Christie Sued for Accident with Motorcyclist

I wasn’t all that interested in the news that Chris Christie knocked over a motorcyclist when driving the wrong way up a one way street–I’m more interested in doing the math to figure out whether he used his position to get the later accidents pled down in a successful effort to keep his license.

But the news that the cyclist Christie hit sued is noteworthy. (h/t scribe)

The motorcyclist was riding down Clinton street ( the right way ) and when he saw Christie in the intersection, the bike fell on its side and slid into Christie’s car, according to the accident report filed by the officer on the scene.

Mendonca was injured and taken by ambulance to the hospital. Not nearby Trinitas, but UMDNJ in Newark which has a trauma center. 

[snip]

We asked Christie about the accident in Atlantic City Friday and he was very curt with his answers. NJN South Jersey Bureau Chief Kent St. John asked if there was a lawsuit. Christie said “no” then “nope.”

But actually there was. According to the Superior Court Record Center in Trenton, Mendonca filed suit in 2004. The complaint filed in Essex County was later dismissed, indicating ( according to the Clerk ) an out of court settlement.

Hey, I would sue, too if I were put in the trauma ward by some bozo driving the wrong way down a one way street. I would settle, too, if I were a politico hoping to run for Governor.

But I probably wouldn’t lie about it when asked. 

image_print
58 replies
    • Hmmm says:

      (Both OT and EPU’d:) Holy crap! And if Ashcroft has liability, then if anybody else in the Exec branch authorized or directed this bogus use of the material witness statute as a means to indefinitely detain US citizens, then…

      I wonder whether this decision might be — or at least be a contributing factor to — what got all the 43 admin perps and the mouthpieces who love them so het up this week?

  1. JimWhite says:

    I wonder how good Mendonca’s lawyer was and how much they knew about Christie. With the resources Christie’s family has (I remember those spreadsheets with millions in charitable contributions every year), a jury trial could have gone for very big bucks. OTOH, with resources and political ambition, the settlement might have been very large if the tea leaves were read correctly and Mendonca played hardball.

    • emptywheel says:

      He said to the reporter on this post that he had no idea the guy he sued was the guy running for governor. Tough to believe, but when he said “I shouldn’t talk about this.” it seems like he was taken by surprise and forgot what was presumably a nondisclosure with the settlement.

      • JimWhite says:

        Yeah, I was automatically discounting whatever he said to the reporter on the assumption there was a nondisclosure and that he would try to deflect attention. Some settlements are paid out over time and he might just be protecting the gravy train.

    • scribe says:

      Chances are the insurance on the rented BMW was enough to cover any injuries the plaintiff had. If the accident was so obscure that no one knew about it until today, it follows that the guy recovered from his injuries and that they were not catastrophic.

      Most rental agencies require the insurance to be at least a 100/300/50 policy. That is: $100,000 coverage for injuries to any one person involved in an accident, $300,000 coverage for all the injuries to everyone involved in the accident, and $50,000 coverage for property damage. A lot of policies are going to 300/500/100 because, in short, if you hit and total a Benz and you have a 100/300/50 policy, you wind up buying a Benz out of pocket.

      In fact, and without knowing who rented him a BMW, just becasue it was a BMW I’d bet they required something on the order of a 300/500/100 policy.

      FWIW, the difference between a 100/300/50 and a 300/500/100 is not much – maybe less than $100 per year.

  2. fatster says:

    O/T, or the “health reform” matter.

    Obama Asks Liberals How Far They’re Willing to Compromise on Public Option
    Brian Beutler | September 4, 2009, 5:58PM

    “A variety of reports suggest that, during a conference call this afternoon, President Obama probed House progressives to see just how flexible their demands are.

    “A source familiar with the call tells TPM that Obama asked the group to define their red line when they talk about a “robust public option.”‘

    More.

    • fatster says:

      First follow-up”

      Top House Liberal: Obama Signaled On Call He Understands How Serious We Are About Public Option
      The Plum LineGreg Sargent’s blog

      “I just got off the phone with Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, one of more than two dozen House progressives who held a conference call with President Obama today to discuss the public option’s fate.

      “Says Grijalva: The call left him with no doubt that Obama understands House libs are dead serious about not backing any bill without a public plan in it.”

      More.

