‘Are you threatening me?’ Surprise recordings are at the heart of prosecutors’ case against George Norcross.

George E. Norcross III has spent the better part of the last two decades on the radar of state and federal authorities, who despite launching multiple investigations into his business dealings have never brought charges against him.

That changed this week as New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin unveiled a sprawling racketeering indictment against the South Jersey power broker and five allies. Within the 13-count indictment are signs of the years of earlier investigations that preceded it.

Peppered throughout the charging documents are nearly a dozen references to contemporaneous recordings of phone calls and meetings in which Norcross and others discussed the real estate deals at the heart of the case. The tapes referenced in the indictment date as far back as 2013 — well before Platkin’s investigation began — and continue through periods of time in which other earlier investigations of Norcross were occurring.

» READ MORE: ‘New Jersey politics is a blood sport’ and other key takeaways from prosecutors’ case against S. Jersey power broker George Norcross

In one of them — a recorded 2016 phone call — Norcross admits to threatening Philadelphia real estate developer Carl Dranoff, with whom he was feuding at the time, the indictment says.

“He said, ‘Are you threatening me?’ ” Norcross reportedly told a confidante on the call, as he recalled a conversation with Dranoff. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ ”

Some of the recordings described in the indictment were made during the same period the FBI was tapping Norcross’ phones in an unrelated investigation into Philadelphia labor leader John J. Dougherty. The Inquirer has previously reported agents were listening in on Norcross’ phone calls from July through late August 2016, then picked up again in October for about a month. Norcross wasn’t charged or accused of any wrongdoing in that investigation.

Monday’s indictment also described a previously undisclosed FBI interview with Norcross in 2016 in which he discussed a Camden nonprofit that prosecutors now say was the victim of the power broker’s extortion.

» READ MORE: What to know about the racketeering indictment against South Jersey power broker George Norcross

How many recordings of Norcross and his allies investigators have obtained remains unclear, as does who made them and where exactly they came from. During his news conference announcing the indictment Monday, Platkin credited the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Philadelphia and New Jersey for earlier work that contributed to his investigation.

The tapes could raise the stakes if the case against Norcross heads to trial.

“I can tell you that there is nothing more powerful in a criminal prosecution than hearing a tape recording,” said Ed Stier, a former state and federal prosecutor who served as director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. “You can’t cross examine it.”

But to Norcross, Platkin’s use of recordings seemingly made during other investigations that went nowhere is a sign that the case is light on evidence and brought by an attorney general fueled by political ambition.

During an interview Tuesday, Michael Critchley, an attorney for Norcross, dismissed the recordings as “antiquated material” that has “been in the government’s possession for almost a decade by multiple law enforcement agencies.”

He also suggested some of the recordings may have captured conversations involving Norcross and his attorneys — raising the possibility that his defense team could argue the government violated attorney-client privelege.

“They looked at these recordings, they examined these records and found no wrongdoing,” Critchley said, noting that prior investigations didn’t result in charges. “Those recordings amount to nothing based upon the fact that law enforcement agencies that previously reviewed it did nothing. So from nothing comes nothing.”

» READ MORE: Who is George Norcross? A look at the indicted South Jersey power broker

Among the earliest recordings of Norcross mentioned in the indictment is one from August 2016.

At the time, Norcross was working with Malvern-based real estate investment firm Liberty Property Trust to acquire parcels of land and property rights to build the office tower for his insurance brokerage and other partners, including logistics company NFI and development firm The Michaels Organization. Norcross and executives at those companies, who were charged alongside Norcross on Monday, also hoped to partner on a proposed residential project nearby.

But they faced several obstacles, chief among them Dranoff, who held property and development rights to several parcels on the waterfront. Years earlier, Dranoff had developed the Victor Building, the first market-rate apartment complex in Camden in decades, and was granted what is known as a view easement that protected its views of the Philadelphia skyline.

That limited how high other developers — including Norcross’ investor group — could build in the surrounding area. For months, Dranoff had been negotiating with Liberty Property Trust over selling his view easement to make way for the development Norcross envisioned.

Those talks were dragging on, and Norcross’ group couldn’t yet apply for state tax credits under the Economic Opportunity Act that would make the deal financially viable. (Prosecutors say the 2013 law that created those tax breaks was shaped by Norcross and his brother, Philip, as part of their criminal enterprise.)

According to the indictment, on Aug. 22, 2016, George Norcross told Liberty CEO William P. Hankowsky that it would be a “bad thing for the city” if Norcross had to walk away from the project, and it would be “humiliating for me.”

“That’s why I’m so irritated by [Dranoff’s] crap,” Norcross said, in a recorded conversation quoted in the prosecutors’ court filing.

