HOBOKEN AND BEYOND — Forget “Jersey Shore.” There’s an hour-long reality show airing now on the internet that tells how local politicians make friends, do deals, and eat meals.
The two journalists who wrote the new book “The Jersey Sting,” which details the 2009 FBI sting operation that led to the arrests of more than 40 politicians and religious leaders in the New Jersey metro area, released on Monday black-and-white FBI video they obtained of local councilman Michael Russo having lunch with the FBI informant who brought the officials down.
The book alleges that Russo — according to the authors — at first allegedly agreed to accept informant Solomon Dwek’s offer of $5,000 for his campaign, then refused to talk to him again after the meeting.
The video has many interesting points.
In the video, informant Solomon Dwek, pretending to be a developer, meets with Hoboken 3rd Ward Councilman Michael Russo. Unlike many of those Dwek met with, Russo was not running for re-election at the time, but was supporting one of the Hoboken mayoral candidates — Beth Mason — and her three council-at-large candidates.
On the video, Russo shares his views on development (it’s good for the city), on the candidates (now-jailed Peter Cammarano is “only out for himself” and his career without caring about the city and Dawn Zimmer is a “neophyte”) and shares his strategy for being offered multiple lunches in one day while politicking (he eats a different course for each meal).
He also says that Mason asked what she’d need to do to get his support for mayor. He said he wanted to pick all three of her council-at-large candidates. Mason’s choices were seen as unusual at the time and criticized by reformers at the time for seeming to be aligned with Russo and friends. At the time, Mason told a local paper, Is Mike Russo here this morning? No. And anyway, if you look at his record and my record — or my record and Terry’s — we are the most closely aligned.”
In the end, Mason lost that election to Zimmer and Cammarano, who ended up in a runoff.
Russo says in the video that Mason is pro-development just like he is. He says development is good for the city.
Dwek complains that he loses money when developments take years to do. He asks if Russo could expedite them after the election. Russo says he’d try to help expedite all development. Dwek hints that as a friend, he’d like more favoritism. Russo says that his philosophy is that if you have two people to help out, and all things are equal, and one is a fraternity brother, obviously you’d help your fraternity brother.
So what happens next? See a forthcoming news item at www.hudsonreporter.com. For our past coverage, see below. And to watch the video, click
HERE.
Full video released of Russo’s entire lunch meeting with FBI informant — Part I
