February 26, 2025
Amy Newman; NorthJersey.com/Imagn Content Services, LLC
The racketeering indictment against New Jersey businessman and political powerbroker George E. Norcross III was dismissed Tuesday by a state Superior Court judge. Above, Norcross is shown testifying before the New Jersey Senate in November during a review of the state's tax incentive programs.
A New Jersey Superior Court judge on Wednesday dismissed the racketeering case against George E. Norcross III, the insurance executive and Democratic powerbroker charged last year with exploiting government programs and strong-arming business rivals to control the redevelopment of the Camden waterfront.
Superior Court Judge Peter E. Warshaw tossed the indictment five months after Norcross's attorneys filed a motion to stop the case against him and five co-defendants arguing that the state failed to present evidence they had committed crimes. Norcross pleaded not guilty in July.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, whose office alleged Norcross illegally collected millions of dollars in state tax credits, vowed to appeal the trial court's decision. He said he "won't back down" from his office's yearslong fight to investigate and hold Norcross accountable.
"After years in which the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently cut back on federal public corruption law, and at a time in which the federal government is refusing to tackle corruption, it has never been more important for state officials to take corruption head on," Platkin said in a statement. "But I have never promised that these cases would be easy, because too many have come to view corruption as simply the way the powerful do business in New Jersey."
Platkin's office has 45 days to file an appeal.
The other five defendants in the racketeering case include Norcross's brother Philip Norcross, an attorney; Dana Redd, the former mayor of Camden; Bill Tambussi, Norcross's longtime personal attorney; John O'Donnell, an executive at a residential development company; and Sidney Brown, a Cooper University Health Care board member.
Norcross is the father of PhillyVoice founder and chairwoman Lexie Norcross. Philip Norcross is her uncle.
During a Zoom conference call Wednesday afternoon, Norcross attorney Michael Critchley called the indictment a "sham" based on "a corrupt investigation" by Platkin's office.
"The judge saw through it clearly, and in a 100-page opinion, just obliterated every allegation the state had made — saying, as a matter of fairness and justice, there absolutely was no crime involved here," Critchley said.
Norcross, who did not participate in the Zoom conference call, will address Wednesday's court decision at a later date, Critchley said.
State prosecutors alleged Norcross and his associates schemed to acquire lucrative projects along the Camden waterfront, pressuring government officials to aid their plans and threatening business rivals to get out of their way. The 111-page indictment unsealed in June detailed an alleged conspiracy in which Norcross and others maneuvered to gain development rights for multiple properties along the Delaware River waterfront.
When Norcross sought to build the Triad1828 Center as the headquarters for his insurance firm, Conner Strong & Buckelew, prosecutors alleged he told a rival developer during a recorded phone call that he would ""f*** you up like you've never been f***ed up before" if the development rights weren't relinquished. Norcross and his co-defendants were accused of trying to damage the developer's reputation and sabotage his relationship with Redd.
The developer ultimately sold his rights, enabling Norcross to construct the tallest building on the waterfront using tax breaks from a state program he and his associates allegedly helped lawmakers design.
In September, Norcross's attorneys filed a 55-page motion in court arguing that the allegations did not amount to more than "hardball business negotiations" and that his dealings with Redd were within the bounds of routine city politics. The court filing claimed the state's case was legally deficient.
Norcross also was accused of intervening in the sale of a waterfront complex he had hoped to use as the offices of Cooper Health, where he and Philip Norcross are board members. Norcross and his allies ultimately acquired the property from a nonprofit redevelopment organization at a cost significantly below market value, prosecutors said.
Cooper broke ground on the $3 billion hospital expansion in January.
When the indictment was handed down last summer, Platkin said the case had been aided over the years by investigators at the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice.
Critchley called Platkin "sanctimonious" for pursuing a case that involved matters stretching back more than a decade, adding that federal investigators previously had found no basis to bring charges against Norcross and his co-defendants. He claimed Platkin used the investigation to advance his political career and dismissed the pending appeal as a "face-saving mechanism."
Since being indicted, Norcross, 68, has been on a leave from his job as executive chairman of Connor Strong & Buckelew to focus on his legal defense. Norcross became a force in New Jersey politics through Democratic fundraising efforts in the 1990s but has never been elected to public office.