» READ MORE: In legal brawl over Camden waterfront, developer alleges ‘shakedown’ involving power broker George Norcross

Frustrated by the lack of progress, on Oct. 20, 2016, the indictment says, Norcross threatened Dranoff, warning that there would be “consequences” if he didn’t relent.

The next day, Norcross recounted that conversation to a confidante during another recorded conversation highlighted in Monday’s indictment.

“I said, ‘[Dranoff], this is unacceptable. If you do this, it will have enormous consequences,’” Norcross said, according to the filing.

The most detailed recorded conversations referenced in the indictment involved a purported plan to use the Camden Redevelopment Agency — a government entity represented by the law firm of Norcross ally William Tambussi, who was also charged Monday — to attack Dranoff by condemning his view easement.

On Oct. 21, 2016, a day after the indictment says Norcross told a friend he’d warned Dranoff of “enormous consequences” for refusing to agree to a deal on his property rights, an agreement emerged and was memorialized in an email, according to the indictment.

But it fell apart later that same day. In a recorded conversation, Norcross spoke with his brother Philip and mentioned the plan involving the redevelopment agency and Tambussi: “I just talked to Tambussi. … I want to go in. I want to encourage Tambussi to do his thing … I think we just do it. F — ‘em. F — ‘em. Just do it.”

The next day, Norcross convened a conference call with Philip Norcross, Tambussi, and his partners on the office project, Sidney Brown, CEO of NFI, and John J. O’Donnell, an executive at The Michaels Organization.

“I don’t even know why we’re dealing with [Dranoff] … [T]he city ought to condemn his ass and just move on,” George Norcross is quoted as saying in the indictment’s recounting of the recorded conversation.

“He’s gonna come under some very serious accusations from the City of Camden which are gonna basically suggest that he’s not a reputable person, and he’s done nothing but try to impede the progress of the city,” Norcross continued. “You can never trust him until you got a bat over his head.”

» READ MORE: Camden accuses Dranoff of bilking city out of $9 million from Victor apartments tax break

Tambussi noted on the call that if a court authorized the city’s condemnation of Dranoff’s view easement, the value of his property rights would come “down to virtually nothing” — benefiting the Norcross group’s negotiating position, the indictment says.

On multiple occasions during the call, Brown asked questions clarifying the purpose of using the Camden Redevelopment Agency to go after Dranoff.

“Let me just make sure, is the goal here really to try and put some pressure on [Dranoff] to sign what we just tried to get signed?” he asked the others at one point.

George Norcross responded: “Of course. Either that or condemn it, so we can move expeditiously …”

» READ MORE: George Norcross probe: Two South Jersey transit officials charged with using authority to exact political revenge

He also floated another point of attack on Dranoff, who he referred to as a “putz”: The city could revoke an option he held to redevelop another parcel nearby, a vacant property known as Radio Lofts. Philip Norcross chimed in that Tambussi’s condemnation plan offered the best chance to “kill” the view easement.

The indictment doesn’t indicate who recorded the men hatching those plans. The conversation does overlap with the period the FBI was wiretapping Norcross’ phone as part of the Dougherty investigation.

Ultimately Norcross and the others didn’t follow through with their condemnation idea. Liberty declined to cooperate, the indictment says, and instead offered to pay Dranoff more out of its own end of the deal.

On Oct. 24 — the same day the Norcross group had planned to have the CRA go after Dranoff in court — Dranoff agreed to sell his view easement for $1.95 million, below what he thought it was worth, as well as other property rights, prosecutors say. That would clear the way for the Norcross group’s office tower, known as Triad1828 Centre, and the 11 Cooper apartment complex.

Other people in Norcross’ orbit were secretly recorded as well, including as far back as 2013, in the aftermath of the passage of the tax-incentive legislation.

Philip Norcross was recorded telling acquaintances in a September 2013 meeting that he practices “as little law as possible” and instead focuses on “George’s agenda in Camden,” according to the indictment.

Four years later, when George Norcross wanted to install a political ally at the helm of the nonprofit Cooper’s Ferry, his associates advised the organization’s chief executive to resign.

Susan Bass Levin, a former Cherry Hill mayor installed as the nonprofit’s cochair by Norcross and his allies, told CEO Anthony Perno that nothing could stop George Norcross from getting what he wanted, the indictment says. Levin isn’t mentioned in the indictment by name, but she fits the description of a person identified in the charging document as “CC-1,” who prosecutors say was the CEO of Cooper Health’s philanthropic arm, the Cooper Foundation.

Perno left the nonprofit in 2017.

“If you don’t think [Norcross] can’t get to anybody he wants to,” Levin told Perno in a recorded conversation recorded shortly before his decision to resign, “you’re kidding yourself.”