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

An ongoing grand jury probe of power broker George E. Norcross III’s influence over government agencies in South Jersey produced its first criminal charges Friday, as state prosecutors unveiled cases against two public officials accused of abusing their positions to retaliate against a Norcross foe.

Christopher M. Milam and Bryan J. Bush, both commissioners of the South Jersey Transportation Authority, are accused of leading an effort last year to delay payments owed to an agency contractor after one of its executives crossed Norcross politically.

While prosecutors have spent months investigating what — if any — direct role Norcross may have played in the alleged plot to withhold those funds, the complaints filed Friday did not accuse the leader of South Jersey’s influential Democratic political machine of any wrongdoing and did not charge him with a crime.

Charging documents filed against Milam and Bush did not identify Norcross by name but clearly referenced him throughout, referring to him only as a “South Jersey Democratic Party Leader,” and citing his 2022 feud with the contracting company executive as the reason behind Milam and Bush’s decision to vote against paying the firm money it was owed under its contract with the SJTA.

Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said the investigation would continue.

“Today we are sending a clear message: No matter how connected or powerful you are, if there is evidence suggesting that you have used your position and taxpayer dollars for political retribution or gain, we will hold you accountable,” he said. “For people to have trust in government, they cannot feel that the well-off and well-connected play by a different set of rules than everyone else. The law cannot treat people differently. My office will continue to hold powerful people and powerful institutions accountable.”

Norcross spokesperson Dan Fee, meanwhile, maintained the case had nothing to with his client.

“As we have said repeatedly and in prior public statements, Mr. Norcross had no involvement in the South Jersey Transportation Authority matter,” Fee said in a statement.

The charges marked the first public sign of progress in a yearslong, multipronged probe of Norcross and his allies that has involved at least two grand juries, scores of interviews, and dozens of subpoenas to government officials and agencies.

Norcross, a 68-year-old insurance executive and Camden native, has never held elected office but is widely seen as one of the state’s most influential political figures having built South Jersey’s political machine over the last quarter century by propelling allies into public office and key government roles.

The Inquirer reported last year that investigators have been scrutinizing whether he and his brother Philip used their political influence to acquire real estate by muscling out rival developers.

That investigation continues and has not resulted in charges.

» READ MORE: N.J. AG corruption investigation focuses on George Norcross’ influence over Camden waterfront developments, sources say

Investigators later expanded their probe, issuing a subpoena to the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which oversees the Atlantic City Airport and the Atlantic City Expressway, earlier this year and interviewing witnesses. That resulted in the charges Friday against Milam, 45, and Bush, 52, both of Sewell.

They both face charges of conspiracy, official misconduct, and perjury that threaten to send them to prison for up to 10 years on the most serious counts.

Milam, who is also the chairman of the Washington Township Democratic Committee in Gloucester County, and Bush, who also works as the business manager of Local 19 of the Sheet Metal Workers Union in Philadelphia, declined to comment Friday, referring all questions to their lawyers.

Robert Agre, an attorney for Bush, declined to discuss the case. Milam’s attorney, Ari Schneider, did not immediately return requests for comment.

Specifically, prosecutors accused the two men of colluding in 2023 to block payments to Middletown, N.J.-based engineering firm T&M Associates to exact revenge on executive John Cimino, after he defied a request from Norcross.

In December 2022, Norcross met with Cimino — who is also a Mercer County commissioner — at a Trenton-area Starbucks and asked him not to endorse a candidate in a Democratic primary election for county executive the following year. Cimino ignored the request and publicly backed a challenger to Norcross’ preferred candidate.

Cimino’s defiance and Norcross’ displeasure spilled out into the open soon after in a Dec. 19 report on their falling out in Insider NJ. Within hours of the story’s publication, Milam, according to investigators, texted a political strategist, who was not named in the court filings Friday.

“So are we now supposed to not be good with [Cimino?]” Milam wrote.

Later that same day, Milam reached out to SJTA executive director Stephen F. Dougherty to ask: “Is there a rub now with [T&M.]”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Dougherty responded in a text message exchange quoted in Friday’s court filings. “Did something happen?”

A month later, as the SJTA board prepared to vote on a batch of invoices that had already been approved for payment by the agency’s staff, including one from T&M for work it had done on a contract it held at the Atlantic City airport, Milam and Bush conferred before the board’s planned Feb. 15 meeting.

“Just so you know, I plan to vote no on all [T&M’s] bills,” Milam texted, according to the complaint. “They cut South Jersey in Mercer County so now we vote no.”

Prosecutors say that last line was a reference to Cimino’s decision to defy Norcross in the Mercer County race. Bush allegedly told Milam he’d vote the same way. The charging documents do not say that anyone had asked them to do so.

Still, for the next three months, the pair continued to vote against paying T&M, and as a result, delayed payments of more than $165,000 to the company, according to documents obtained by The Inquirer through a public records request.

» READ MORE: George Norcross probe: Emails show how a contractor fell out of favor with N.J. state agency that’s now under scrutiny

The standoff only broke, prosecutors said, after Cimino complained to a lobbyist who brought the matter to the attention of former New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Gloucester County Democrat and key Norcross ally who helped Milam and Bush get appointed to the SJTA board.

Sweeney wasn’t named in court papers Friday but was identified as a former Senate president “who has been politically supported by” Norcross. Still, those filings indicate that hours after Sweeney learned of the situation in May 2023, he called Milam and shortly after SJTA staff sent emails indicating that the T&M invoices would be approved for payment at the board’s next meeting.

Later that month, Milam and Bush voted to pay the bills. They offered no explanation for their change in course.

“The evidence revealed that these defendants misused the power they held as members of the SJTA board to exact revenge on this particular firm and one of its staff members,” said Drew Skinner, head of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability.

An SJTA spokesperson declined to comment.

Milam and Bush were also charged Friday with committing perjury during testimony earlier this year before a grand jury investigating their earlier votes.

Milam told the panel he voted against paying T&M out of concerns over the company’s performance, including its failure to include certain elements on construction plans for a maintenance garage at the airport. But prosecutors noted that SJTA staff did not discover that error until March 2023 — well after Milam and Bush had decided to vote against approving the company’s invoices.

He also contended that he was unaware of the feud between Norcross and Cimino — a claim investigators said was belied by the text messages he sent on the day news broke of the falling out between the two men.

Bush told grand jurors that he voted against paying T&M because Milam had told him the company was not “living up to their means” and delaying payment would be a means to get the firm “to do their work or catch up on the work they weren’t performing on.”

Prosecutors said Friday that the contemporaneous text message exchanges between the two commissioners spoke for themselves.

Milam and Bush have been summoned to respond to the charges at a July 15 hearing in Mercer County Superior Court.

Read the complaint: