Feds clear two in probe of N.J. corruption case

TRENTON, N.J. - Federal investigators say New Jersey's former top federal prosecutor and the former special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office did not commit any wrongdoing in their handling of a major statewide corruption case last year.

The Justice Department conducted the internal ethics probe to determine whether public comments made by Ralph Marra Jr. - who was acting U.S. attorney at the time - or Weysan Dun were improper.

Some critics said the comments may have unfairly helped Marra's former boss, Christopher J. Christie, who at the time was running for governor against Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine. Christie, a Republican, won in November.

But the Star-Ledger of Newark reported Sunday that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility issued a letter last week stating that Marra and Dun had acted properly.

"Based upon the results of our investigation, we concluded that you did not violate any professional obligation and thus did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment in this matter," wrote Mary Patrice Brown, the office's acting counsel.

Marra, now senior vice president for legal and governmental affairs at the state's Sports and Exposition Authority, and Dun, who now heads the FBI's Omaha, Neb., office, said they didn't believe they had done or said anything improper. Both said they were pleased the investigation confirmed that.

At issue were comments the men made at a news conference in July 2009, announcing the arrests of 44 people as part of a sweeping federal corruption probe. Of those arrested, 29 were elected or public officials - a high count even in a state with a reputation for official misdeeds.

Dun called the arrests unprecedented, saying "this case is not about politics. . . . It is about arrogance and it is about a shocking betrayal of the public trust."

Asked about corruption in the state, Marra said: "There are easily reforms that could be made within this state that would make our job easier, or even take some of the load off our job. There are too many people that profit off the system the way it is and so they have no incentive to change it. The few people that want to change it seem to get shouted down. So how long that cycle's going to continue I just don't know."

Justice Department guidelines say prosecutors "shall refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a serious and imminent threat of heightening public condemnation of the accused." Lawyers often refer to the rule as keeping them within "the four corners" of the indictment, as it's designed to prevent them from publicly declaring defendants' guilt before trial.

Critics - including some in Corzine's reelection campaign - argued that the remarks could be construed as an implicit endorsement of Christie. But Corzine said recently he did not believe the corruption sting had anything to do with his defeat and did not think it was orchestrated as a political ploy.

The corruption scandal gave Christie an opening to campaign on his strongest issue: law and order. After the arrests, he laid out a plan to impose tighter standards on public officials, and said the arrests showed "a failure of leadership."