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The Man Who Sank New Jersey

This article is more than 10 years old.

On April 27, Hoboken mayoral candidate Peter Cammarano III; his close associate, North Hudson Utilities Authority Commissioner Michael Schaffer; a Jersey City Board of Education official and a New Jersey consultant, met a quiet, stocky real estate developer at a local diner for lunch. The real estate developer wanted assurances about zoning approvals and told Cammarano that he "wanna make sure that I, you know, you, you're my man." Cammarano, according to court documents, did not hesitate, answering: "[y]ou can put your faith in me."

Having formed a bond, the real estate developer and Schaffer headed to the parking lot, where the developer fished out an envelope containing $5,000 in cash from the trunk of his car and handed it to Schaffer, saying "just make sure he gets my stuff, uh, expedited." Replied Schaffer: "I certainly will."

This was amateur night, New Jersey style. Solomon Dwek, a 36-year-old real estate developer, has been identified as the main cooperating witness in the massive government corruption probe announced today in Newark, N.J. Dwek had been charged with bank fraud by the feds back in 2006, which should have given Cammarano and Schaffer reason to wonder if Dwek was wearing a wire as part of a deal with the government. But blinded by greed and a lack of common sense, prominent politicians, public officials and rabbis were done in by the short bespectacled son of a rabbi who headed a Jewish Sephardic synagogue in Ocean Township, N.J.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation used the cooperating witness to launder $3 million as part of a corruption and money laundering investigation that resulted on Thursday in the arrest of Hoboken Mayor Cammarano, Schaffer, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez and New Jersey state assemblymen L. Harvey Smith and Daniel Van Pelt.

In total, 44 people wound up in handcuffs, including rabbis from New Jersey and Brooklyn as Dwek broke up cases on separate fronts for the feds, including one scheme that involved the trafficking of body parts in a network that went all the way to Israel. A lawyer for Dwek could not be reached for comment.

The sweeping chain of events started in April 2006, when Dwek pulled up to a drive-through window at his longtime bank, a PNC Bank branch in Eatontown, N.J., and handed a bogus $25 million check to the teller written on a closed account. Dwek, a real estate developer with nearly 400 properties, was trying to pay back some loans, but the feds later charged him with bank fraud. Dwek filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and left a mess for his creditors, banks and investors.

Charles Stanziale, the bankruptcy trustee, has so far sold 350 properties, ranging from commercial shopping center space to apartment complexes to residential homes. The liquidation process has raised no more than $30 million, says Stanziale, and won't come close to making whole the some $400 million of claims that have been filed. Stanziale says he is also engaged in 75 lawsuits with banks and investors trying to recoup cash. "It's just a massive case," says Stanziale.

Dwek remained free on a $10 million bond and evidently was very busy working for the federal government. In legal papers filed by the feds, the cooperating witness is described as conspiring to bribe Secaucus Mayor Elwell and a building inspector in Jersey City, and also of making a payment to an Ocean County housing inspector in the women's bathroom of a restaurant. There were alleged conspiracies to bribe an official of the Jersey City Department of Health and Human Services, a Jersey City government official working on housing and economic development and a Jersey City Housing Authority official.

One of Dwek's more chilling jobs for the federal government was conspiring to purchase a kidney from Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, a Brooklyn resident. According to legal papers, Rosenbaum said the kidney would cost $160,000, with some of the money going to the donor and doctors in Israel. "I am what you call a matchmaker," Rosenbaum told Dwek during one of their meetings in Brooklyn.

The far-reaching consequences of Dwek's work for the government may not be felt till this November's gubernatorial election, when New Jersey voters choose between New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and Chris Christie, his Republican opponent. Christie, the former U.S. attorney in N.J., stands to benefit from the corruption news due to his strong reputation as an anti-corruption prosecutor. It seems reasonable that Christie must have been aware of the Dwek-related investigation, which has been going on for years.