Sharpe James is an American former Democratic politician who served as the 37th mayor of Newark, New Jersey, from 1986 to 2006, and as a state senator for the 29th legislative district from 1999 to 2008. He is a subject of the 2005 feature-film Street Fight.
Edward Robert Vrdolyak, also known as "Fast Eddie", is a former American politician and lawyer. He was a longtime Chicago alderman and the head of the Cook County Democratic Party until 1987 when he ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Chicago on the Illinois Solidarity Party ticket. He subsequently ran again in 1989 on the Republican Party ticket. He was a prominent opponent of Harold Washington and the de facto leader of the so-called "Vrdolyak 29" that opposed and blocked many of Washington's measures.
The Alaska political corruption probe refers to a 2003 to 2010 widespread investigation by the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service into political corruption of nine then-current or former Alaskan state lawmakers, as well as Republican US Representative Don Young and then-US Senator, Republican Ted Stevens. Sometimes referred to as "The Corrupt Bastards Club" or the "Operation Polar Pen", the investigation focused on the oil industry, fisheries and for-profit prison industries.
Martin "Marty" Taccetta is an imprisoned New Jersey mobster who was the alleged boss of the Jersey Crew, a powerful faction of the Lucchese crime family.
Bradley D. Simon is a white collar criminal defense and civil litigation attorney known for his representation of clients in high-profile cases. Simon's client roster has included Former New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi in connection with then New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo investigation into the New York State Pension Fund scandal., David Chang in connection with the bribery and corruption charges that led to the resignation of former New Jersey Senator Robert G. Torricelli., UK Solicitor Jeffrey Tesler against charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when working with Halliburton in Nigeria and James Marquez of Bayou Hedge Fund Group in the first-ever criminal prosecution of a hedge fund. Through aggressive representations, Simon has earned a reputation as a strong advocate for clients in highly public, combative cases, as stated in the New York Times story with regard to Alan Hevesi's choice to switch lawyers in the middle of his defense.
Joseph A. Ferriero is an American Democratic Party political leader from New Jersey and former chairman of the Bergen County Democratic Organization. Ferriero, an attorney by profession, resides in Hackensack.
Mark Arthur Ciavarella Jr. is an American convicted felon and former President Judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who was involved, along with fellow judge Michael Conahan, in the "Kids for cash" scandal in 2008, for which he was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison in 2011.
Ralph Joseph Marra Jr. is an American lawyer who served as the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. He held this position from the resignation of Chris Christie in December 2008 until the appointment of Paul J. Fishman in October 2009. In January 2010, after Christie became Governor of New Jersey, Marra was appointed to a top legal position in the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. After serving about a decade, he became senior counsel at Calcagni & Kanefsky, LLP in Newark, New Jersey.
Operation Bid Rig was a long-term investigation into political corruption in New Jersey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 2002 to 2014.
The kids for cash scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, US. In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of accepting money in return for imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles to increase occupancy at a private prison operated by PA Child Care.
Honest services fraud is a crime defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1346, added by the United States Congress in 1988, which states "For the purposes of this chapter, the term scheme or artifice to defraud includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services."
Preetinder Singh Bharara is an Indian-born American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is currently a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for five years prior to leading the Southern District of New York.
David Wildstein is an American businessman, former Republican Party politician, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the New Jersey political news website New Jersey Globe. A former mayor of Livingston, New Jersey, he served as a senior official in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey during the administration of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie until 2013, when Wildstein resigned in the midst of a scandal involving traffic lanes closures. On May 1, 2015, he pleaded guilty to two federal felony counts of conspiracy as part of a plea agreement, but his conviction was later overturned.
Bridget Anne Kelly is the former deputy chief of staff to the Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, known for her participation in the Bridgegate scandal.
Vincent Grady O'Malley is a retired American professional basketball forward and a long-serving assistant United States attorney.
Erin Nealy Cox is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas from 2017 to 2021. She was nominated to the position by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2017. After the 2020 election, she resigned effective January 9, 2021, and joined Kirkland & Ellis as a partner on June 23, 2021.
Kelly v. United States, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the 2013 Fort Lee lane closure scandal, also known as "Bridgegate". The case centered on whether Bridget Anne Kelly, the chief of staff to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who was running for reelection at the time, and Bill Baroni, the Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, improperly used lane closures on the George Washington Bridge to create traffic jams as a means of retaliation against Mark Sokolich, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, when he refused to support Christie's reelection campaign. While lower courts had convicted Kelly and Baroni on federal fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the convictions in its May 2020 ruling, stating that such charges could not apply as "the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property", and remanded their cases back to the lower courts.
Andre Damian Williams Jr. is an American lawyer who is the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. He is the first African-American U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
