TRENTON — In light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey will seek a new indictment against prominent Parsippany builder Edward Mosberg, who is accused of bribing a Parsippany Planning Board attorney. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman this week notified U.S. District Court Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton of his plan to take...
Parsippany builder Edward Mosberg in this 2006 file photo.TRENTON — In light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey will seek a new indictment against prominent Parsippany builder Edward Mosberg, who is accused of bribing a Parsippany Planning Board attorney.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman this week notified U.S. District Court Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton of his plan to take the case to a grand jury again. The new indictment will contain language that will "conform" with the Supreme Court ruling, said Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Martinez.
Mosberg, 84, of Union, faces four counts of bribery, six counts of mail fraud and one count of "conspiracy to use the U.S. Mail to defraud the public of the Parsippany Planning Board attorney’s honest services."
In a June 24 ruling, the Supreme Court sharply narrowed the scope of the honest-services component of the federal mail-fraud statute in an appeal by former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who was convicted of making fraudulent statements about his company’s financial condition before it collapsed.
The court held that the law can be used only in schemes involving bribes or kickbacks and not simply to prosecute "undisclosed self-dealing" by a public official or private employee whose official acts further his own hidden interests.
The case against Mosberg alleges that between 1998 and 2007, Mosberg gave discounts on homes he sold to the former planning board attorney, John Montefusco Sr., and Montefusco’s family in exchange for favors that aided Mosberg’s projects.
The Supreme Court used the Skilling ruling as a precedent for two other cases it also decided on June 24. Judge Wolfson had put the Mosberg case on hold in January, pending the court’s action on the three cases.
Mosberg’s attorneys, Jonathan Goldstein and Peter Till, were unavailable for comment.
Martinez said that based on the Skilling decision, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will be deciding whether to drop or amend charges against other defendants on a "case-by-case basis," but he couldn’t say which specific cases will be reviewed.
The Skilling decision has already resulted in charges being dropped against two former political leaders in New Jersey. Last week, a federal judge tossed out the conviction of former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph A. Ferriero, who had been found guilty on three mail fraud counts.
And an assistant U.S. attorney said this week he would drop theft-of-honest-service charges against former Assemblyman and Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas in the wake of the Skilling ruling. However, Vas still faces state and federal corruption charges alleging fraud and illegal campaign contributions.
The extent to which the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Skillman case will affect other high-profile corruption cases, including the conviction of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James, is unclear.
With James, the heart of the prosecution’s case was that he failed to disclose an alleged romantic affair with a woman who received a city contract to redevelop city-owned homes. A jury convicted him and Tamika Riley in April 2008 of conspiracy and fraud charges.