Almost a year after criminal charges in New Jersey against NFI CEO Sidney Brown and others were tossed out by a judge, a higher court in the Garden State has affirmed that decision.
Brown is mentioned mostly just in passing in the 92-page decision handed down Friday by the Appellate Division of New Jersey Superior Court.
The decision spends dozens of pages recapping the events that led to the indictment of Brown and several other New Jersey political, legal and business leaders, including George Norcross, long described as a South Jersey political power broker despite the fact that he holds no public office and never has. The indictment of Norcross gathered the headlines in New York/New Jersey media when it was first announced in June 2024, with Brown a secondary player in news coverage.
What the appellate court ultimately decided was that a judge in New Jersey Superior Court for Mercer County had followed legal precedents in throwing out the case against what prosecutors called the six-person “Norcross Enterprise” in late February last year.
As for Brown, when the court dismissed the indictment, Judge Peter Warshaw asked about the CEO of the truckload carrier and another businessman indicted in the case: “What did these men do?”
Across the 13-count indictment–Brown was a defendant in eight of them–the core of the charges brought by the state Attorney General’s office were that a group used the power Norcross has amassed over the years to strong arm a nonprofit and a developer, identified elsewhere as Carl Dranoff, to give up development rights in the beleaguered south Jersey city of Camden so that the “Norcross Enterprise” could benefit from tax breaks connected to redeveloping part of the city’s waterfront.
Wiretaps that recorded the negotiations found numerous profanity-laced discussions that led prosecutors to charge the Norcross group under New Jersey’s Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
NFI HQ is in downtown Camden
One of the buildings constructed in the subsequent movement of property rights in Camden was the TRIAD1828 Centre. That is now the headquarters of NFI.
The appellate court sided with Norcross and his defendants on every argument they made against the state’s appeal of the lower court decision.
The appellate court’s decision quoted the core of Judge Warshaw’s decision: “In summary, the court found as a matter of law: the factual allegations set forth in the indictment failed to constitute the offenses of theft by extortion of criminal coercion, which underpinned all other offenses; the indictment failed to allege a racketeering enterprise.”
Judge Warshaw also said former Camden mayor Dana Redd, who was indicted, “did not commit any act of official misconduct.” The appellate court also affirmed Judge Warshaw’s decision that indicting the defendants for actions that in some cases took place almost 10 years ago were time-barred.
The Appellate Court’s decision, which was handed down by a three-judge panel, spent a significant amount of time on the calendar and whether the statute of limitations blocked prosecution.
Do tax benefits extend statute of limitations?
The court noted that while some of the charges were outside the statute of limitations, several of the indicted parties–including NFI–were still receiving the tax benefits that were a driving force in Norcross’ efforts. That fact, the state had argued, meant that the criminal activity was still ongoing.
But “New Jersey law does not specifically articulate a framework for analyzing ongoing payments to extend a conspiracy,” the appellate court wrote.
As to one of the charges in the indictment that cited some of the wiretapped discussions among Norcross and his allies about dealing with Dranoff, the appellate court notes that these conversations were among the group, did not show up as explicit threats to the developers, and “the indictment did not asset a conspiracy to commit either extortion of coercion.”
Norcross has friends in both parties
Besides his clout and reputation, the indictment of Norcross, his brothers and others was considered shocking in part because it was a then Democratic Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin who indicted Norcross, a Democrat. However, the wiretaps suggested the investigation went back to the administration of Chris Christie, who left office in early 2018. (As this New York Times story notes, Norcross worked both sides of the aisle and is a member of the Mar-a-Lago Club.
The current attorney general is Jennifer Davenport, but she is in an acting position, her nomination from new governor Mikie Sherril not having been confirmed yet by the New Jersey Senate. If Davenport is confirmed, it would be her office’s decision whether to appeal the case to the state’s Supreme Court.
As The New York Times noted, Norcross still has “considerable sway” over the Senate that will need to approve Davenport to be the permanent attorney general.
A spokesperson for the AG’s office told FreightWaves that it is “reviewing the Appellate Division’s decision.”
Requests for comment by a representative for Brown’s legal team had not been responded to by publication time.
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