MUST READ: The Quashing Of A Case Against A Christie Ally - NYT [View all]

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The Quashing of a Case Against a Christie Ally
By MICHAEL POWELL - NYT
Published: October 10, 2013


Bennett A. Barlyn was dismissed as a Hunterdon County prosecutor after claiming that the state attorney general killed an indictment to protect prominent supporters of Gov. Chris Christie.

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FLEMINGTON, N.J. — Prosecutors sent tremors through rural Hunterdon County when they announced a sweeping indictment of the local Republican sheriff and her two deputies in 2010.

The 43-count grand jury indictment read like a primer in small-town abuse of power. It accused Sheriff Deborah Trout of hiring deputies without conducting proper background checks, and making employees sign loyalty oaths. Her deputies, the indictment charged, threatened one of their critics and manufactured fake police badges for a prominent donor to Gov. Chris Christie.

When the charges became public, the indicted undersheriff, Michael Russo, shrugged it off. Governor Christie, he assured an aide, would “have this whole thing thrown out,” according to The Hunterdon County Democrat. That sounded like bluster. Then the state killed the case.

On the day the indictment was unsealed, the state attorney general, a Christie appointee, took over the Hunterdon prosecutor’s office. Within a few months, three of its most respected veterans lost their jobs there, including the one who led the case.

Not long after, a deputy attorney general walked into a local courtroom and handed in papers that, with little explanation, declared that the indictments were littered with “legal and factual deficiencies.”

A judge dismissed the indictments. Soon after, officials took the unusual step of shipping all evidence to the capital, Trenton.

The killing of an indictment is a rare event...

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More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/nyregion/43-count-indictment-of-a-christie-ally-quashed.html