MAY 11, 2015, 10:01 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2015, 8:51 AM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
THE RECORD
The crime of using a traffic jam for political retribution was never something Congress explicitly put in the federal statute books.
So U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman had to rely on laws Congress did pass as he built a criminal case in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal against three of Governor Christie’s former appointees.
Fishman relied on Section 666 of Chapter 18 of the United States code, a law sometimes called a national ban on corruption that is intended to punish fraud, bribery, theft and embezzlement from agencies that receive federal funds. The law also makes it is a crime to “misapply” property of federal aid recipients.
“That’s what gives us a federal hook in this case over that crime,” Fishman said at a news conference May 1. “Congress decided it was important to make it a crime of federal jurisdiction if people take resources – money, bribes, things for their benefit or for the benefit of other people – from state and local agencies that get federal money.”
But whether that is a legitimate use of the statute is very much open to debate in the legal community. One law professor, who has called Section 666 a “stealth statute,” questioned whether Fishman stretched the law too far to fit the bridge scandal. A Washington, D.C., defense lawyer also warned Fishman’s interpretation could face a challenge in appeals courts. And a researcher at a centrist think tank said the charges are the equivalent of making politics a crime.
Fishman said the law had been used in many past corruption cases, including the convictions of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James, former Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas, and even former Passaic Mayor Joseph Lipari back in 1992.
Former federal prosecutors said Fishman did what the Justice Department has done for years: He applied laws that Congress intentionally left vague to the facts of the case before him.