Current and former South Jersey transit officials indicted in political revenge plot
Christopher M. Milam and Bryan J. Bush were indicted on charges of conspiracy, official misconduct, and perjury, according to the N.J. Attorney General’s Office.
A New Jersey grand jury has indicted one current and one former commissioner of the South Jersey Transportation Authority after they allegedly used their public office to retaliate against a political foe, prosecutors said Thursday.
Christopher M. Milam, 46, a commissioner and former board vice chairman, and former commissioner Bryan J. Bush, 53, are accused of conspiring in 2023 to deny payments to an agency contractor who had fallen out of favor with Democratic power broker George E. Norcross III, prosecutors said.
Milam and Bush, both from Sewell, were indicted on six counts of conspiracy, official misconduct, and perjury, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. Prosecutors announced charges against the two men in June 2024.
“This indictment indicates that these defendants abused their positions of power to get retribution,” Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said in a statement. “Scheming to unjustly use a public office as a weapon to manipulate and punish political opponents is misconduct, and those who engage in this type of behavior will be held to account.”
An attorney for Bush, Robert Agre, said Thursday afternoon that he had yet to receive or review the indictment. Milam’s attorney, Charles A. Fiore, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Norcross isn’t mentioned in the indictment and hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing in the case. His spokesperson has said he had no involvement in the matter.
An affidavit of probable cause made public last year referred to Norcross as a “South Jersey Democratic Party leader” and described how he feuded with an executive at Middletown, N.J.-based engineering firm T&M Associates.
After the executive, John Cimino — who was also a Mercer County commissioner — defied a request from Norcross to stay neutral in a local election, prosecutors say Milam and Bush used the power of their office to punish Cimino’s employer.
The commissioners prevented payment of invoices submitted by T&M to the South Jersey Transportation Authority board, “effectively halting compensation to the company for work it had completed,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a news release.
The invoices were ultimately approved in May 2023.
When Milam, who was also chairman of the Washington Township Democratic Committee in Gloucester County, and Bush, business manager of Local 19 of the Sheet Metal Workers union in Philadelphia, were called to testify before a grand jury last year, the two men lied about their reasons for withholding payments, according to the indictment.
The SJTA operates the Atlantic City Expressway and Atlantic City Airport.
The most serious charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
Asked last month by Politico why there hadn’t been any public updates since charges were announced in June 2024, Sharon Lauchaire, a spokesperson for the attorney general, said cases “involving white-collar offenses take varied amounts of time based on the complexity of the matter, discussions among the parties, motions filed by both parties, the schedules of the court, defendants, witnesses, and defense counsel.”
Days after announcing charges against the SJTA officials, Platkin’s office unveiled a 13-count racketeering indictment against Norcross and five co-defendants involving their acquisition of real estate in Camden. A judge dismissed the charges in February, and the AG’s office has filed an appeal.