Feds charge 44 with corruption including two N.J. assemblymen, three mayors

[FarCenter]

There are three threads to the case: political corruption mainly in Hudson County, money laundering mainly in Monmouth County, and the sale of kidneys:

Read http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/feds_charge_44_with_corruption.html for the overall story.

Re the sale of kidneys --

The wide-ranging investigation also charged Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn, with "conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant, at a cost of $160,000 to the transplant recipient," according to federal authorities. The connection of they kidney sale to the other aspects of the investigation, however, has not been made clear.

Rosenbaum began meeting with the FBI informant and a female undercover agent in 2008. The pair-- who were posing as a businessman and his secretary-- told Rosenbaum they were willing to pay to find a donor for the woman's fictitious critically ill uncle.

Rosenbaum said he had 10 years experience brokering deals between U.S. patients and people in Israel willing to donate body parts, according to the complaint.

"I am what you call a matchmaker," Rosenbaum said, according to the complaint.

Rosenbaum allegedly said he would need half the money up front and the other half after the donor was flown in from Israel. He also warned the pair that buying and selling human organs is against the law.

"Let me explain to you one thing. It's illegal to buy or sell organs," Rosenbaum said, according to the complaint. "So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you're giving a compensation for the time."

[justdafacts]

1. Don't let this step on Michael Steele's scandals....

Michael Steele's Widening Airport Scandal

by justdafacts
Daily Kos
Sun Jun 21, 2009 at 03:31:06 AM EDT

Another ugly episode from RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s tenure as Maryland’s lieutenant governor is coming back to haunt him. This time it’s a state audit finding that while Mr. Steele was in office, his close friend and advisor, Washington lawyer Sandy Roberts, who is black, posed as an independent airport retail business owner so that airport retail giant Hudson News could meet minority participation goals at Baltimore Washington International Airport.

The same Sandy Roberts owns Allied Berton LLC, the inactive firm to which Mr. Steele and former Gov. Bob Ehrlich paid $417,000 of their donors’ money without explanation in the final weeks of their last campaign. Mr. Roberts’s website depicted the firm as an importer/exporter and commodities trader, not a campaign services business, and no other candidate or campaign ever reported payments to Allied Berton......

full story at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/21/745069/-Michael-Steeles-Widening-Airport-Scandal

[tabbycat31]

2. dosen't surprise me coming from NJ

our politicians are more corrupt than most are.