The Jersey City Independent"

There is one lesser-noted detail from the footage displayed at the federal corruption trial of Leona Beldini. It’s the time she tried to sell the sausage factory.

And no, that’s not a figure of speech.

It was the spring of 2009. Like so many businesses in the down economy, deputy mayor Beldini’s real estate brokerage was hurting. And then all of a sudden, into her life walked this David Esenbach character, a developer with money to spend and high rises to build. He gabbed on and on about this parcel of land on Garfield Avenue, but that project was way far afield. Maybe Leona could interest him in something else? Turned out she had the perfect deal all ready to go: the old Cortes Sausage Factory.

Leona knew the owner was looking to sell the property, but who had the money to buy? Her new friend David, that’s who!… She handed him a brochure about it when they met at the Brownstone Diner on April 1. It was a premium site — right off Journal Square. They were thinking maybe 118 units for 23 stories, with some condos on top of that. Even Jack Shaw got in on the sell. Can’t you just imagine the skyline view? It was a real peach, despite the unsavory sound of the site’s old purpose. Take it from Upton Sinclair — you don’t want to know what goes into the sausage. Get a whiff, and you’ll never take another bite.

David reviewed the materials, did some calculations and pushed the sausage factory proposal aside. Yeah, only $475 a square foot…. You didn’t hear him scoff, but the tone in his voice was clear enough…. And besides, he had another deal he wanted to get to — specifically the zoning on his Garfield Avenue project. With Leona’s business in the dumps and no sale of the sausage factory, she seemed more than happy to take whatever she could get.

It was, after all, The Great Recession.

It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Leona Beldini. You can’t begrudge a person for trying to get a leg up in tough times. It’s what everybody does, right?

But see, Beldini had another occupation: one in local government, which in parts of New Jersey means regularly blurring the lines between what is legal and what, as Beldini says on one of the tapes, “everybody does.” It is a system that is all too tolerant of those who mix official duties with personal financial gain. It takes ‘corruption’ and dresses it up as ‘tradition.’

And though this clearly reeks to outsiders, if you spend enough time in the sausage factory that is Jersey politics, you get used to the smell. In fact, you start to forget what all the stink is about … that is, until you get caught in one of the grinders.

Because the average sausage factory functionary wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with Beldini handing two business cards — one as a deputy mayor, the other as a real estate agent — to a developer interested in doing city business. It might be considered normal to have a conversation about the approval process, backchannel campaign contributions and real estate commissions, all in the same sitting.

But given the right circumstances — say, one of the people at the table is not a factory worker, but a Fed — and you can be indicted for that. It’s what has Beldini facing charges that could put her away for the next twenty years.

Like the pols, the New Jersey citizenry also has a routine way of doing business when it comes to corruption. They’re used to hearing that their government has an ugly side to it, and despite living in a democratic republic, they’ve found themselves incapable of banishing it through the ballot box. So they settle for the next best thing: sending offending politicians to jail, whenever a case is brought. They require just the tiniest bit of evidence, the faintest smudge of lipstick on the collar to confirm what they already know.

The finger is pointed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and a pol is led off in handcuffs. Once the charges reach the jury, recent history has shown that what happens next is a near certainty.

Conviction.

First thing Friday morning, the tenth day of the trial, the defense rests its case. The prosecution had called it quits the day before, which came as a shock to the in-the-knows in the courtroom. The Assistant U.S. Attorneys did not call Edward Cheatam, the surviving half of the political operatives who acted as go-betweens for the developer David Esenbach, whose real name is Solomon Dwek. Cheatam entered in a guilty plea for his crimes as a bagman, and in doing so agreed to cooperate with the prosecutions of people like Beldini.

But given the path the defense is on — one of discrediting the government’s admittedly corrupt witnesses — the prosecution thought better of calling the man whose character so clearly matches his surname, he might as well have gotten it from Nathaniel Hawthorne. Because Cheatam is a Jersey City pol, too. And compared to the muck caked on some of the other factory workers, Beldini’s apron might not look so dirty.

So the government rested its case. Yes, it displays their lack of confidence in some of their evidence, but it also shows how little they have to provide to satisfy a justice-thirsty jury of New Jerseyans.

The jurors are sent home early. They aren’t allowed to watch the slice-dice-stuff that is the attorneys making the sausages of final charges.

The Bow Tie motions for a complete dismissal via Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which is invoked when the government fails to prove its case during the trial. Such a ruling would prevent the decision from going to the jury, and the Judge says he will take it under consideration. They move on to discussing the minutia of how the counts will be read, and the instructions that will go to the jury.

At one point, the defense argues that the root of the crime relates not to “corrupt payments” but “political contributions”; that it wasn’t a “concealment” issue but a “structuring” one. He wants the language to reflect as much.

The Judge isn’t having it. He says the case is clearly about more than political contributions done in an unwholesome manner. At the same time, he says he will remind the jury that it is not illegal, nor is it unseemly for candidates for office to solicit and receive donations — it’s just the way the system works. So, he agrees to insert language instructing the jury to treat the issue of political contributions with that in mind.

The most critical part of this colloquy is the topic of how the charges address the character of Mr. Dwek. The defense wants him identified to the jury as someone who has pled guilty to numerous state and federal crimes. They feel his reputation as a liar, cheater and a stealer cannot be emphasized enough. The prosecution quibbles with this, saying there had not been any third parties called to impeach his character, but the Judge says he will allow it. Dwek impeached his character himself, the Judge says, when he proffered that he is not trusted in his community and admitted that he has no friends. Not even his mother.

But the final issue they discuss is how far the defense can go with its assault on the government’s star witness in its closing argument. The Judge warns The Bow Tie that he came perilously close to arguing for jury nullification in his opening — an illegal practice which asks the jury to ignore the evidence against the defendant and vote for acquittal in order to teach the government a lesson. Such a tactic is a rebuke of the law enforcement sausage factory … a way of saying the government can’t get too ugly in its efforts to catch criminals.

The Bow Tie is instructed that he can ask the jury to acquit by attacking Dwek’s trustworthiness; but he cannot ask the jury to rebuke the government’s use of someone like Dwek in a sting operation. The Judge says he almost never interrupts in the middle of closing arguments, but in such an instance, he would have no choice.

The Bow Tie responds by stating that he will not curb his zeal in the defense of his client, but would do his best to balance that with his fidelity to the law.

It’s a solemn moment in the courtroom. If the jury votes for acquittal, not in rejection of what the evidence is but rather how it was collected, it would jeopardize numerous prosecutions from Operation Bid Rig’s massive July sweep.

In other words: the system might cease to function in the way it is expected to.

It would be a stunning turn of events, especially when considering that New Jersey politics is very stubborn in its habits. For the sausage factory has been working with the same methods, the same recipe for some time now. It goes on despite the exterior circumstances, the sliminess of a witness, or a slump in the economy.

Ah, yes. Because Leona Beldini wasn’t caught stealing a loaf of bread to feed her starving family. At the time of her arrest, she had a steady salary of $66,000 as deputy mayor. Even if her real estate business was in freefall, there was a comfy cushion there all along. According to her lawyer, her job was to sign some marriage licenses, cut a few ribbons and keep up on government business. No real power, no real authority. People would line up around the block for a gig like that during any kind of economy.

So it’s hard not to have sympathy for Beldini, but it’s even harder to ignore the evidence against her.

The Judge ultimately rules against a dismissal, and the jury is to hear the closing arguments on Monday. Then they will deliberate on the charges.

So far, the sausage factory has worked just the way it always has.

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