Dr. Oscar Sandoval sat behind the desk in his Union City medical office, wincing slightly at the sharp flash of a news photographer.
Although he appeared calm as he spoke with reporters, he sat rigidly and spoke deliberately, as if in testimony to the seriousness of his purpose.
The invasion of reporters had apparently surprised him. Yet he seemed determined to tell his side of a story that was told again and again in court over the last few weeks.
Sandoval has been the prominent figure in the ongoing federal trial of Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon, who has been charged with knowingly carrying bribes from Sandoval to County Executive Robert Janiszewski to procure county contracts.
The impromptu interview held on Monday came apparently with the permission of the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Sandoval worked with the FBI in 1999 into 2000 on a sting operation that eventually resulted in the Janiszewski’s conviction for extortion and the current charges against Davila-Colon.
During several weeks of testimony, Sandoval has been accused of numerous, perhaps scurrilous, charges, for which his position as a potential witness may prevent him from voicing a defense.
While Sandoval has been characterized as "living high," a man who dined in the best restaurants, dressed in the best clothing, drove the most expensive cars, at each of his public appearances, he seemed perpetually in need of a shave. And his Union City office – one of three offices he maintained as part of his company – seemed overly worn, with chipped paint in places, worn rugs, and it was somewhat dark and overcrowded. While his Spartan car – a rare exotic automobile Janiszewski once mistook for a Bentley – sat at the front curb under constant video surveillance, Sandoval’s empire seemed poorly built, hardly fitting the testimony that made him seem like a wealthy playboy.
Sandoval supported Davila-Colon’s testimony that she was unaware of the contents in the bribe envelopes she carried from Sandoval to Janiszewski before the 1999 federal sting. Since this interview, Davila-Colon has admitted to knowing the contents of at least one envelope given to her on Oct. 15, 1999, but maintains she had no knowledge of earlier bribe payments. FBI tapes played in the court, however, reveal her describing scenes of previous bribes she later claimed she merely repeated from Sandoval.
Sandoval disputed "facts" presented at the trial and corrected the dates of when payments were actually made to Janiszewski. He said payments began in 1997, not 1995 to 1996 as presented in court.
"I based the early date on my memory," he said. "But when I went back and checked my records, I found out it was 1997 when the first payment was made."
Sandoval said he was not permitted by federal authorities to go into more details as to what transpired from 1997 until Janiszewski’s arrest in Nov. 2000, hinting that he had been communicating with federal officials, if not yet cooperating with them, as early as 1997.
Sandoval studiously avoided commenting on his relationship with Davila-Colon other than saying they had been romantically involved. Davila-Colon testified to once being Sandoval’s patient and became intimately involved with him when the doctor-patient relationship ended. But she also testified that Sandoval continued to prescribe Xanax for her. Sandoval looked incredulously when told of Davila-Colon’s testimony of her still unfaltering love for him. He refused to make any similar declarations and also refused to comment on the prescriptions.
Janiszewski as political boss
In defending himself against the unrelenting accusations posed by Davila-Colon’s attorney, Peter Willis, in court, Sandoval painted a historical picture of Hudson County’s political power over the decade and a half Janiszewski rule as "boss."
Sandoval claimed that Janiszewski depended on two chief consultants for recommending vendors: Geoff Perselay, a former county administrator and warden of the Hudson County Corrections Center, and Janiszewski’s close friend, Paul Byrne.
Perselay and Byrne, Sandoval said, seemed to compete with each other to get their contracts awarded, and Sandoval was caught in the middle of their conflict.
Sandoval claimed that his contracts to supply psychiatric services to the jail and the juvenile detention center suffered on account of this conflict, and that other contracts and proposed services to county facilities also fell victim to this internal power struggle.
"I was working with Paul Byrne," Sandoval said.
While not allowed to talk specifically about the investigation behind charges brought against Davila-Colon, Sandoval outlined his relationship with Hudson County, claiming he was a reformer who had sought to expose several instances of wrongdoing – efforts that eventually put his contracts at risk.
Sandoval said his contracts dated back to the early days of the Janiszewski Administration in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He apparently had the contract to service the county institutions, lost them for a brief time, and then regained them in 1992.
Sandoval said the system became clear to him after he had attempted and failed to open a daycare center in North Bergen. In a meeting Sandoval claimed was arranged by a prominent Hudson County lawyer, Janiszewski scolded Sandoval.
"He told me I had not worked within the family," Sandoval said. "He also said I should use a consultant."
This was how Sandoval hooked up with Byrne, he said.
