Judge erred by tossing charges against Dem power broker, prosecutors say

Yahoo

22-04-2025

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office wants the state's appellate division to reinstate the charges it filed in June against Democratic power broker George Norcross and his allies. (Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)
New Jersey prosecutors are asking an appeals court to overturn the dismissal of charges against George Norcross and his allies, arguing a Superior Court judge had effectively invented a new legal standard dissonant with existing law to toss charges against the Democratic power broker.
Judge Peter Warshaw in February dismissed the charges against Norcross and his co-defendants, finding the indictment against them did not state facts constituting extortion or criminal coercion and failed to prove racketeering and other charges lodged against the alleged criminal enterprise.
But prosecutors say in a new filing that Warshaw subjected the indictment to greater scrutiny than the law allows, made determinations that should be left to a jury, and dismissed the case under a standard not used in criminal law.
'Instead, the trial court simply asked whether there was sufficient evidence cited in the Indictment itself, without reviewing the reams of testimony and exhibits the grand jury saw,' prosecutors wrote.
News of the filing was first reported by New Jersey Globe.
The state in June accused Norcross and others of leveraging threats and their control of Camden government to strongarm a developer into ceding property rights and of coercing the CEO of a Camden nonprofit to use a favored but less advantageous developer before pushing him to resign to make room for a patronage hire.
The charges, lodged against a man widely considered the most powerful unelected New Jerseyan, stunned the state's political class but did little to diminish the influence of the power broker. Attorneys for Norcross and others have claimed the prosecution is meant to burnish Attorney General Matt Platkin's image for a future run for political office, criticism they renewed after the case was dismissed.
Prosecutors' new filing argues Warshaw made numerous errors in dismissing the case, including by improperly engaging in fact-finding, ruling on limited evidence, creating a new standard to review motions to dismiss on the sufficiency of evidence, and failing to properly apply that standard, among other things.
Motions to dismiss filed at such an early stage of a case are limited in their scope and can be based on procedural infirmities like a failure to provide notice, prosecutorial misconduct, or on claims that the law underlying criminal charges is unconstitutional, prosecutors argued.
They said dismissals based on the sufficiency of evidence would require the inclusion of evidence outside the four corners of an indictment and could only be granted if the facts contained in the indictment disproved the possibility of a crime, not whether they alone could prove the crime occurred.
'Nothing about the indictment introduces a 'fatal flaw' that more evidence — particularly the evidence that already went to the grand jury — 'necessarily' could not cure,' prosecutors said in their appeal.
Warshaw made the ruling without reviewing evidence provided to the grand jury that approved the charges. In their appeal, prosecutors said that evidence included more than 2,000 pages of testimony transcripts, over 6,000 wiretap recordings, and no less than 700 other audio files.
An attorney for George Norcross — who was charged alongside former Camden Mayor Dana Redd, NFI CEO Sidney Brown, Michaels Organization CEO John O'Donnell, and attorneys Philip Norcross (George Norcross's brother) and Bill Tambussi — derided the appeal as a continuation of a prosecution the defendants have argued is politically motivated.
'The new filing is another failed legal argument by the Attorney General — the only difference is that this redux version is longer than the original. The fatal legal flaws remain. As has become obvious to everyone, Mr. Platkin's obsession has been a political prosecution from its inception. We look forward to again rebutting his fatuous claims on the merits,' said Michael Critchley, an attorney for George Norcross.
Prosecutors argued that Warshaw erred by subjecting the prosecution's 111-page indictment to a greater level of scrutiny than would be placed on a shorter document, noting courts have routinely rejected efforts to hold lengthier, detail-laden indictments to a stricter standard.
Even if the judge's legal test was sound, prosecutors said, the dismissal must be overturned because he did not accept as true the indictment's factual allegations or view them in the light most favorable to the state. They pointed to his ruling that alleged threats made by Norcross and others against Philadelphia-based developer Carl Dranoff were 'hard bargaining' and 'sabre-rattling.'
'If a court has questions about what a threat means, or how a victim interprets it, the proper forum is trial testimony, or, at the least, a review of the actual evidence presented to the grand jury,' the appeal says.
The judge's determination on the criminality of the alleged threats overstepped into improper fact-finding that ought to be left to a jury, as did his determinations about the intent of some co-defendants, all without a review of the evidence, prosecutors said.
Even if the judge's finding that the alleged threats amounted to only hard bargaining were valid, prosecutors said, the indictment's extortion and coercion charges should not have been dismissed because the indictment alleges Norcross and his allies controlled Camden government and used governmental power to pressure Dranoff into concessions.
'While defendants may incorrectly believe that wielding the threat of reputational and governmental harm to extract property or submission from others is permissible activity that 'occurs every day in politics and business' … New Jersey law, like the Hobbs Act, makes clear it is unlawful,' the appeal said.
norcross dismissal appeal
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