Update:
NJ official steps down amid corruption arrests: A member of the New Jersey governor's cabinet has resigned amid a sweeping corruption investigation that has ensnared three mayors, two state legislators and several rabbis.
Speaking Thursday at a news conference, Gov. Jon Corzine said he asked Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph Doria to step down and that Doria agreed to leave office.
Corzine says Doria could not be effective with such a serious investigation going on.
Among the 44 people arrested Thursday were the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus.
Dozens Arrested, Including Mayors And Rabbis, In Bizarre New Jersey Corruption Probe.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - An investigation into the sale of black-market kidneys and fake Gucci handbags evolved into a sweeping probe of political corruption in New Jersey, ensnaring more than 40 people Thursday, including three mayors, two state lawmakers and several rabbis.
Even for a state with a rich history of graft, the scale of wrongdoing alleged was breathtaking. An FBI official called corruption "a cancer that is destroying the core values of this state."
NBC New York has video showing the suspects with the FBI:
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."Federal prosecutors said the investigation initially focused on a money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, N.Y.; Deal, N.J.; and Israel. The network is alleged to
have laundered tens of millions of dollars through Jewish charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.
Prosecutors then used an informant in that investigation to help them
go after corrupt politicians. The informant -- a real estate developer charged with bank fraud three years ago -- posed as a crooked businessman and
paid a string of public officials tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to get approvals for buildings and other projects in New Jersey, authorities said.
Among the 44 people arrested were the
mayors of Hoboken,
Ridgefield and
Secaucus,
Jersey City's deputy mayor,
and two state assemblymen.
A member of
the governor's cabinet resigned
after agents searched his home, though he was not arrested. All but one of the officeholders are Democrats.
Also, five rabbis from New York and New Jersey -- two of whom lead congregations in Deal -- were accused of laundering millions of dollars, some of it from the sale of counterfeit goods and bankruptcy fraud, authorities said.
In rounding up the defendants, FBI and IRS agents raided a synagogue Thursday morning in Deal, a wealthy oceanfront city of Mediterranean-style mansions, with a large population of Syrian Jews.
Those arrested included Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, who was charged with conspiring to arrange the sale of an Israeli citizen's kidney for $160,000 for a transplant for the informant's fictitious uncle. Rosenbaum was quoted as saying he had been arranging the sale of kidneys for 10 years.
The politicians arrested were not accused of any involvement in the money laundering or the trafficking in human organs and counterfeit handbags.
The number of arrests was remarkable even for New Jersey, where more than 130 public officials have pleaded guilty or have been convicted of corruption since 2001.
Marion Barry - Crack Mayor dead at 78
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Originally Posted by jimnyc
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