Former N.J. State Senator Wayne Bryant says corruption charges politically motivated

Former State Sen. Wayne Bryant, facing a trial this spring on political corruption and fraud charges, says he's been the victim of bias.

As a once-powerful Democrat, Bryant argued in court papers, he was targeted by a Republican U.S. Attorney with aspirations for higher office.

Is Bryant's claim a publicity stunt meant to taint the jury pool, as prosecutors have suggested, or a legitimate defense against an overreaching U.S. attorney?

U.S. District Court Judge Freda Wolfson, who will preside over Bryant's trial, could sort that out tomorrow during a hearing on several motions filed by Bryant and codefendant R. Michael Gallagher.

Either way, Bryant's arguments mesh with New Jersey's continuing narrative of public corruption and political parlor games.

In the last six years, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie has amassed a stunning, undefeated record, putting more than 100 corrupt officials behind bars - the majority of them Democrats, raising the occasional criticism of "selective prosecution."

Bryant's attorneys have woven most of those criticisms into their court filings, mentioning subpoenas dropped on state legislative offices, former State Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D., Bergen) and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, all of which drew complaints of political motivation. Coniglio recently was indicted, but no charges have resulted from the other cases cited.

Bryant's filings also note that Christie, long rumored to be a GOP gubernatorial candidate, has been giving speeches in the last year urging New Jersey voters "to elect better leaders." In several interviews, Christie has deflected talk of his plans, saying he is concentrating on his current job.

Bryant's attorneys want a list of all of Christie's public appearances at political events and fund-raisers, as well as transcripts of all of his speeches. They also said they would call Christie as a witness if Wolfson grants them an evidentiary hearing.

The goal, presumably, would be to persuade the judge to dismiss the charges. If that doesn't work, the judge can decide whether Bryant's attorneys can argue selective prosecution to a jury, said Bob Goldman, a former prosecutor in Philadelphia who now defends white-collar criminal cases.

He said more lawyers in political corruption cases have been making that argument since former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was accused of firing prosecutors for political reasons.

"It's a very difficult argument to win under the law, but with some of the facts that have come out there's a feeling by some defense attorneys . . . that there's some meat on the bone," Goldman said.

Edwin Stier, a former federal and state prosecutor in New Jersey, said it was important not to confuse what's said in the media with what can be successful in court.

"My prediction is that it is not going to go anyplace. I don't remember a successful selective-prosecution motion," he said.

Nonetheless, he said, Bryant's attorneys probably have a "good-faith basis" for their motion.

"You might as well take your shot," he said.

William Hughes, a former prosecutor who practices law in Atlantic City, said judges were reluctant to allow the defense to claim selective prosecution before a jury, especially as Christie has not targeted Democrats exclusively.

"In this case, there is a history of the U.S. attorney prosecuting Republicans," he said. "I think that's going to be a tough row to hoe."

Bryant, who represented Camden County and served as chair of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, did not run for reelection after he was indicted last year.

In the indictment, he was accused of accepting a $35,000-a-year no-show job at the state-run University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in exchange for steering millions to the school.

He also held two other public positions - as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University's Camden campus and as the attorney for the Gloucester County Board of Social Services. Prosecutors said he did little to no work at those jobs as well.

From 2003 to 2005, when Bryant held all three public jobs, as well as his seat in the Senate, he nearly tripled the value of his public pension.

Gallagher, the former dean of UMDNJ's School of Osteopathic Medicine, has been accused of arranging Bryant's job and "cooking the books" to make it appear as though Bryant actually did work there.

Gallagher was charged in a separate scheme to pay himself bonuses from 2002 to 2004.

Both have pleaded not guilty and their trial has been scheduled to begin in April. Both have filed a number of other motions, including one asking to have the charges dismissed. Those motions also will be discussed tomorrow.

Bryant's lawyers said he did nothing wrong - politicians holding multiple public jobs wasn't banned until last year and was, in fact, quite common.

In his court papers, Bryant said 16 Republican legislators also held jobs with public agencies and could have benefited from their positions.

"However, unlike . . . Bryant, none of these Republican legislators were prosecuted by the U.S. attorney," his lawyers wrote.

Prosecutors shot back that none of those lawmakers took "a stream of corrupt payments," and called Bryant's selective prosecution argument "scurrilous" and "baseless."

"Bryant does not identify another person, Republican, Democrat, Whig, or otherwise, who engaged in the same or similar conduct and who was not prosecuted," they wrote in response. "Bryant . . . was 'on the take' as a state senator."

Bryant's attorneys countered that Republicans have done far worse. They cited former Sen. Martha Bark (R., Burlington) who did not seek reelection last year amid a state investigation into two part-time consultant jobs she held.

Those jobs paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars with little documentation of the work she performed. Bark defended the jobs, saying she did the work but did not take or keep notes on what she did. No charges have resulted.

Prosecutors noted they are allowed to consider someone's prominence when deciding whether to bring charges. Bryant was not only chair of the budget committee, but Senate majority leader.

"None of the Republican lawmakers identified in Bryant's motion occupied the same positions of influence," they wrote.

Whatever Wolfson decides, Goldman said, some elements of Bryant's claim of bias likely would seep into a trial.

"Defense counsel in virtually every political corruption case I've seen argues that the prosecutor is overzealous," he said. "It's typical to describe the defendant as the victim."