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TagsWhat's it take to be No. 1?
BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Twenty-first!
Can Jersey get a break here?
In the past 10 months at least 47 New Jersey public officials — legislators, mayors, council members, a sheriff, a police chief, a mob-linked corrections officer, and several rabbis, yes rabbis — have been indicted for official misconduct, corruption and bribery.
Between 2002 and 2008, another 130 public officials — mayors, legislators and lesser types — were convicted. That was an average of almost two a month.
Now get this!
The web site the Daily Beast has published an analysis of public and private corruption in the 50 states and the District of Columbia and has ranked New Jersey as the 21st most corrupt state.
Twenty-first!
Tennessee, of all places, is ranked No. 1 because a retired small town police captain was picked with 22 other characters by the FBI and charged with racketeering and drug trafficking. FBI agents in New Jersey do that on their way back from lunch!
In ranking New Jersey 21st, the Daily Beast sited the historic 44-person federal corruption sting of July 23 and quoted political scientist Joseph Marbach as saying, "This is going to just reinforce the stereotype of New Jersey politics and corruption.''
And yet Delaware, Jersey's wimpy neighbor, gets ranked 4th. Pennsylvania is 8th, Oklahoma 10th, Arkansas 14th, and Hawaii 16th.
The analysis is based on data ranging from public corruption and embezzlement to private sector fraud racketeering and extortion and forgery and counterfeiting. The analysis calculated the numbers on a per-100,000 people basis and used a decade's worth of federal crime data, including the number of convictions of elected officials investigated by federal agents.
New Jersey is ranked only 11th in public corruption, 5th in racketeering and extortion, 26th in fraud, 35th in forgery and counterfeiting, and 41 in embezzlement.
Connecticut is ranked 22nd, New York 24th, and Illinois 47th.
The most honest state in the nation with the rank of 51st? New Hampshire.
Jersey demands a recount.
