Federal authorities in Philadelphia listened in on the phone calls of George Norcross and his brother Philip for months in 2016 before ultimately deciding they did not have a case.
Justice Department declined to prosecute George Norcross in 2023 based on ‘available’ evidence, court filings show
Federal authorities in Philadelphia listened in on the phone calls of George Norcross, his brother Philip, and others for months in 2016 before ultimately deciding years later that they did not have a case against the Democratic power broker. “Based upon review of the available admissible evidence, the applicable law, the probability of a successful trial and the prosecution standards of the office, it is our opinion the matter should not be the subject of a federal prosecution,” Assistant U.S. Attorney K.T. Newton wrote in an April 2023 letter to FBI Special Agent Stephen Rich. The letter, made public in a court filing Wednesday, cited the office’s case file in the matter of “United States v. George Norcross.
The state Attorney General’s investigation began in 2019, the filing says. Around that time multiple federal prosecutors and investigators in Philadelphia — including Newton and Rich — were deputized as special state agents reporting to the AG’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, according to the filing.and five codefendants. They are accused of using threats and intimidation to obtain valuable waterfront real estate in Camden from rival developers.
“While the ‘available admissible evidence’ was not enough to meet the ‘prosecution standards’ of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the exact same evidence was apparently enough to meet the obviously much lower ‘prosecution standards’ of the Attorney General’s Office,” Tambussi lawyer Lee Vartan and others wrote in Wednesday’s filing.
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