Sean Carlson: Okay, Nancy, let's get right into it. Tell us what's in the indictment.

Nancy Solomon: Well, the attorney general is using RICO, the racketeering laws that were established to take down the mob. Basically, the attorney general alleges that George Norcross ran what he calls the Norcross Enterprise, and all throughout the indictment, the N, of course, is capitalized, but so is the e. He is the chairman of the Norcross Enterprise, and this is a criminal enterprise, as the attorney general puts it, and that the enterprise used political power to obtain tax breaks, to influence, manipulate, and retaliate against elected officials, to coerce businesspeople, and ultimately to make money and burnish the reputations of the leaders of this criminal enterprise.

Sean Carlson: Now, you've been covering Norcross, his political and business empire, and the controversial tax breaks on the Camden waterfront that are at the heart of New Jersey's case here. Did you learn anything new in this indictment?

Nancy Solomon: Yes. I mean, there's a lot of detail about the fight that George Norcross was having with a Philadelphia developer named Carl Dranoff. Now, Dranoff held both rights to develop the Camden waterfront, and he had view rights. He had a building, a residential apartment building, and he had the rights for his people and his apartment building to have a view of the Delaware river and the city of Philadelphia across the river. George Norcross and his business associates wanted to build a 15-story office tower between the Dranoff building and the water. They tried to get him to give up his rights.

Dranoff didn't want to or wanted more money for them than what they were offering. In the indictment, Norcross is quoted saying to Dranoff, "If you f this up, I'll f you up like you've never been effed up before. I'll make sure you never do business in this town again." I mean, it's almost like a b movie with the language. I mean, it's kind of crazy. The retaliation is a big part of these charges. There's another interesting detail about how George Norcross didn't want a written agreement about the deal to build the office tower on the Camden waterfront with these two other business partners, allegedly because that would show that they didn't need the tax credits to move to Camden.

The whole point of the state giving away those tax breaks, and to and his allies, it was worth $1.1 billion for him and people connected to him to get these tax breaks, and the whole point of that program was to incentivize businesses to come and invest in Camden. They couldn't show that they already had a deal to build the 15-story office tower on the Camden waterfront because if they already had the deal, then why did they need tax breaks to come to Camden? That was another little interesting addition that I didn't know about.

Sean Carlson: Now, as we said, Norcross is not the only person being charged here by state AG Matt Platkin. Can you tell us more about some of the others and what they're being accused of?

Nancy Solomon: Right. There's Phil Norcross. This is George's brother. He's a lawyer and a lobbyist, and he worked to get many of his clients the tax breaks in Camden that I was just talking about. In fact, he actually helped write the bill that supercharged the tax break program for Camden in the first place. He also met with top leaders at Camden City Hall every week and gave orders to city staff about development projects, despite having no actual position to do so. I mean, these are things that we had reported on, but now these are part of the indictment.

There were two businessmen. I mentioned the Camden office tower. There were two businessmen, the owner of NFI Trucking and the owner of the Michaels organization. These are large, big businesses who built the office tower, and each business got a $79 million tax break. Then, George Norcross' company also got I think it was a little more than 79, maybe $82 million tax break. The three of them went in on building that building, so the owners of those two are also indicted. Then, there's Dana Redd. She's a former assemblywoman and former mayor of Camden.

She was a key ally of the Norcross brothers, and so she's been indicted as well. Then, one that I find really quite interesting is Bill Tambussi. He's the Norcross lawyer. He's also the lawyer for the city of Camden, the county of Camden, and several other government entities. By using RICO and defining this as a criminal enterprise, the attorney general is basically saying that Tambussi can't hide behind attorney-client privilege and he's being charged, so that was pretty surprising to see.

Sean Carlson: This part, Nancy, blows my mind. It was not just journalists attending today's announcement in Trenton, right. George Norcross himself decided to show up. Did he address the charges at all when he was there?

Nancy Solomon: This is really wild. George Norcross and a bunch of attorneys in their suits came walking into the conference room as we were waiting for the AG to come out and speak to us. Most of them sat in the empty second row, and George Norcross sat in the front row. The seats were all reserved and the AG staff members hadn't come in yet, but apparently that one seat didn't have the reserved piece of paper on it. At one point, the members of the AG's office came out and tried to get him to move and he refused, so that was interesting.

I asked Mr. Norcross afterwards whether he was trying to intimidate the attorney general, and he said he had a right to be there. His lawyer tried to ask a question of the AG but wasn't allowed because they only take questions from reporters. Attorney General Matt Platkin seemed to be making a little bit of a comment about the situation when, during his remarks, he seemed to go a little off script and say that the public officials have been harassed and intimidated by the Norcross Enterprise when they're just trying to do their jobs and provide good government service. Yes, it was really crazy to see them there.

Sean Carlson: Now, in our last minute here, Nancy, a lot of these names are familiar to people who follow politics closely in New Jersey, but why does something like this, this scandal matter to folks in New Jersey who aren't involved in the political goings on?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I mean, I would say it matters a lot because George Norcross has been able to exercise power over governors, the state legislature, city councils, county commissioners, and that tax break we were talking about alone was worth $1.1 billion in taxpayer money. Then, you have the business people who were extorted, allegedly, from being able to develop property in Camden, and there the people of Camden, like, do they really need this office tower on the Camden waterfront, or should the tax break program have been focused on providing residents with more amenities in their city?

Then, let's not forget the connection that this case has tangentially to the murders of John and Joyce Sheridan. There were documents on their dining room table the night that they were murdered that were about John Sheridan's fight over a building on the Camden waterfront that the Norcross Enterprise was trying to take control of and did take control of. The attorney general talked about that today. I think this is very important to everybody in the state.