        • fatster says:

          If I catch your drift correctly, his only friends now, his only hope of getting something corporate-friendly passed is precisely that. He has certainly exposed himself on this. Crystal-clear (if you got eyes and see). Maybe FISA was too complicated, too rarified for many Merkans, etc., but this issue affects them directly in many immediate and poignant ways. Let us hope the opportunity to frame this for exactly what it is and to get the message out there to the people will be seized, and quickly.

  3. fatster says:

    O/T again, and I apologize, but this is a bit of good news. And it’s Friday, too.

    Pfizer To Pay $2.3 Billion In Biggest Fine Ever For Deceitful Drug Marketing (PFE)
    Erin Geiger Smith|Sep. 3, 2009, 1:40 PM

    “In the largest settlement ever for wrongful drug marketing, Pfizer agreed to pay a total of $2.3 billion in fines for promoting medicines for unapproved uses and will plead guilty to illegally marketing the painkiller Bextra, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The settlement resolves charges raised by the Justice and Health and Human Services departments.  (Bextra was pulled from the market in 2005.)”

    More.

  4. scribe says:

    I would not count on there being a non-disclosure agreement. I would suspect, rather, that the injured plaintiff just wants to be left alone and would rather not get tangled up as a political football.

    As to the lawyer, he or she would know who the defendant was in short order.

    But, overarching all of that would be the fact that, as to the fact of there being a suit there would be no suit if it were not for Christie’s insurer not wanting to settle prior to suit. Any PI attorney would rather get a good (i.e., reasonable amount) settlement without having to go to suit. You are talking a minimum of an additional year between filing and a first call to trial if the case has to go to suit, and that’s a year without getting paid and with having to pay expenses on the suit.

    As to “maybe his lawyer wasn’t that good”, I kinda doubt that. I’d have to look at the file to be sure, but even simple car accidents are not being handled by “not so good” attorneys these days. There are simply too many pitfalls written into the law at the behest of insurance companies to make it worthwhile to bring the suit without knowing what you are doing.

  5. Citizen92 says:

    The Star-Ledger originally reported that Christie was driving a ‘rented BMW sedan’ at the time of the accident. But now I see the car is described as a ‘leased BMW.’

    Why is the fact that the car was leased significant enough to report? For all practical purposes, leasing is like owning.

    But its also passive language. Was the BMW leased to Christie? Or was it leased to someone else, and he just happened to be driving it? Or was this car leased on the USDOJ’s dime as a ‘company car?’ After all, he was going to a county prosecutor’s swearing in… on business time.

    I want to know if the car was leased to Christie.

  6. Citizen92 says:

    Google Maps is not showing any intersection of Clinton and Murray Streets in Elizabeth, NJ. There is a Clinton/Murray intersection well within the limits of Newark.

    But no such intersection in Elizabeth.

    Granted, if I were lost in Newark or Elizabeth driving around in a BMW, I might be a little worried. But I can’t find the intersection.

      • Citizen92 says:

        Yes, thank you, that makes sense.

        And that intersection is a few blocks away from the County Courthouse on Broad, which was Christie’s destination.

        Not related, but Christie went after the UMDNJ Hospital (that’s where the motorcyclist was taken) hard for Medicare fraud. Christie also imposed a federal monitor.

        • scribe says:

          You have to understand that the UMDNJ medicare fraud case came about because a whistleblower who was unhappy about being made to do the fraud grunt work because he thought it was illegal sat down, wrote a long letter explaining all the fraud, and sent it to the government (the FBI, I think). The whistleblower suffered some adverse reaction from colleagues.

          As to bringing the injured motorcyclist to UMDNJ, that’s a no-brainer. It’s huge (several city blocks), the major trauma center closes to the accident scene (maybe 2 miles as the crow flies) and one of the better emergency rooms anywhere. It has to be – it’s in Newark and, like they say about NYC, if it can happen it will happen in Newark. The only difference being that for many years only bad things happened in Newark; if you wanted to see good things happen, you had to go to NYC.

        • Citizen92 says:

          Thanks.

          From what I’ve read, like UMDNJ, the St. Barnabas over-billing strategy was also brought to the attention of the feds by whistleblowers.

          The St. Barnabas fraud has been described as the “biggest ever” Medicare fraud, yet St. Barnabas did not get a federal monitor.

