at the pleasure of the appointing authority."
In the complaint, Sweeney alleges he let his supervisors know "of potential corruption within the hierarchy of that County Prosecutor's office including business dealings with alleged members of Organized Crime families and the unlawful seizure, retention and use of monies by high-ranking members of that County Prosecutor's office."
Sweeney claims in the lawsuit that members of the prosecutor's office did not adequately account for funds and items seized from FL.
Morris and Eliades took no action "in the face of his corruption claims," Sweeney says. The lawsuit says that in May 2006 Sweeney sent an e-mail to Paw asking to present "situations of corruption confronting the Organized Crime Bureau" but Paw did not respond.
The complaint goes on to say that from May 2006 to April 2007 he "continued to advise his supervisors of allegations of corruption and potentially illegal activities by MM and/or other members of that County Prosecutor's office." The lawsuit alleges that the state did not investigate his claims in part because the prosecutor "was being considered for a high-ranking position" in the Attorney General's Office. Molinelli was Bergen County prosecutor at the time.
In April, days after FL's murder, Sweeney claims he sent Morris an e-mail with "data concerning MM and FL's relationship and the relationship of other county professionals." Lagano was murdered in 2007, found gunned down in the parking lot of his East Brunswick diner on April 12. The suit specifies that FL was murdered on or about April 12, 2007.
"Plaintiff advised he believed the data could potentially have created a motive for FL's murder," the complaint says.
The following month, the suit claims, Sweeney wrote a memorandum to Morris — this time noting that members of traditional organized-crime groups had denied involvement in the Lagano murder, and were themselves trying to learn who was responsible.
"… Plaintiff's memorandum provided a possible motive for FL's murder possibly arising out of FL's relationship with and connections to MM," the complaint reads. Sweeney, it says, sought authorization to further investigate his theory.
The suit says both Morris and Eliades told him to stop his investigation into FL's murder.
At one point, the complaint says, local authorities investigating the killing learned FL was an informant for the Division of Criminal Justice. Sweeney maintains Morris ordered him to deny that FL was ever a source for the division if asked and "directed plaintiff to take immediate action to eliminate any connection between FL and the Division of Criminal Justice."
In fall of 2007, Sweeney alleges, he was denied a promotion and by winter was removed from his position as "Primary/Back up Duty Officer."
The complaint lays out Sweeney's recounting of the events that immediately preceded his termination. In 2008, the complaint says, Sweeney's cellphone number appeared on the electronic surveillance for the source in a federal investigation, who was also arrested with FL in the 2004 gambling sweep. Morris apparently believed this meant Sweeney was still investigating FL's murder, according to the complaint.
Shortly thereafter, Sweeney says in the complaint, he was removed from his position as "acting SSI," which Tandy said is a supervising investigator. He was placed in the records department, Tandy said, and was no longer investigating organized crime.
He was terminated Sept. 4, 2008, with no explanation, the complaint alleges.
Lagano's murder has been under investigation by federal and Middlesex County authorities.
The 2004 criminal case involving Lagano and the alleged mob-run gambling ring was fraught with problems. Initially, a Superior Court judge suppressed all wiretap and search-warrant evidence and vacated all pleas after learning the prosecutor's office had failed to notify her that a wiretap picked up a conversation between an investigator from the state Division of Criminal Justice and a confidential state informant who was a target in the county case. After protracted closed-door proceedings between Bergen County and the Attorney General's Office, and an appeal, some cases were reinstated. Lagano's would have been one of them, but he had died by that time.
In his lawsuit, Sweeney mentions having communication with a source who was later arrested in a mob-related gambling case along with FL. The lawsuit notes that county officials claimed that communication was to blame for the dismissal of the case. Sweeney says that he wanted to defend his actions but was never given the opportunity to meet with internal-affairs officers investigating the matter and was never told of the investigation's outcome.
The complaint says Sweeney was told the state didn't take over the gambling case because it did not want to act against the interests of the county prosecutor who "would potentially have been the next boss …."
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