Prosecutors told an appellate court that the recordings,
from a corruption inquiry, could harm innocent people.
Inquirer Staff
April 15, 2005
Maureen Graham and George Anastasia
WritersThe New Jersey Attorney General's Office continued
its fight yesterday to block the release of more than 300
hours of secretly recorded conversations made during a political
corruption investigation four years ago.
In a 25-page motion, state prosecutors urged the state Appellate
Division to continue a stay issued last month that has barred
the publication of most of those conversations.
The Attorney General's Office asked the appellate court to
intervene after Superior Court Judge John A. Sweeney ordered
the release of all the tapes.
Repeating arguments made in the lower court, prosecutors said
the confidentiality of "innocent third parties"
and the need to protect investigative techniques required
that the tapes not be made public.
At the center of the dispute, according to those familiar
with the investigation, are about seven crucial recordings
made between December 2000 and February 2001 by John Gural,
then a Palmyra councilman working with the New Jersey Division
of Criminal Justice.
Two of those tapes, including a lengthy conversation with
South Jersey Democratic Party boss George E. Norcross III,
were released March 31 even as prosecutors asked the appeals
court to intervene.
Five other tapes, including conversations between Gural and
then-Burlington County Democratic Party chairman Louis Gallagher
Jr., have not been released.
Gural and Ted Rosenberg, a lawyer and political whistle-blower,
contend that those tapes form the basis for a criminal investigation
that the Attorney
General's Office failed to pursue.
Several more tapes, most involving conversations between Gural
and
Rosenberg or Gural and Norcross, were released yesterday.
The tapes provided little new information.
They were released because Norcross, through his lawyer, and
Rosenberg have both waived their third-party rights.
The Attorney General's Office yesterday asked the Appellate
Division to formally hear its appeal of the lower court ruling
releasing the tapes. In the alternative, prosecutors asked
the appeals court to send the issue back to
Superior Court so that their arguments could be heard there.
"This court's intervention is needed to prevent gratuitous
public exposure of innocent third-party conversations and
lawful criminal investigatory techniques," prosecutors
argued in yesterday's court filing.
Among other things, state prosecutors have asked that they
be permitted to "redact" or eliminate certain conversations
even if the tapes are ordered released.
Gural began taping conversations for state investigators after
he said he was pressured by his employer, JCA Associates Inc.
of Moorestown, to remove Rosenberg as solicitor in Palmyra.
Gural, who has since been elected mayor, said that Rosenberg
had fallen out of favor with Norcross and other party leaders
and that they wanted him punished.
Norcross, through his attorney, has dismissed the allegations
of Gural and Rosenberg, labeling them "political malcontents."
Gural and his boss at JCA, Mark Neisser, met with Norcross
on Jan. 3, 2001, at Norcross' Commerce Bank office in Cherry
Hill.
During that meeting, according to a tape released last month,
Norcross told Gural he wanted to "crush" Rosenberg.
In an expletive-laden rant that has now become fodder in the
coming gubernatorial race, Norcross said, "You need to
get rid of this f-ing Rosenberg for me and teach this jerk-off
a lesson."
Norcross, through his attorney, has acknowledged that his
language was harsh but has denied any wrongdoing.
In urging that all the tapes be released, Rosenberg said members
of the public should be allowed "to judge for themselves
whether crimes have been committed or whether a cover-up has
occurred.