          UMDNJ, however, did get a federal monitor, Herbert Stern. Mr. Stern was handpicked by Christie because that was stipulated in the deferred prosecution agreement (p22). Stern has been described by Christie as a mentor. Stern’s firm earned $8M from his appointment as monitor. I don’t know anything about Stern other than what I have read so far.

          Chris Christie also gave a job to Stern’s son in the US Attorney’s office, just prior to resigning. Can we consider Samuel Stern one of “our attorneys” as Christie likes to say?

        • scribe says:

          Stern is a former New Jersey Superior Court judge (Appellate Division) and a pretty well-respected lawyer beyond that, before and after being on the bench.

          Stern also was the lead defense counsel for Joe Nacchio, former CEO at QWest, in the prosecution the feds brught aganst him for (ahem) stock fraud (Also spelled “not unquestioningly going along with warrantless wiretapping”).

          You have to recognize that New Jersey has a rule governing judges which says, in so many words, “you can be a Superior Court judge or a lawyer, but not both. If you were a judge and decide to go back to actively practicing law, you give up your judicial pension.” It’s a ticklish line to define what does and does not require giving up one’s judicial pension, but he might have decided to go back and give up his pension.

  7. Watson says:

    There undoubtedly is an intersection of Chilton and Murray Streets in Elizabeth. But the clip above says that the complaint was filed in Essex County. Elizabeth is in Union County. Newark is in Essex County. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is in Newark.

    Did Christie use some juice to get the case moved to a more “convenient” venue?

    • scribe says:

      No, Christie “Did not use some juice to get the case moved to a better venue.” If that he had, the case would not have been moved to Essex County. Essex County is notorious as one of the more plaintiff-friendly counties. It would have been moved to Morris County, which is equally notorious as a defendant-friendly county.

      In any event, the plaintiff gets to choose venue when he files the suit. That’s so in just about any court system. Here, from the official website, is the pertinent New Jersey court rule governing venue:

      4:3-2. Venue in the Superior Court

      (a) Where Laid. Venue shall be laid by the plaintiff in Superior Court actions as follows:

      (1) actions affecting title to real property or a possessory or other interest therein, or for damages thereto, or appeals from assessments for improvements, in the county in which any affected property is situate;
      (2) actions not affecting real property which are brought by or against municipal corporations, counties, public agencies or officials, in the county in which the cause of action arose;
      (3) except as otherwise provided by R. 4:44A-1 (structured settlements), R. 4:53-2 (receivership actions), R. 4:60-2 (attachments), R. 5:2-1 (family actions), R. 4:83-4 (probate actions), and R. 6:1-3 (Special Civil Part actions), the venue in all other actions in the Superior Court shall be laid in the county in which the cause of action arose, or in which any party to the action resides at the time of its commencement, or in which the summons was served on a nonresident defendant; and
      (4) actions on and objections to certificates of debt for motor vehicle surcharges that have been docketed as judgments by the Superior Court Clerk pursuant to N.J.S.A. 17:29A-35 shall be brought in the county of residence of the judgment debtor.

      The applicable paragraph of the rule would be 4:3-2(a)(3), above, and the applicable clause would be this:

      the venue in all other actions in the Superior Court shall be laid in the county … in which any party to the action resides at the time of its commencement

      The plaintiff lived (resided) in Essex County at the time of its commencement, which made choosing Essex County a no-brainer for the plaintiff’s attorney. Injured plaintiff, lives in Essex County, Essex County is a plaintiff-friendly county.

      OK. Now, on to the next “issue” – the leased/rented BMW – on work time – company (US) car issue. Some of the commenters seem to be saying (or asking) why he was driving a leased BWM and who was leasing it and was it leased by the government for him.

      The short answer to that is “not very likely, in fact, highly unlikely”. That’s deducible because the case was brought in state, not federal court.

      Huh?

      If the case had been alleging Christie was on his way somewhere either using a government vehicle, a government-leased vehicle, or doing government business when he had the accident, it would have to have been brought in federal court. This, because the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) would require it.

      Thus, to make the analogy easy, let’s assume you get rear-ended by a GSA truck on its way to deliver stationery to the Courthouse. That’s a GSA (federal government) vehicle, driven by a government employee, who’s being negligent in driving it into the rear of your car. (In New Jersey, the law is that if you rear-end someone, you’re negligent as a matter of law. Period. Dolson v. Anastasia, 55 N.J. 2 (1970) establishes that as conclusive law.)

