SEVEN

FAMILY FEUD

It wasn’t the kind of meeting I would normally take.

In spring of 2004, two years into my tenure as United States attorney, I got a call from a lawyer I knew. Edward Dauber represented Esther and Bill Schulder, the sister and brother-in-law of a New Jersey real estate developer, Charles Kushner, who also happened to be the single largest Democratic Party campaign donor in the state. The lawyer wanted to bring his clients in to speak with me.

“Talk to Scott Resnik,” I said. “He and his people are handling the case.”

For more than a year, Resnik, who was part of Jim Nobile’s public-corruption team, had been investigating the wealthy real estate developer for possible violations of federal tax and election laws. Those allegations bubbled out of a bitter family-business feud. I had never met Charles Kushner or any of his relatives, but I knew there was anger on all sides. From what I could gather, Charles’s brother, Murray, and sister, Esther, were accusing him of running the family business like his own private domain, squeezing the others out of the decision making and what they considered their fair share of the profits. For his part, Charles claimed his siblings were greedy ingrates who ought to be more appreciative of the huge success he had made of the firm. All the usual family-business finger-pointing, in other words—just with bigger dollars attached. Murray and Esther had already sued Charles, though nothing criminal had been proved—not yet.

“Mr. US Attorney,” the Schulders’ lawyer said to me on the phone that morning, “you’re gonna want to take this meeting. Trust me.” I said okay and asked Resnik, Nobile, first assistant US attorney Ralph Marra, and my counsel, Michele Brown, to join us.

When the Schulders and their attorney arrived, Esther looked like a woman who felt seriously aggrieved. Bill looked like a beaten dog. After brief pleasantries, the lawyer removed a fat manila envelope from his briefcase and placed it on the conference table.

“It’s a videotape,” he said.

“A videotape?” I repeated.

“We believe that Esther and Bill are being blackmailed and retaliated against. This videotape is the proof.”

“Okay,” I answered, not quite sure what the lawyer was getting at. “What’s on the video?”

“It’s a video of Bill having sex with a woman at a motel in Somerville, New Jersey.”

Of all the sordid cases my office had been involved with over the past few years, this was a new one. Not what I was expecting. But, really, what did it have to do with us? Esther calmly stated that she knew that her brother Charlie was behind it.

Ralph, Jimmy, Michele, and Scott all exchanged incredulous glances. Esther’s husband was caught with a woman in a New Jersey motel room and somehow it was his wife’s rich brother’s fault? I’d heard a lot of stories in my time, but I’d never heard this one before.

“Wait a second, Esther,” I said. “I know you don’t get along with Charles. But what gives you the idea that your brother is responsible for this videotape, whatever may be on it or not?”

Esther didn’t hesitate. “Charlie plays on people’s weaknesses,” she said. “Billy has a weakness.” She patted her husband’s shoulder and nodded at the envelope. “Charlie played on it.”

“Well,” I said, “someone had better explain all this to me.”

Bill took it from there.

Almost every morning before work, Bill said, he stopped at the Time to Eat Diner, just south of the Bridgewater Commons mall. One morning, he was having his usual breakfast when an attractive, young blond woman said hello.

“She said she was from out of town and was here for a job interview,” Bill told us. “She said she had car trouble, that her vehicle had been towed. She asked if I could possibly give her a ride to her hotel.”

Bill said sure and drove the woman to the Red Bull Inn on Route 22, about ten minutes away.

Time to Eat? Red Bull? You can’t make these names up!

When Bill and the woman arrived at the motel, he said, she asked if he’d like to come up to her room. No, he answered. He had to get going. “Well,” he recalled her saying, “I’m going to need a ride to the car dealership tomorrow morning. I don’t know anybody out here. If you’re around, do you think you could give me a ride to pick up my car?”

Bill said he gave a noncommittal answer: “I’m not sure if I’ll be here or not.” But they did exchange phone numbers. “If you really need a ride,” he told her as she got out of the car, “you can give me a call.”

The next morning, the woman called. Bill drove back to the Red Bull Inn. This time, he said yes when she invited him to her room, where the two of them had sex.

What Bill discovered only later—and his wife certainly didn’t know at the time—was that his morning encounter with the blond woman from the diner, whoever she was, was being videotaped by a tiny camera hidden inside an alarm clock that was sitting next to the bed.

The first Esther or Bill learned about any of that was months later when a manila envelope arrived in the mail. Inside the envelope was an X-rated video, starring Bill. “It came just as we were getting ready for my son Jacob’s engagement party,” Esther explained to us. She said the envelope also included several glossy photos of her husband and this woman in poses that could certainly be described as compromising.

“The envelope had no return address,” Esther added. “But I knew right away who it came from. Charlie was sending a message to make me miserable and humiliate my husband and me.”

