The New York Post reports today:
A Newark nonprofit tied to associates of Cory Booker acted as a clearinghouse for lucrative construction contracts in exchange for donations to his charity and mayoral campaign, The Post has learned.
The Newark Downtown Core Redevelopment Corp., founded in 2005 to buy land for the Prudential Center and develop the surrounding area, has not completed its mission and had doled out multimillion-dollar contracts to companies that made donations to Booker’s pet causes.
Among those firms was the largest demolition company in New Jersey, which raked in $4.7 million from the nonprofit in 2007 and 2008.
The Post quotes NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm:
“The Newark Downtown Core Redevelopment Corp. was supposed to be a nonprofit that would help eliminate downtown blight, according to Mayor Cory Booker,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of ethics watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center. “Instead, the group was plagued with cronyism, overpaid political hacks and mismanagement, leading to tens of millions of dollars in wasted public and private funds.”