      OK. You want to sue for your injuries? You have to go to federal court because the FTCA requires suits against the US to be in federal court. “But I’m not suing the US, I’m suing that stupid driver”, you say. The law says different. The US will be the defendant – the real party in interest – because they self-insure and, by law, the US steps into the shoes of the negligent goverment employee. That driver will be a witness (to tell his side of the story, of course) but he will not be personally exposed to liability (i.e., he won’t have to pay personally) for your injuries. But you have to play in federal court. By another federal case, even though the FTCA case is in federal court, because the accident happened in New Jersey, New Jersey traffic law will apply to determine liability – so all rear-enders in New Jersey get treated the same way as to the rules governing their cases, regardless of who they are or who they work for.

      So, the same rules of law apply to determine liability but you have to be in federal court – where juries are much, much less sympathetic to plaintiffs than in Essex County. Why? Because in federal court, jurors get drawn from a bunch of counties, many of which are not friendly to plaintiffs. New Jersey has 3 federal courthouses and splits the state 3 ways to get jurors. Coming to Newark would be people from the northeastern corner of the state. Bergen County is the land of rich wingnuts. Passaic County can go either way – you wind up finding wingnuts in one town, Tony Soprano in another, and minorities from who knows where in a third. Morris and Essex you know about. And so on. FWIW, jurors from Union County – Elizabeth – get to go to Trenton to serve on juries even though they can see the Newark Courthouse from the Elizabeth Courthouse. And the judges tend to look with no little disdain on plaintiffs bringing “minor” tort cases before them, and then work to get rid of those “minor” cases, often by screwing the plaintiffs through pretrial rulings or forcing settlements. Finally, Christie would be defended in an FTCA action by … a section of the US Attorney’s office which does nothing but defend tort cases brought against the government because of the careless driving of the government’s employees.

      If that’s not enough to make the plaintiff’s lawyer go “eeeeew”, consider this. The filing fee to start a suit in federal court is over $500. In New Jersey state courts, it’s more like a bit over $200.

      And then there’s an obscure statute which limits the amount a plaintiff’s lawyer can charge in an FTCA case to – last I looked – 25% of the net recovery. Makes it a crime to charge more than that. New Jersey, OTOH, caps PI attorneys’ fees at a third for the first $250k or $500k of net recovery (I’d have to go back to the historical Rules to see when they upped the limit to $500k) and then a stepwise-decreasing percentage as the recovery grows.

      Last, if this suit was brought in state court and Christie and the government thought it should have been brought under the FTCA because they thought it was a work-related thing or a government-vehicle thing, they would have exercised a “removal” to take this case from state court to federal court. They didn’t. So that tells you they thought it was not work-related, and not a government vehicle.

      No. Ted Romankow – the Union County prosecutor being sworn in – is (IIRC) a long-time Repub and was something of a broker in Repub circles. Politics – not government employment. Better not be a government vehicle. Then there’s the whole “We’re all law enforcement and we exercise courtesy and comity to work together to fight crime, so I’ll show up for your swearing-in.” thing. And finally, the social thing – there’s a Jonathan Romankow who’s an AUSA in Christie’s office. I believe he’s related to Ted, the Prosecutor.

  8. GregB says:

    Christie said the motorcycle hit him. I wonder if this victim will be giving the Harry Whittingon apology any time soon?

    -G

  9. freepatriot says:

    you ain’t interested ???

    what does that mean ???

    you was interested last week, or so it would seem

    cept ya dint mention that this fuckin lop mowed down a motorcyclist back then

    they generally don’t let ya walk when ya do shit like that

    so maybe you wasn’t overreacting makin a mountain out of a molehill thinkin too much overanalyzing this

    but don’t let it go to your head

    ya mighta jes got lucky on this one

    or ya might jes be shootin fish in a barrel here …

    (wink)

    • emptywheel says:

      I was interested last week in whether he had invented a story about his wife. And why his lack of registration was dismissed.

      I am interested in which is lack of ticket for accident was dismissed, but accidentally driving down a one way is dfferent than lack of reg. But I am interested in whether he’s been keeping his license by bigfooting.

  10. Mnemosyne says:

    Maybe the accident victim had to sue in order to recover enough to pay the hospital in the absence of any health insurance.

