Donald Scarinci, a managing partner at the high-powered law firm Scarinci Hollenbeck, says the federal indictment against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) “refused to let the law get in the way” and was “retaliation” against his childhood friend.Â
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Scarinci weighed in on Menendez’s indictment via his Facebook page on Thursday night, hours after Menendez pleaded not guilty to criminal corruption charges that included bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to the 68-page indictment, Dr. Salomon Melgen offered Menendez things like “domestic and international flights on private jets, first-class domestic airfare, use of a Caribbean villa, access to an exclusive Dominican resort, a stay at a luxury hotel in Paris,” among other expensive gifts the senator accepted.
Additional details allege that Menendez advocated for the Florida ophthalmologist to gain a port security contract with the Dominican Republic and tried to get out of a multi-million dollar dispute with Medicaid.
In a phone conversation with Hudson County View, Scarinci noted that the port security contract never went to Melgen, who also has pending litigation with Medicaid.
“I don’t see how they convict him [Menendez] and it really makes you question: why did they even allow that indictment to happen in the first place? It was either willful, or a runaway attorney who had so much time invested in this that they couldn’t let it go,” Scarinci explained.
“Next to me, Sal Melgen is Bob’s closest personal friend – whom he knew before he was in Congress. There’s a 20-plus year relationship here. Sal Melgen would give you the shirt off his back, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He’s a Democratic ideologue, he gives generously to the whole party.”
The indictment makes note that Melgen contributed $750,000 to entities supporting Menendez in his 2012 re-election bid.
Scarinci added that it was “beyond insulting” that Menendez would do something for a close personal friend in exchange for contributions.
Menendez’s federal trial has a tentative start date of July 13, though it seems like a foregone conclusion it will be pushed back to a later date.
The reality is Menendez has been doing this for a long time. He has sold his office for profit, this time he was caught and there is enough evidence to show that. There is an interesting article in the Record everyone should read, by the way Donald, were is Kay LiCausi?
“A top executive from the Virginia company that first proposed the Xanadu project in the Meadowlands said the firm was asked to raise $50,000 in 2005 for Bob Menendez, then a congressman, after it received a critical permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, court documents show.”
http://www.northjersey.com/news/xanadu-exec-says-company-was-asked-for-menendez-contribution-after-key-federal-permit-was-issued-1.1263676
Retaliation for what, exactly, Mr. Scarinci, and by whom? Please elaborate. And why would someone(s) want him removed from the SFRC? Honest questions.
No one is tougher to unseat than an indicted Hudson County street-fighter with a law degree and more money than God that will afford him the opportunity to hire criminal defense attorneys with twice the I.Q. of his.
And for those Democrats who hold their noses while supporting him, they must rationalize that support with the old political maxim that “while he may be an S.O.B., he’s our S.O.B.â€
And I cannot help but think that adage applies to those who are behind our governor. (Now the jokesters can weigh in.)
Donald, I don’t think they have twitter in prison. Let’s hope Bobby doesn’t give you up, lol,lol
Mr. Scarinci, you embarrass yourself when you post. Do us all a favor and go back to whatever country you have been hiding in.
Officials in West New York have been telling people that you are not allowed in the city until after the election.
Its obvious why you haven’t been anywhere near your former partner Joe Ferriero’s trial. Hey but where you come from that’s how friends treat each other.
Before you try to create the appearance that you and the good Senator are BEST friends. How come he doesn’t want you anywhere near him these last few days? A REAL friend would be right next to him.
The last point that I would like to clarify is that it’s WRONG to accept gifts from anyone that you are in a professional relationship with. YES everyone has a right to be friends, but it would have been so easy/correct for the Senator to pay his own way. Donald? You are going to justify that it’s OK for a Senator to use someone else’s reward points? Give us a break.
It’s apparent that any of the accounts that you presently represent will NOT be asking you to conduct a seminar on ethnics title “DOING THE RIGHT THINGâ€, Because you JUST DONâ€T GET IT!!!!!!!
I have a great deal of respect for Donald Scarinci, and his statement shows a great deal of what is wrong with politics in general, and although it has always been true, is worse than ever. After reading what Robert Menendez did, the problem isn’t that he broke the law, the problem is that, after all of this, NO laws were broken. When we have these campaigns costing many millions of dollars, and corporations and very wealthy individuals donating eye-popping sums of money, it makes me wonder where my representation is. What does someone earning $40k who has to think twice before making a $10 donation think when he hears individuals or corporations are donating millions of dollars? Nobody donates and doesn’t expect something in return, that being help protecting the little guy who donates $10 from corporate greed, or the corporation who donates $1,000,000 to a super pac wanting help breaking the union, the only real voice the little guy has being that collective voice.
He may have broke no laws, but that, is the problem.
GOTCHA!
John Heinis why you deleted comments, backed up by evidence, showing how corrupt Scarinci is? Be a man and respond!
I suppose I deserved that, I meant to address this much sooner but with the holiday and a couple stories earlier today I haven’t had a chance. In the past two weeks or so, I’ve noticed a few commenters are creating, 4,5,6 different aliases to make comments.
I’m all for an ongoing dialogue, and I don’t care what people say as long as it’s within reason, but I don’t think it’s fair for the same person to be posing as several people in order to make a point or push an agenda forward. Think about how you’d feel if the shoe was on the other foot.
Feel free to use as many characters, sentences, paragraphs, news sources, etc. as one wishes in order to express a point, but I’m trying to weed out scenarios where one or two people are responsible for posting 12, 15 or 20 comments on a thread. This has happened, and I know that because I can see the IP addresses of where the comments are coming from, and I’d like to prevent it from continuing to happen.
I just wanted to put that out there for the knowledge of the general public. John B, feel free to resubmit a comment and I will more than likely be just fine allowing it on here, but I just wanted to let it be known that spam commenters are going to be unacceptable from this poijt forward. If anyone would like to discuss this with me further on a more private basis, please feel free to e-mail me at thehudsoncountyview@gmail.com.
A real class act. someone we should all be proud to know:
During that meeting, DeCotiis testified, Scarinci said their firm had been approached by Hartz Mountain Industries, a rival developer to Mills, about representing Hartz Mountain. DeCotiis said Hartz Mountain planned to use “scorched earth†tactics against Mills.
A majority of New Jersey voters think U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez should resign after being indicted on 14 federal corruption charges, according to a poll released Thursday morning.
Mr. Scarinci you are wrong and everyone’s knows it. This type of behavior is OK in your world but it doesn’t fly with the rest of the country.
Scarinci is way off base on this issue. When you take a look at the history of Hudson County politics this is just a small example of the reason that the reputation in this county is the worst in the state and maybe even country.
Let’s hope the Fed’s take a real close look at Scarinci.
After reading this brief I almost stained myself. Scarinci is the biggest con artist out there. There is a reason that his firm looses accounts daily.
Scarinci, is the worst! There is a reason the people of West New York hasn’t seen him at a Town Hall meeting in months.