It was an incredible story. But as Esther and Bill laid it out there, I couldn’t help thinking like a prosecutor who would one day need to present this evidence to a grand jury or a judge. Suspicion was one thing. Where was the proof? “All right,” I said to the couple and their lawyer. “You believe Charles is behind this. But how do we know? It could be anybody.”

My senior staffers seemed to share my hesitance. “It could be an old girlfriend of Bill’s,” Jim Nobile said.

“It could be anyone,” Scott Resnik said.

“I know it’s Charlie,” Esther insisted. Of my three senior staffers in the room, only Ralph Marra seemed to think that Esther might well be right. Then a thought occurred to me.

I said to Bill, “You mentioned that you exchanged cell phone numbers with this woman.”

He nodded.

“Do you still have her number?”

Bill stared down at the conference table. He thought for a second. “Yeah, I have it,” he said.

“We’re going to need that number from you now,” I said.

The children of Holocaust survivors, Charles, Murray, and Esther grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Their construction-worker father started his own contracting company and did very well, becoming one of the state’s largest landlords. By the mid-1960s, he owned nearly four thousand apartments. But it wasn’t until Charles took over that the family-owned Kushner Companies really hit the big time, transforming it into a billion-dollar real estate empire with office buildings, condominiums, and apartment complexes in half a dozen states. Along the way, Charles deftly positioned himself as a major power broker in the state, contributing millions of dollars to Democratic politicians as well as to synagogues, hospitals, schools, and other charitable causes. He was free with his advice to ambitious officeholders. He had access to everyone.

Bill Clinton turned up several times at Kushner headquarters in Florham Park. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu came around, too. But no politician had benefited more from Charles Kushner’s support than Jim McGreevey, whose election to governor of New Jersey in 2001 was greased with barrels of Kushner cash. One month after taking office, McGreevey nominated Kushner to be chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a hugely powerful post overseeing a significant part of the region’s infrastructure, including the Newark, John F. Kennedy, and LaGuardia airports.

The chairmanship was eventually scuttled by opponents in Trenton. By then, Charles was already grooming his eldest son, Jared, now in his early twenties, as only a wealthy father can.

The allegations against Charles Kushner were an important matter, one of many, involving a major player in the politics of New Jersey who had behaved in a manner that might be criminal. But that’s all it was. As United States attorney, I was interested in only two things: Were federal laws broken? And could our prosecutors prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? I knew this would take some sorting out.

Ralph Marra, who’d spent fifteen years prosecuting public-corruption cases as he rose through the ranks, grabbed his favorite FBI agent, Tom Marakovits, and they dug in. They subpoenaed the records for the cell phone Bill had called. The number belonged to a woman named Susanna, a high-priced, European-born call girl on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The videotape was date- and time-stamped. So Ralph and Tom retrieved her phone records for that period. Immediately after the tape ended, Susanna had called a number that was registered to a private detective, Tommy O’Toole of Utica, New York. That seemed strange. Utica is way upstate. Why would a Manhattan prostitute in a New Jersey motel room call a private detective 250 miles away?

Our guys subpoenaed the private eye’s cell records to see who he called immediately after hearing from Susanna. He called his brother, Captain Jimmy O’Toole of the East Orange Police Department in New Jersey. And who did Captain O’Toole call immediately after hearing from his private eye brother?

He called Charles Kushner.

Game. Set. Match.

That was the connective tissue we needed, tying the conspirators together in a provable criminal act. Those phone records linked the Red Bull motel room to the politically wired real estate mogul whose brother-in-law costarred in a movie he had no idea he’d been cast in.

That was more than enough to get search warrants. At the private eye’s office in Utica, FBI agents seized a copy of the explicit Bill-and-Susanna video. At the East Orange Police Department, O’Toole immediately squealed on everyone, saying he’d agreed to help Charles Kushner, an old friend, ensnare his brother-in-law. He admitted he’d introduced Charles to his private eye brother, who’d planted himself in an adjoining Red Bull motel room. Jimmy O’Toole said he had gone to Kushner’s office in Florham Park a few days after the tape was made and held a private screening for Kushner and Kushner’s wife’s brother, Richard Stadtmauer, who also worked at the Kushner Companies. He said he felt nauseated at the men’s raucous guffaws as they watched the raw video. It was Charles Kushner, the police captain added, who’d first suggested the hidden-camera-and-hooker routine and had ultimately recruited Susanna.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Art Durrant was ringing the bell at Susanna’s Manhattan apartment. Ringing and ringing and ringing some more, announcing into the intercom that he was from the FBI. No one answered. He kept ringing. He had a search warrant. But it was a really nice building, and Art didn’t want to bust down the door. So he kept ringing—by his count, sixty times.

