New Jersey – The top federal prosecutor in New Jersey is facing an internal ethics investigation over public comments that may have helped his ex-boss’ campaign for governor, officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
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The probe marks a particularly embarrassing turn for federal authorities charged with weeding out corruption in scandal-scarred New Jersey: An internal affairs investigation has been launched into their handling of a major corruption case just days after they filed charges in the case.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the probe, told the AP the Justice Department was examining whether acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra made inappropriate public comments that boosted Republican Chris Christie’s political challenge to incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. Before running for office, Christie was the US Attorney for New Jersey, and Marra was his top deputy.
Marra made the comments last month while announcing the corruption case against dozens of suspects.
Since the arrests, public corruption has become the dominant issue in the race for governor.
The investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is another potential embarrassment for the department, which already has acknowledged mishandling other high-profile public corruption cases, particularly the botched prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
Such internal investigations are rarely acknowledged publicly, and the results are usually unknown. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler declined to comment or even confirm the existence of the probe in New Jersey.
Greg Reinert, a spokesman for Marra’s office, said they were unaware of such an investigation and declined to comment.
At issue are comments Marra made at a news conference last month announcing the arrests of 44 people as part of a sweeping federal corruption probe. Of those arrested, 29 were elected or public officials … a high count even in a state with a reputation for official misdeeds.
Asked about the issue of corruption in the state, Marra said: “There are easily reforms that could be made within this state that would make our job easier, or even take some of the load off our job. There are too many people that profit off the system the way it is and so they have no incentive to change it. The few people that want to change it seem to get shouted down. So how long that cycle’s going to continue I just don’t know.”
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Justice Department guidelines say a prosecutor “shall refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a serious and imminent threat of heightening public condemnation of the accused.”
Lawyers often refer to the rule as keeping them within “the four corners” of the indictment.
Patrick M. Collins, a former federal corruption prosecutor in Illinois … another state with perennial corruption problems … said the rule is designed to prevent prosecutors from publicly declaring a defendant’s guilt before trial, but the concerns about Marra’s comments would likely be different.
“It could be construed as an implicit endorsement of his former boss,” said Collins, who added that the remarks could just as easily reflect “the frustrations of a career prosecutor speaking as a human being.”
Marra’s comments were particularly notable given his professional history with Christie, and the fact that Christie has centered his campaign on a vow to clean up the state and root out political corruption.
The corruption scandal gave Christie an opening to campaign on his strongest issue: law and order.
After the arrests, Christie laid out a plan to impose tighter standards on public officials, and said the arrests show “a failure of leadership.”
What about his commants agaist the jews ,saying they used religion to cover their totally ethics free world.That’s also out of his prosecutor job.
Marra also made comments during the news conference that “those arrested include politicians, public officials, and of course rabbis”. Look it up. He said it just like that.
He also made other highly inflatory remarks, such as making it appear that all the defendants were ralted to each other and that all the rabbis were involved in the bribing of officials and in the trafficking of kidneys. While the truth is that most defendants have nothing to do with each other, and the kidney case is completely seperate. He was trying to use sensationalism to hype his case against all the defendants.
Marra is just as corrupt as the politicians he is prosecuting. His price is just higher. Instead of money he gets off on publicity and attention. I bet you after this case he will get a promotion with a big raise. How is that different than what the politicians did? He also sold his soul to the devil.
If what Shatz Matz says is factually correct it is quite disturbing. This entire episode of Dwek ‘s searching out people to entrap in illegal activities (not negating the alleged crime and their voluntary participation)
does bring out the question of “serious entrapment” in view in the above article. of Marras comments and motive and intent for this entire operation.
I think everyone should read the “Washington Times” (never of course in the New York Times) story of the CIA Iran Specialist who was freed in the AIPAC alleged treason trial, Mr. Franklin. That tells various Tactics and the attitude of the FBI in the case.
if he is indeed found guilty of making inapropriate comments, can there be a mistrial and the whole thing will be dismissed? does anyone out thereknow? I sure hope so. yeshuas h-ashem keherif eyin
Soon Marra will find out, the higher the climb the harder the fall.
One BIG corrupt world
i would hope its about time to call a spade a spaDe! maybe some laws were broken but no crime was ever committed this was not drug ,fake gucci ,illegal hidings from bankruptcy $ in anyway this was recycled fbi sting $ dreck did not claim these transactions as donations for irs tax evasion purposes therefore no money laundering or tax evasion took place ! these “crimes” were manufactured to perpetuate the “crime” industry which keeps law enforcement, lawyers, the prision industry,etc working in this country there more people incarcerated than the total population of public housing! let nobody especially these thugs at the fbi tell us muser in any form ! THERE IS MORE ETHICS & CHESED AMOUNG OUR GANOVIM THAN ANYWHERE IN THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM! its about time that something is done to end these kgb tactics ,take politics & publicityout of law enforcement & make “crime manufactering” a federal crime!
I am waiting for the next investigation: The one that links this investigation straight back to Corzine or even better Obama himself! Can we be blamed for thinking this is Chicago Politics here in NJ?!?!
the FBI is trying to regain their pride after failing to catch the terrorists before the 911 attacks there were so many red flags that they just didn’t pursue perhaps because they didn’t want to make it look like they were targeting middle eastern men and the result was one of the worst attacks on our homeland. Now they went after the Jews to show even handness and that they are not only going after the muslims. yet there are real criminals out there who are roaming freely that are dangerous that might come back to attack us yet they are busy entraping innocent men with no criminal history.
where is dwek these days? anybody hear any rumors?
I wish they stopped referring to inzer mentchin in this episode as “rabbis.” they are “rabbis” like I am the pope.
Why is there no investigation to find the “source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak”. He broke the law too!!!!
to the chuchem of #24 #29 & all the other self haters
the duty of law enforcement is to apprehend criminals period :not to create crime based on ” intent” without any actual crime committed! let dreck tell any rabbi 100 times that here is drug money if it is not drug $ but recyled fbi sting $ no crime was commited! until the total amt is claimed as charitble deduction from irs no tax fraud has taken place! it is about time that intelligent spot buying every bombastic press release from these kgb thugs for toras loksen & feel for & help our fellow jews in their time of need !