The Justice Department declined to prosecute George Norcross in 2023, according to court documents

Federal authorities in Philadelphia listened to George Norcross’s phones for months in 2016, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into his relationship with the Philadelphia labor leader. John Doughertysuspicion of money laundering involving raising money for a concert during the Democratic National Convention, and allegations of possible abuse of New Jersey’s tax credit program, according to court documents released Wednesday.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office ultimately filed no charges and concluded last year that it would not pursue a federal case.

“Based on a review of the available admissible evidence, the applicable law, the likelihood of a successful trial, and the office’s prosecutorial standards, we believe that the case should not be the subject of a federal prosecution,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney of USA, KT Newton. wrote in an April 2023 letter to one of the FBI agents leading the case.

That letter — and hundreds of pages of documents detailing agents’ closed investigation — were released Wednesday as part of a legal action by a Norcross co-defendant in the state racketeering case against the New Jersey power broker and five key allies.

Although the existence of that earlier federal investigation and the FBI’s wiretapping of Norcross’s phone had been reported by The Inquirer back in 2018the documents filed Wednesday revealed for the first time what initially caught the FBI’s interest.

“Intercepted phone calls also identified Norcross’s influence on multiple New Jersey politicians,” FBI Special Agent Jason Blake wrote in a partially redacted July 2016 statement supporting a wiretap application.

The documents made public Wednesday do not reveal whether or how the investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia evolved in the years between the wiretaps in 2016 and the official decision to close the case last year.

Yet Norcross — an insurance executive, chairman of the board of directors of Cooper University Health Care and longtime Democratic leader in South Jersey — has argued that federal prosecutors in Philadelphia’s decision not to file charges exposes significant weaknesses in New Jersey’s heartland . The current case of Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin.

A grand jury indicted Norcross and five co-defendants with extortion and other crimes in June, claiming they took advantage of them threats and intimidation to acquire valuable waterfront real estate in Camden from rival developers. All have pleaded not guilty and urged the judge to dismiss the case. The indictment, which Platkin announced in June, was based in part on the same evidence gathered during that earlier investigation.

“Only the Attorney General had a different ‘opinion,’ based on the exact same evidence,” Lee Vartan and Jeffrey S. Chiesa, attorneys for Norcross co-defendant William Tambussi, said in a statement. “Only one conclusion can be drawn: that the attorney general values ​​headlines over prosecutorial standards.”

In Wednesday’s filings, Tambussi’s attorneys noted that they had received only a portion of the FBI’s wiretap requests from that 2016 investigation, which they included with their request. They sought full access to those documents so he and the others could prepare to defend themselves in the racketeering case. They noted that some of the same FBI agents and U.S. attorneys involved in the earlier federal investigation are currently working as part of Platkin’s prosecution team.

“The central evidence before the grand jury…were intercepts obtained from federal wiretaps authorized by the district courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. More than five months after the state filed its charges, the defendants remain without the underlying wiretap applications and affidavits,” Tambussi’s attorneys wrote. “Worse, it is completely unclear when – or even if – the defendants will ever get that discovery.”

A spokesperson for the AG’s office said, “We disagree with the filing and will respond publicly to the docket.”

While Platkin’s case covers much of the same time period and involves some of the same topics — including New Jersey’s tax credit program and the redevelopment of the Camden waterfront — it differs significantly from some of the areas of focus outlined in the affidavits of the FBI.

The affidavits show how that federal investigation emerged — at least in part — from an existing investigation into Dougherty, the Philadelphia labor leader who was convicted in 2021 and 2023 on bribery and embezzlement charges. sentenced to six years in prison.

Authorities had been tapping Dougherty’s phone for more than a year when on June 10, 2016, a federal judge signed a wiretap warrant that authorized agents to intercept Norcross’ communications for the first time, records show. Norcross remained a target for eavesdropping for at least two more uses, in July and October of that year.

Agents told the judge they were investigating Norcross’ fundraising for a Lady Gaga concert during the July 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, including contributions from the Dougherty-led organization. Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Engineers. Blake, the FBI agent, told the judge he believed Norcross had attempted to “conceal the source of the money” and may have committed money laundering.

In addition, the agent wrote, there was probable cause to believe that the intercepted communications “would reveal official actions that Dougherty had performed on behalf of George Norcross, and any items of value provided to Dougherty in return.”

Authorities said they hoped to learn more about Norcross’s involvement in the development of the Camden waterfront by Philadelphia-based Liberty Property Trust, and whether Dougherty had used his influence on the board of the Delaware River Port Authority to Norcross to obtain land to which he had title. financial interest, according to the statement.

In October 2016, investigators turned their attention to plans by Norcross and his business partners to apply for tax breaks in New Jersey to finance the construction of an office tower and apartment complex in Camden. Investigators wanted to know whether Norcross would make false statements to the state when applying for tax credits, FBI Special Agent Stephen Rich wrote in another wiretap request.

Investigators must show only probable cause – and not proof – that a crime has been committed to get court permission to tap a subject’s phone. And it is not uncommon for officers to abandon certain investigative theories or conclude that they are not supported by additional evidence after that approval has been obtained and the investigation continues. The documents released Wednesday do not indicate what evidence officers discovered through the wiretaps to support the theories they presented to the judge.

Eventually, However, Norcross was not charged in connection with the Dougherty cases, and his name did not come up during the trials of the union leader. And with Newton’s letter last year, federal prosecutors closed their separate investigation into Norcross. His lawyers have denied any wrongdoing and have pointed out that no federal charges have been filed against him, a sign that he has done nothing wrong.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey — with the help of FBI Agent Rich — also reviewed the tax credit issue, and in 2018, prosecutors told Norcross’ attorney Michael Critchley in a letter that they had closed the investigation.

That wasn’t the end of the story.

“Undeterred, Mr. Rich crossed the river and continued his investigation with the assistance of the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,” Tambussi attorney Vartan wrote in the filing Wednesday.

The attorney general’s investigation began in 2019, the filing said. Multiple federal prosecutors and investigators in Philadelphia — including Rich and Newton, who wrote the 2023 letter that closed the investigation in Philadelphia — were replaced by state special agents reporting to the AG’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, according to the filing. Some of them continue to work as part of Platkin’s prosecution team.

“Although the ‘available admissible evidence’ was not enough to meet the US Attorney’s Office ‘prosecution standards’, the exact same evidence was apparently sufficient to meet the US Attorney’s Office’s clearly much lower ‘prosecution standards’,” Vartan and others wrote, citing language in the 2023 letter.