Finally, Susanna opened and allowed the agent in.

He began to question her about the Time to Eat Diner and the Red Bull Inn. He asked about a story of a towed vehicle and a mild-mannered middle-aged man named Bill. She remembered all of it and didn’t hold back. Then Art showed her a picture of Charles Kushner.

“Do you know this person?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Susanna said without hesitation, “that’s the guy who hired me to do this.”

Jimmy O’Toole, the East Orange police captain, was an especially cooperative witness, even agreeing to wear a wire for a meeting with his old friend Charles Kushner. Kushner’s lawyer, the New Jersey criminal-defense attorney Michael Critchley, actually patted Jimmy down—but not very well, apparently. He missed the hidden microphone. An interesting role for a criminal-defense attorney to play. Based on that and other sleazy conduct he was involved in, we had Critchley recused from the case. In the taped conversation, the politically connected developer tacitly acknowledged his role in orchestrating the X-rated revenge.

With all the evidence we’d amassed, we had more than enough to arrest Charles Kushner. This was our call, in consultation with the FBI. It wasn’t an especially close one. At six a.m. on July 13, Ralph Marra called Alfred DeCotiis, a well-regarded New Jersey defense lawyer who’d been leading Kushner’s legal team since Critchley had compromised himself with his questionable conduct. At noon, the real estate developer and New Jersey power broker surrendered at the FBI office on McCarter Highway in Newark. He was fingerprinted, photographed, and asked the question that’s been put to countless criminal defendants before him:

“Do you have any interest in cooperating?”

“I do not,” he answered unequivocally.

At the downtown federal courthouse, Kushner pleaded not guilty to charges of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and violating the Mann Act, a 1910 federal law prohibiting promoting prostitution across state lines. He was released on $5 million bail.

There was quite a media scrum outside the court that day and in the weeks that followed. The Jersey papers, the New York tabloids, the major wire services, local and network TV—all of them found the story irresistible. “NJ Scandal: Sex, Money & Politics,” CBS News trumpeted. “Sex Gal Now Helping Feds—Hooker Turns on Kushner,” blared the New York Post. “Senator to Return Contributions from Donor Facing Charges,” announced the New York Times.

Behind the scenes, Kushner’s legal team was beefing up. The famed New York City attorney Benjamin Brafman joined Al DeCotiis and his partner Jeffrey Smith. Brafman’s initial position was “There’s nothing here. Let’s go to trial. We’re not pleading guilty to anything.” Brafman displayed similar bravado in front of the media. “Once the facts are fully disclosed in a courtroom,” he said of his client, “he will be completely exonerated.”

No such luck.

Brafman’s tone changed quickly as the defense attorneys absorbed the evidence. We started discussing a potential plea bargain within a few days. The negotiation was the usual one: Precisely which counts would Kushner plead guilty to? Which would we drop? And, especially, how much prison time could he expect to receive? The defense team was proposing twelve to eighteen months, a level 13 under the federal sentencing guidelines. We were pushing for eighteen to twenty-four months, a level 15. The tax charges, election violations, plus the humiliating personal attack—this was definitely not a case that could end with a slap on the wrist.

We went back and forth on the numbers. Kushner seemed eager to avoid a trial, where all the sordid details would be thrown into the open and, if the jury convicted, he might receive considerably more prison time.

After a month of negotiations, we were close, but we weren’t quite there. I went to speak to a civic group at the Loews Glenpointe Hotel in Teaneck. Waiting in the parking lot afterward was Al DeCotiis, whose law office was in the same complex. He said he’d heard that I was in the neighborhood, and he had a proposal to make.

“How ’bout this?” Al asked. “Charlie is willing to donate $3 million to set up a new shelter for homeless people in Newark or wherever you want in New Jersey. If he does that, can you lower his guideline to a level 13?”

Al’s a good lawyer, but I didn’t like the sound of that. “Your guy thinks his money can buy anything,” I said. “Not from me, it can’t. As a prosecutor, it’s not my responsibility to worry about homeless shelters. He can go talk to his friend, the governor. I have no interest in discussing this anymore.”

Al grabbed my arm and said, “C’mon, Chris. It will help a lot of people.”

“Al, I can’t care. It’s not my job. No.”

Al got the message. I assume he passed it back to his client. We never budged off the 15, the level carrying a possible sentence of eighteen to twenty-four months.

On August 18, Charles Kushner was set to appear before US District Judge Jose Linares to admit his criminal wrongdoing and plead guilty in federal court. Kushner had finally agreed to the deal.

But at six o’clock that morning, Mary Pat and I were dead asleep at home in Mendham when I heard the doorbell ring.

“What the hell is that?” I asked Mary Pat.

“Sounds like the doorbell,” she said.