    It would be interesting to know if he had insurance, and how much the accident actually cost him, in total of medical bills, lost work time, etc.

    • scribe says:

      That might be truer than you’d initially think.

      In New Jersey, insurance is mandatory (as Christie knows) to operate a motor vehicle.

      In automobile insurance policies, there is a required part of the policy called “PIP” (Personal Injury Protection) which pays the medical bills.

      In motorcycle insurance policies, there is no PIP. You get hurt driving your cycle, it’s tough luck (unless you have other medical insurance that will cover it).

      So, unless he had medical insurance, the motorcyclist likely would have to have sued to get his medicals paid.

  11. Watson says:

    Christie lives in Mendham, in Morris County. It occurred to me that the Essex County filing might be because Andre Mendonca, the motorcyclist, lived there. But apparently Medonca was living in Elizabeth (Union County) at the time.

  12. SparklestheIguana says:

    Do we know how many adults, children, clowns, and car seats were in the car? How bout Shriners?

  13. fatster says:

    Christie– the gift keeps on giving.

    BEST QUOTE OF THE DAY, MAYBE THE WEEK

    “NJ Gov. candidate Chris Christie, when asked for comment about the 2002 accident in which he hit a motorcyclist while driving the wrong way on a one way street.

    ‘”First of all, the motorcycle hit me. He was injured at the scene, he was taken to the hospital but I understand that he’s fine now.”

    “In case you missed it, here’s Eric Kleefeld’s post on the police report. And here’s the account of Christie denying the victim filed a lawsuit before a reporter for NJN found a record of the lawsuit at the county courthouse.”

    Source.

  14. fatster says:

    O/T Chalabi again?

    Chalabi aide: I went from White House to secret prison
    By Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers – Fri Sep 4, 4:51 pm ET

    BAGHDAD, Iraq —” U.S. authorities detained a top aide to former Iraqi exile leader and Bush administration ally Ahmad Chalabi last year and accused him of helping Iranian-backed militants kidnap and kill American and British soldiers and contractors.

    “The aide, Ali Feisal al Lami , said he was quizzed about Iranian agents, senior Shiite Muslim politicians and deadly bombings. Then, Lami said, he asked his American interrogator: Have you ever been to the White House ?

    ‘”He said, ‘No,’ ” Lami told McClatchy . “I told him, ‘Well, I have.’ “‘

    More.

  15. fatster says:

    O/T Panetta, according to anonymous sources.

    Officials: CIA chief Panetta staying put
    By PAMELA HESS Associated Press Writer

    “But intelligence officials close to Panetta insisted Friday that he is not going anywhere, saying he retains a comfortable perch in Obama’s inner circle.

    ‘”The stories that have been out there about shouting matches and threats to resign are wrong, pure and simple,” said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

    “According to one senior intelligence official, several senior Obama administration officials told Panetta at the White House this week that the spy agency’s work was vital and appreciated.

    “According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal internal White House discussions, administration officials felt the assurance was necessary to offer in the wake of Holder’s controversial Aug. 24 decision to investigate whether CIA interrogators broke laws against torture during the Bush administration.”

    More.

  16. fatster says:

    O/T Progressives & the O-Team: Food for thought.

    ” . . . Despite the president’s healthcare retreat, most major progressive groups continue to cheer him on, afraid to lose their White House access and, thus, their Beltway status. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Moveon.org has “yet to take a clear position on Afghanistan” while VoteVets’ leader all but genuflected to Obama, saying, “People (read: professional political operatives) do not want to take on the administration.”

    “In this vacuum, movement building has been left to underfunded (but stunningly successful) projects like Firedoglake.com, Democracy for America, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and local organizations. And that’s the lesson: True grass-roots movements that deliver concrete legislative results are not steered by marble-columned institutions, wealthy benefactors or celebrity politicians — and they are rarely ever run from Washington. They are almost always far-flung efforts by those organized around real-world results — those who don’t care about party conventions, congressional cocktail parties or White House soirees they were never invited to in the first place.”

    More.

    • skdadl says:

      That is a good reflection. I still vote by party (I have a social-dem party to vote for) because there are basic principles I want to see defended no matter what the issues of the day are. But the party games that go on the rest of the time compromise everyone who plays them, plus to me they’re kind of boring. Better to work with those who just keep holding politicians’ feet to the fire day after day (and who know where the fires are). We don’t need no cocktail weenies — we cook better than that anyway. Have a falafel.

