John Lynch

Carmen Orechio served in the State Senate from 1974 to 1992, and was Senate President from 1982 to 1986: He's been a Nutley Commissioner since 1968Carmen Orechio is the only former Senate President who still holds public office, and is one of eight living former Senate Presidents. With the death of 98-year-old Wesley Lance last August, the 81-year-old Orechio is now the second oldest living ex-Senate President; the oldest is Frank McDermott, 83, who ran the Senate in 1969. The other living ex-Senate Presidents: Raymond Bateman, Frank Dodd, John Russo, John Lynch, Donald DiFrancesco, and John Bennett.

Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein objected to an Inside Edge item posted 364 days ago suggesting that she didn't pass the ethics smell test becaus she turned over campaign funds she received from convicted former Senate President John Lynch to New Jersey Citizen Action, a group that has a PAC that endorsed only Democrats in the last two election cycles.  Greenstein dismissed the possibility that her move "could be viewed as simpy funneling money Lynch gave her to Democratic campaigns." Today, Greenstein's campaign announced that the New Jersey Tenants Association -- which is affiliated with Citizen Action and shares an Executive Director, Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, has endorsed the entire Democratic slate in the 14th district.

Former Senate President John Lynch will begin serving his 39 month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Loretto, Pennsylvania this month. That's the same prison where former Connecticut Governor John Rowland spent a year after his corruption conviction.

People who want to stay in touch with the Middlesex County Democrat over the next three and one-half years should communicate by mail, according to Jack Ambramoff, a former lobbyist now serving in a federal prison. In an e-mail to friends on the eve of his incarceration, Ambramoff noted that federal inmates may "receive letters, photos and periodicals, but thats pretty much it."

"Unfortunately, if anything else is sent, it will either be destroyed or returned to you. As for letters, please bear in mind that the authorities have the right (and in my case probably will use it) to read all incoming and outgoing mail," Ambramoff wrote. "Also, I almost certainly will want to write back to you and, since I dont know whether they are going to limit our stamps, envelopes and paper, if possible, perhaps you could include a self addressed, stamped return envelope and even a blank sheet of paper in that envelope. I am not sure that the return envelope will make it to me, but if not, youll know as soon as you get my return letter. In any event, as you can imagine, I will be beyond grateful for any mail from you."

Lynch can submit ten names on a list of visitors, Ambramoff explains. He can also use the telephone for up to 300 minutes per month, with a limit of fifteen minutes per call. Ambramoff says that the prison permits a call list of up to thirty people. He will not be permitted to conduct any ongoing business from prison, and as Ambramoff notes, the prison staff has the right to review mail and listen to telephone calls. Lynch will not have access to e-mail.

In addition to being incarcerated until April 2010, former Senate President John Lynch must pay a $50,000 fine and cannot hold public office for at least two years after his release from prison. The ban on Lynch's return to public service before the spring of 2012 is not entirely off the wall: voters in Linden returned John Gregorio to office in 1990, eight years after his criminal conviction (and just months after his gubernatorial pardon), and voters in Union City re-elected William Vincent Musto as Mayor on the day he was sentenced to prison following his own criminal conviction.

Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson has always been good for a quick quip, especially when he was talking about the ethical challenges of his Democratic rivals. He was also the leading GOP pit bull when it came to attacks on U.S. Senator Bob Menendez's ethics over the last year. That's what makes it odd that Wilson has declined several requests for comment on the upcoming criminal sentencing of former Senate President John Lynch.

Wilson and the Republican State Committee have not issued any formal statements since the Monday after Thanksgiving, and there has been no partisan comment from Wilson on anything political (including the Democratic Civil War over property tax reform) since his former business partner, Robert Stears, admitted to overbilling the Burlington County Bridge Commission on a public relations contract. Some insiders suggest that Wilson, under fire from Democrats who are demanding that he return his share of The Strategy Group's revenues from the BCBC, may have lost his standing to criticize Democrats on ethics issues.

The federal Judge who will sentence former Senate President John Lynch next week is a career prosecutor who has spent nineteen years on the bench. Stanley R. Chesler, 59, graduated law school in 1974 and served as an Assistant Bronx District Attorney from 1974 to 1980. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice's Organized Crime Strike Force in Newark from 1980 to 1986, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey from 1986 to 1987. He served as a U.S. Magistrate from 1987 to 2002, when President George W. Bush nominated him to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in 2002.

Eleven current and former New Jersey state legislators who served with John Lynch are among the 172 people who are asking a federal judge to give the former Senate President a lenient sentence during a hearing next week, according to a Star-Ledger report. Lynch, who was among the state's most powerful politicians for two decades, faces up to 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to corruption charges.

Lynch's backers are: Robert Smith, a Middlesex County Democrat who moved up to the Senate when Lynch retired in 2001; Middlesex County Democratic Assemblymen Peter Barnes and Joseph Egan, a longtime Lynch ally who has spent 25 years as a New Brunswick City Councilman; former Democratic State Senators John Russo (who preceeded Lynch as the Senate President), William Hamilton, Thomas Paterniti, and Gerald Stockman; former Republican State Senators Raymond Bateman (who served in the Senate with Lynch's father), John Dorsey, Jack Sinagra and John Gallagher.