George E. Norcross III, a longtime kingmaker in New Jersey politics, is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday morning to face charges that he manipulated property deals to benefit from millions of dollars in government tax breaks.
Mr. Norcross and five co-defendants were named in a 13-count racketeering indictment unsealed last month. They are accused of unlawfully obtaining property and development rights along the Delaware River waterfront of Camden, a Philadelphia suburb that for decades ranked among the nation’s poorest and most violent cities.
Mr. Norcross, 68, a career insurance executive, emerged as a powerful Democratic fund-raiser in the early 1990s, without ever holding elective office. Backed by a network of political allies whom he helped send to the state legislature, Mr. Norcross cast himself as Camden’s savior. Upon a landscape of industrial blight, he envisioned gleaming campuses for the life sciences, biotechnology and manufacturing industries in the city of his birth.
At the heart of Mr. Norcross’s advocacy, though, wasn’t high-minded civic duty, but a 12-year scheme of personal greed, according to Matthew J. Platkin, the New Jersey attorney general. Together, the defendants conspired to influence government officials, develop the Camden waterfront and collect government-issued tax breaks that shaved millions of dollars off project costs, state prosecutors have said.
Also charged with racketeering in the first degree were: Mr. Norcross’s brother, Philip A. Norcross, 61, of Philadelphia, the chief executive of a Camden-based law firm; Dana L. Redd, 56, of Sicklerville, N.J., a former Camden mayor; William M. Tambussi, 66, of Brigantine, N.J., George Norcross’s longtime personal lawyer; Sidney R. Brown, 67, of Philadelphia, the chief executive of NFI, a trucking and logistics company; and John J. O’Donnell, 61, of Newtown, Pa., an executive of the Michaels Organization, a residential development company.
The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
“Instead of contributing to the successes of the city of Camden,” Mr. Platkin said as he announced the charges at a news conference in Trenton on June 17, Mr. Norcross led a “criminal enterprise” that “took the Camden waterfront all for themselves.”
As Mr. Platkin spoke, Mr. Norcross, who now lives in Florida, was seated in the front row, uninvited. Later, outside the Hughes Justice Complex, Mr. Norcross accused Mr. Platkin of carrying out a personal vendetta, calling him a “coward” and a “politician masquerading as an attorney general.”
“He’s innocent,” Mr. Norcross’s lawyer, Michael Critchley, added. “He’s not afraid of the accusations.”
The charges against Mr. Norcross were another mark on New Jersey’s blemished political reputation. The state’s senior U.S. senator, Robert Menendez, is in his ninth week of a corruption trial, charged by federal prosecutors with accepting cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for doling out favors for allies.
Mr. Norcross gained notoriety by donating to political campaigns and assembling an ironclad voting bloc of South Jersey lawmakers. Mr. Norcross’s allies were instrumental in selecting governors, steering bills through the Legislature and influencing state policy.
He formed alliances that often blurred the lines between the Democratic and Republican parties. Until 2021 he was a member of the Democratic National Committee. For years he was both a close friend of the former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and a member of former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
About a year ago, Mr. Norcross suggested he was stepping back from politics after a series of legislative defeats. His public statements coincided with news reports that the attorney general’s office had revived its investigation into more than a billion dollars in tax breaks awarded to South Jersey companies through legislation backed by former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and close ally of Mr. Norcross.
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