  17. Boston1775 says:

    Here’s a slightly different take:

    Motorcyclist Andre Mendonca, who was taken to University Hospital in Newark, refused to comment Friday. His lawyer, Stanley Marcus, said he didn’t remember the seven-year-old accident or how the incident was settled.

    Christie said there was no lawsuit over the accident. However, Essex County court records show that a civil suit filed by Mendonca in April 2004 was dismissed three months later. The records do not specify whether the case was settled. An official in the county records office said the case file had been destroyed.

    http://www.dailyrecord.com/art…..1/90904078

    • scribe says:

      By rule, New Jersey courts only retain civil case files for 18 months after they are closed. That rule has existed for about 8 or 10 years. The volume of paper made it impossible to retain them longer.

      So, the file having been closed and destroyed would not be unexceptional.

      The lawyers are only required to retain their files for 7 years after closing it. That’s mainly because the statute of limitations for legal malpractice cases in New Jersey is 6 years.

  18. Boston1775 says:

    I may be the only one who didn’t know that Michele Brown was overseeing the FOIA requests re Christie from the Corzine campaign while she was purportedly paying back the undisclosed loan. And I also did not know that even after the loan story came out, Marra allowed her to continue overseeing those requests.

    ————————————
    http://www.mainjustice.com/200…..doj-probe/

    These statements and actions – or lack of actions – by Mr. Marra, are even more disturbing in light of recent revelations about political, and non-political, activities undertaken by his predecessor, Chris Christie. Recently, through Congressional testimony, we have learned that Mr. Christie, while he was U.S. Attorney, sought and took political advice regarding a potential run for governor directly from Karl Rove. This appears to be a direct violation of the Hatch Act. Further, when it came to light that the second Assistant United States Attorney, Michele Brown, had received an unreported loan from Mr. Christie that she was still in the process of paying back, Mr. Marra’s office allowed her to continue overseeing the freedom of information requests. This is despite the fact that they directly affected Mr. Christie, to whom she was personally indebted. Mr. Marra’s refusal to heed calls to have Ms. Brown removed from handling the FOIA requests in question only compound his compromised neutrality in this matter. Although Ms. Brown has chosen to resign immediately, Mr. Marra’s actions and comments only make the questions about the way his office is handling these public information requests persist.

    *emphasis mine*

    • emptywheel says:

      Well, and I’m trying to confirm, but I beleive the US Attorney’s office got FOIAed on whether Brown and others got “discretionary” bonuses under Christie the day she resigned.

      • Boston1775 says:

        Do you mean that it’s possible Christie gave discretionary bonuses to his staff, including Brown, on the day he resigned?

        • emptywheel says:

          No, I mean the FOIA that may have broken Michele Brown’s metaphorical back may have pertained to unusual bonuses Christie gave to her and other favored AUSAs.

  19. Boston1775 says:

    Here’s US Attorney Ralph Marra’s email to his staff after Michele Brown resigned:

    From: Marra, Ralph (USANJ)
    To: USANJ-ALL_NJUSAO_Personnel
    Sent: Tue Aug 25 16:51:07 2009
    Subject: Michele Brown

    Everyone:

    It’s with great regret that I’ve accepted Michele’s resignation as an AUSA, effective today. Michele has had a distinguished 18 year career in this Office and has been a wonderful friend and colleague. We wish her the best.

    Effective tomorrow Marc Larkins will take over as Acting First Assistant and Marc Ferzan will wear the hats of Acting Executive Assistant and Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney for the South.

    I know how distracting these transitions can be and this one has been made more difficult as the Office has been unfairly drawn into a political campaign through the barrage of FOIA requests; the purported controversy over Michele’s personal loan, and a wholly trumped up (and then apparently leaked) complaint, reportedly about my generic and general comments at the Bid Rig press conference and the timing of the Bid Rig takedown.

    We owe it to the public and ourselves to keep the work of the Office going at our usual pace and at our usual standard of excellence.

    Ralph

    http://www.mainjustice.com/200…..doj-probe/
    __________________________________

    Question: Doesn’t it seem like he’s telling his staff to continue to not provide FOIA requests at the usual pace?

    • skdadl says:

      “At our usual pace” is a funny expression. Reminds me of an old Groucho Marx (I think) joke: “Walk this way …” Kind of a precursor to the Ministry of Funny Walks.

