Garden State stands accused of bid process corruption at ex-deputy mayor’s trial.
Nick Mazzocchi commanded New Jersey’s largest army of excavators, high rise cranes, and heavy trucks. But Mazzocchi said none of that mattered when it came to winning public contracts in the Garden State. Under bruising cross-examination in federal court Wednesday, Mazzocchi told jurors his road to success was paved with bribes and political contributions.
“In these municipalities they can control whatever they want,” Mazzocchi said in federal court. “They can throw all the bids out and re-bid it until their favorite son gets the job.”
On Mazzocchi’s third day on the stand in the corruption trial of former Newark Deputy Mayor Ronald Salahuddin, he painted a portrait of a state beset with corruption, where money speaks louder than qualifications.
It wasn’t enough to have the largest demolition firm in the state, Mazzocchi said to Salahuddin’s defense attorney, Thomas Ashley. He said he would be shut out of bids were it not for the hundreds of thousands of dollars he had paid in bribes and political donations.
Though Mazzocchi, 56, admitted to bribing numerous public officials, union leaders and political bosses, he said he never bribed Salahuddin, 61, or his co-defendant Sonnie Cooper, 68. Both are on trial in U.S. District Court in Trenton on charges of bribery and extortion.
“Did you ever give Mr. Salahuddin one dime for his efforts?” Ashley asked. Mazzocchi said no.
What Mazzocchi did give Salahuddin was thousands of dollars in political contributions for Booker and Newark Now, the mayor’s nonprofit organization. Shortly thereafter Mazzocchi received contracts worth more than a million dollars in city demolition work, according to testimony and tapes.
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