In talking about his relationship with Hudson County officials since his first business dealings with them in the early 1990s, Sandoval described a web of professional and possibly illegal activities that he had attempted to correct, including activities by other vendors in institutions where he worked at the time. He described his effort to reach out to the freeholders to inform them of such problems and how his own contracts may have suffered because of these efforts.
One county official, who wished to remain unnamed, recalled Sandoval expressing great frustration at not being able to get local law enforcement to look into his allegations.
"I remember joking with him," this official said. "I said if he couldn’t get anyone local to investigate, maybe he should go to the feds. I guess he did."
Twisted up on the stand
In a dramatic turnaround in her testimony, Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon admitted in court that she knowingly passed a bribe to County Executive Robert Janiszewski on Oct. 15, 1999, and that she had planned the operation with Dr. Oscar Sandoval since Aug. 20, 1999.
Davila-Colon, who is being tried in federal court in Newark for knowingly passing bribes to Janiszewski on at least two occasions, maintained that she knew nothing of previous bribes until Sandoval told her in July 1999, at which point she resisted his persistent efforts to have her knowingly carry bribes for him.
Sandoval was at the time seeking to renew $2 million in contracts to provide psychiatric services to the Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny and the Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center in Secaucus. Janiszewski, who served as chief witness against Davila-Colon, has already pleaded guilty to extortion.
Under sharp and pounding questioning from U.S. Assistant Attorney Jeffrey Clark, Davila-Colon admitted she knew she had broken the law when carrying a bribe to Janiszewski during a fundraising event held in a Jersey City hotel.
"I knew I was doing something illegal," she admitted, although she persistently claimed she knew of no previous bribes until they were revealed either by Sandoval in 1999 or through later charges filed by the federal government.
The startling admission, however, was vaguely presented in the ending defense testimony, and it may have been a change of defense strategy that seemed to have gone terribly wrong. Under cross examination, Davila-Colon contradicted herself several times on dates and on her interpretation of bribes.
Davila-Colon returned to the stand after nearly a week, suffering severe heart palpitations, which forced her to be admitted into Christ Hospital halfway through her testimony on June 11. In an interview during the break, Davila-Colon said Judge William Bassler had insisted she be examined by a doctor when she complained of chest pain.
Prior to resuming her testimony on June 17, Davila-Colon maintained she had no knowledge whatsoever as to the contents of envelopes she carried from Sandoval to Janiszewski in both 1996, when Janiszewski claimed she had helped bribe him twice, and again twice in 1999 when Sandoval acted as an agent for the FBI.
But earlier testimony from federal agents who had supplied Sandoval with marked bills, showed the trail of the bribe on Oct. 15, 1999, with 31 of the 50 bills later recovered in Janiszewski’s Jersey City home. FBI agents also testified they witnessed Davila-Colon pass the envelope with the cash to Janiszewski.
Although Peter Willis, Davila-Colon’s attorney, said early in his presentation that he intended to prove federal authorities entrapped his client by setting up the criminal situation themselves. If federal authorities can prove Davila-Colon was involved in previous bribery efforts, the entrapment defense would evaporate.
Clark hammered at Davila-Colon again and again, especially focusing on what she might have known about the 1996 bribery instances and an alleged incident in which Janiszewski and his close friend and consultant, Paul Byrne demanded money to gamble during the 1998 League of Municipalities Convention in Atlantic City. Davila-Colon contradicted herself on the gambling money, saying at one point she believed it was a bribe and at another time, claiming it wasn’t. Byrne, when contacted, said the incident never happened.
Although Davila-Colon claimed tape recordings of her recounting the 1996 bribes were merely her regurgitating information Sandoval had told her, the testimony did not seem to jibe with an Aug. 16, 1999 recording in which she described two 1996 bribery scenes, when prompted by Sandoval.
Davila-Colon also contradicted herself several times as to when she made up her mind to help Sandoval in the 1999 bribery. While under questioning from her attorney, she claimed she had not made up her mind until Aug. 22 or Aug. 23, and she later admitted she was plotting with Sandoval during a taped conversation on Aug. 20.
Although Willis carefully guided Davila-Colon through the transcript of the six tapes recorded by federal authorities during their investigation to cover all the allusions to bribes they apparently contained, much of this testimony seemed to unravel under Clark’s cross examination. Davila-Colon claimed some of the allusions to money were not about bribery at all, but about fundraising tickets.
With the case wrapping up this week and a jury verdict expected as early as June 24, much rests on the jury believing Davila-Colon’s confusing accounts. – by Al Sullivan