        • Citizen92 says:

          How big is USA-NJ’s office? 30 employees? 100 employees?

          Marra sent the communication to all staff. Would all staff in USA-NJ’s office be on a first name basis with “Michele” and be nuanced enough to view the issue as an “us” vs. “them?”

          Would the AUSA’s be thinking about this the same way as the paralegals as the USA-NJ janitorial staff? I don’t think so.

          If so, there’s a HUGE culture problem in that office.

        • Boston1775 says:

          Perhaps US Attorney Chris Christie held too much power over the NJ office.
          Perhaps the staff saw clearly what was happening but could not stop it.
          I just don’t know.

          I am only reading reports and forming a story from what I read.

          The figures for the settlement US Attorney Chris Christie put together for the five New Jersey hip and knee replacement companies holding a 95% monopoly over the United States hospitals are even more stunning than the figures for St. Barnabas Hospital.

          Again, no jail time.
          Profits into the billions.
          Businesses still running.

          MEDICARE FRAUD
          and only a fraction paid back to Medicare.

  20. Boston1775 says:

    I don’t know very much about acting US Attorney Ralph Marra.
    Here is something he said in July of this year:
    ————————————-

    Here are the Marra comments that prompted the probe, according to The AP:

    “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.”

    http://www.mainjustice.com/200…..-attorney/
    emphasis mine
    _____________________________________

    Here’s what I don’t get. Who set up the following nifty agreement which netted the St Barnabas Hospital in New Jersey upwards of $365 million? (The figures are slightly different depending on where I look at this story.) Todd Christie, Chris Christie’s brother was/is on the Board of Directors of the St. Barnabas Hospital. Their trust donated more than a million dollars to the hospital:

    ‘Corporate Directive’
    According to the Times, the alleged inflation of bills under the Medicare outlier payment system began in the mid-1990s, when “pressure from managed care insurance plans and the prospect of federal health care reform” prompted St. Barnabas CEO Ronald Del Mauro to seek more financial stability at the health care system, which until the early 1990s “operated with a low-key business approach usually found at institutions that are licensed” as not-for-profit. As part of the “drive for profits,” St. Barnabas hired a consultant to help take advantage of loopholes in Medicare laws, the Times reports. According to a deposition by the consultant — James Monahan, who later filed one of whistleblower lawsuits — St. Barnabas established a “corporate directive” to raise prices charged to Medicare beneficiaries to increase the amount of funds received from the federal government. Monahan alleged that St. Barnabas “routinely added hidden charges to the room-and-board fees of Medicare patients and tried to conceal the windfall profits it was receiving from Medicare, in part by overstating its debt.” In addition, St. Barnabas increased prices charged to uninsured patients, Monahan alleged. “By rapidly increasing retail charges for procedures often covered by Medicare, St. Barnabas got a steep increase in federal aid,” the Times reports (New York Times, 8/20).

    ——————————————

    Didn’t Ralph Marra make this very settlement?
    Didn’t St. Barnabas profit????

    http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/50171.php

    • Citizen92 says:

      A few more data points on the St. Barnabas medical system:

      -The federal settlement with St. Barnabas was not dollar-for-dollar. The settlement forced STB to pay back only $245M of the $630M overcharged to the federal government. The USA-NJ’s office spun it to suggest that a 30% recovery rate of stolen federal dollars was okay because to do anything else would be to compromise patient care. During the period of the fraud, St. Barnabas expanded its system at a rapid rate (presumably thanks to the federal dollars it was receiving fraudulently).

      -The Christie Family Foundation’s largest single annual continuous donations have gone to St. Barnabas.

      -Chris Christie recused himself from the St. Barnabas case saying his family foundation was a donor. Christie failed to mention that his brother was a trustee of the system. Which fact was more important?

      -The CEO of STB, DelMauro, raked in a huge salary increase over his tenure.

      -St. Barnabas is organized as a collection of several nonprofits, but executive salaries are paid out by a for-profit “operating services” company.

      Two people who had been questioned by Justice Department investigators said they had been asked for documentation on how Mr. Del Mauro and two other top administrators at St. Barnabas are paid.

      Mr. Del Mauro gets no compensation from St. Barnabas Hospital Center, according to its public filings, but he and two other senior administrators are paid officers of SBC Management, a profit-making company that does business with the hospital center. That sort of arrangement is common in the hospital industry.

