44 arrested on corruption charges in NJ
Monday, July 27th, 2009
By: Phil Gregory
email hidden; JavaScript is required
Corruption dominated the New Jersey news at the end of last week. On Thursday, 44 people, including several elected leaders and several rabbis, were arrested on corruption and money-laundering charges, in a crackdown that shook eastern New Jersey's political foundations.
On Friday, former State Senator Wayne Bryant was sentenced to four years in prison for bribery and fraud. He was convicted of pressuring officials at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into giving him a low-show job in exchange for bringing state money to the school.
Listen:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Ingrid Reed at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University says corruption can occur anywhere in New Jersey in part because of the power that local governments have in the state.
Reed: Every little town can make a decision about development so that gives every single little town the opportunity to be the victim of a public official who's watching out for himself and not the public interest.
Reed says there's no strong code of ethics at the local level for public officials in New Jersey and having such a code would create a shared value of how people should behave and help prevent abuse.