I threw on gym shorts and shuffled downstairs. When I peeked out the window, Al DeCotiis and his partner, Jeff Smith, were standing there. I rubbed my eyes and opened the door.

“Al,” I groaned. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me! It’s six a.m. What are you doing here?”

“Chris, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I have to come in.”

“You’re—No, you’re not coming in. Call me at the office when I get there.”

“Chris, we’ve been up all night,” Al said. “Charles Kushner is withdrawing his plea.”

What? I could hardly believe it. After all our efforts, hours before his court date, Kushner’s decided not to plead?

“Okay,” I told the lawyers. “Come in.”

The three of us—Al, Jeff, and I—went into my kitchen and sat down. Al got me up to speed. When I’d gone to sleep the night before, we had an agreement that Charles would plead to witness retaliation, violating federal election law, and conspiracy to commit tax fraud. But after a heart-to-heart between Charles and his wife, Seryl, the deal was now off.

“We were there all night talking to them,” Al said. “He will not plead guilty to the conspiracy count under any circumstances. He’ll go ahead with a trial.” Admitting to the conspiracy, his wife believed, could implicate her brother Richard in Charles’s criminality. That was unacceptable to her. According to Al, she told her husband she would divorce him if he did that.

Al was still recounting the all-nighter with Mr. and Mrs. Kushner when my ten-year-old son, Andrew, came downstairs for breakfast before school. He’d met Al before and, for some reason, didn’t think there was anything unusual about two grown men sitting at the kitchen table with his father not long after dawn, talking about criminal counts and prison terms.

“Mr. DeCotiis, you want some Cheerios?” Andrew asked.

Al looked at me like he wanted some.

“Why not, Al?” I said to him. “You’re already here.”

So Andrew got a bowl and a spoon for himself and another one for Al, then pulled the cereal from the cabinet and the milk from the fridge. I got Ralph Marra, Michele Brown, and Jim Nobile on the phone. In the end, we jiggled the counts slightly, settling on eighteen substantive ones, and managed to get this runaway train back on track in time for our date with the judge.

Three hours after Andrew’s Cheerios with Al, Charles Kushner walked into Judge Linares’s courtroom. It was the first time I had ever personally laid eyes on him. I’d overseen his prosecution. I’d pulled it back from the edge a couple of times. But I had never actually seen the man in person. I was struck by how small and quiet and beaten he seemed. He certainly didn’t look like the demanding and volatile real estate baron I’d been reading and hearing about for years. He may have had family members in the courtroom with him—his wife or his children or other relatives. He probably did. But I had no reason to notice them. I was transfixed on one thing.

Charles Kushner stood before Judge Linares and pleaded guilty to eighteen counts of filing false tax returns, retaliating against witnesses, and making illegal campaign contributions—no conspiracy—answering each with a flat “yes.” We had previously agreed to drop the alleged Mann Act violation.

In the courtroom, Kushner offered no explanation for his behavior. He slipped in and out of the building without speaking to the media.

Brafman did the talking for him, saying his client “wanted to accept responsibility by acknowledging that he did something wrong” and would be stepping down as chairman of the Kushner Companies.

What a fall Charles Kushner had taken. From the highest heights of the state’s business and political worlds to convicted criminal. The only question left was exactly how much prison time the state’s newest federal felon would receive.

Charles Kushner’s sentencing was held on March 4, 2005. The lawyers got one final chance to pitch Judge Linares on exactly how much time would be fair. Eighteen months? Twenty-four? Something different? The sentencing hearing lasted nearly two and a half hours. The defense lawyers emphasized that their client had never been in legal trouble before. They noted he’d run a successful business and given millions to charity. The prosecutors detailed the wealthy businessman’s long-running plot to violate the law, obstruct justice, and harm his relatives. There was a spirited debate over whether he had accepted responsibility for his crimes.

He sat at the defense table, dressed in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and polka-dot tie, taking all of this in. Then he rose and spoke briefly to the court. He told the judge that he didn’t believe he was quite the saint that his lawyers made him out to be or quite as evil as the charges implied.

“The actions which bring me before you today were disgraceful and reprehensible,” he said.

When Judge Linares finally spoke, he said he had tried to weigh the “horrific” nature of the defendant’s conduct against his many philanthropic deeds. “It is difficult for me to reconcile the generous man with the revengeful, hateful man,” the judge allowed.

But in the end, Judge Linares didn’t sound swayed by the philanthropy or the defense lawyers’ praise. “I must take into consideration the vengeful nature in which this was done,” the judge said. “In light of all the relevant circumstances, I find that you be imprisoned for twenty-four months.”

The judge gave him the max.

And that, I assumed, was the last I would ever hear about the convicted felon Charles Kushner and his deeply tortured family.

Little did I know.