      In 1998, Mr. Del Mauro received $613,000 from SBC, according to documents on file with the I.R.S. His compensation was $4.7 million in 2003, the last year St. Barnabas received the huge Medicare overpayments. In 2004, it was $4.2 million.

  21. Boston1775 says:

    OMG – look what I just found.
    A Democrat gets jail time!
    ________________________

    Ex-state Sen. Joseph Coniglio is sentenced to 2 1/2 years on corruption charges
    by Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger
    Tuesday September 01, 2009, 12:44 PM

    NEWARK — Former state senator Joseph Coniglio was sentenced today in federal court here to 2 1/2 years in prison for funneling state money to a hospital in exchange for a high-paying consulting job. He will also pay $15,000 in fines.

    The 66-year-old Democrat stood stoically as U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh said legislators should realize the consequences of breaking the law. “No one should be above the law,” Cavanaugh said
    ——————————

    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/21-week/

  22. Boston1775 says:

    So Todd Christie is not even indicted for his crimes against his clients.
    Although he is the fourth worst offender out of approximately twenty offenders, he and his staff are not even indicted by Assistant US Attorney David Kelley.

    Chris Christie and Todd Christie donate over a million dollars to St. Barnabas, Todd Christie is on the Board of Directors, and the hospital steals hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare. No Jail Time. And the hospital keeps the stolen $380 million dollars?

    The New Jersey Hip and Knee Monopoly is settled by Christie for a small fraction of the billions involved. The Companies keep billions taken from Medicare fraudulently with NO JAIL TIME.

    St. Barnanbas and the New Jersey Hip and Knee Cartel are still up and running. With major stolen funds from the citizens of the United States.

    And look who goes to jail:

    coniglio090109_optAccepted consulting fees to lobby for hospital

    Former state senator Joseph Coniglio (D-Bergen) was sentenced Tuesday in Newark to two and a half years in federal prison for providing $1 million in state aid to a hospital in return for $100,000 in what was described as consulting fees. Coniglio must also pay a $15,000 fine.

    U.S. District Court Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh told Coniglio, 66, of Paramus, “No one is above the law.”

    http://www.newjerseynewsroom.c…..-in-prison

  23. Mary says:

    OT – 9th Circuit rules that the suits of US detainees against Ashcroft can continue.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..ft_lawsuit

    The ruling allows Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen, to proceed with a lawsuit that claims his constitutional rights were violated when he was detained in 2003 as a material witness in a federal terrorism case.

    Phone messages left at Ashcroft’s Washington D.C. lobbying and law firms were not returned Friday

    The AP was able to find someone sympathetic to Ashcroft though, a University of Idaho prof:

    “The mere prospect of that causes a lot of concern for these officials, with the time and secrecy parts of that and all the publicity that this kind of thing attracts,” Seamon said. “That’s exactly why qualified immunity exists, so these officials can be spared that.”

    Yeah – spaaring a public figure like the AG publicity, especially publicity directly related to the AG’s conduct of his office, that would be what qualified immunity is about – WTH is going on with law profs these days? Jeeminy.

  24. fatster says:

    O/T for those interested in FL politics/shenanigans. (I do hope this story grows.)

    Records: Martinez aide intervened in dispute between Pentagon, GOP fundraiser
    Records show that an aide to Sen. Mel Martinez urged the Pentagon to come to a `fair resolution’ in its contract dispute with an oil company owned by GOP fundraiser Harry Sargeant III.

    BY SCOTT HIAASEN
    [email protected]

    “Sen. Mel Martinez’s office repeatedly intervened in a 2007 legal dispute between the Defense Department and a company owned by a top Republican fundraiser who is now at the center of a campaign-finance investigation, according to records obtained by The Miami Herald.

    “In a series of phone calls and e-mails, a Martinez aide urged Pentagon contract officers to seek a “fair resolution” to $14 million in contract claims sought by the International Oil Trading Co., a fuel-supply company co-owned by Harry Sargeant III of Boca Raton.

    . . .

    “As Martinez’s staffer was lobbying the Pentagon, Sargeant and his wife donated $50,000 to the Republican National Committee — then headed by Martinez. At the time, Sargeant was the finance chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.”

    More.

Comments are closed.