During World War II Camden City was a bustling, thriving metropolis with big companies like the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Campbell’s Soup and RCA employing residents and making contributions to the war effort.
But by the late 1960s, Camden had hit hard times as companies left and poverty escalated. Crack cocaine ravaged once-beautiful neighborhoods in the 1980s and outdoor-market drug dealers ruled streets and housing developments. The downtown also deteriorated when businesses and stores closed their doors, and the Delaware River waterfront was dotted with abandoned factories.
Despite the situation, one man – George Norcross III – saw opportunity. A behind-the-scenes political power broker for many years in South Jersey, he is also the executive chairman of Conner Strong and Buckelew, an insurance and benefits brokerage, and is chairman of the trustees’ boards at Cooper Health System and Cooper University Hospital.
Norcross’ efforts in Camden sparked a renaissance, especially downtown and along the waterfront, beginning with the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial and the Adventure Aquarium. The city has also become a major health-care provider and medical education resource – led by Cooper and the campuses of Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University – and it reinvigorated its law enforcement with the 2013 initiation of the Camden County Police, as the city force is known.
Feb. 26 was a good day for those “partners in Camden’s Renaissance” – as Norcross and his associates were described by their attorneys – as New Jersey Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw dismissed all racketeering charges against Norcross and his co-defendants: his brother Philip Norcross, former Camden Mayor Dana L. Redd, logistics executive Sidney R. Brown, attorney William M. Tambussi and developer John O’Donnell.
They were indicted in June of last year by a state grand jury on 13 counts, including running an enterprise going back to 2012 that used its political influence to serve their own interests in Camden, and of using threats and intimidation to usurp other waterfront developers.
The judge dismissed the case by noting that there “is no racketeering enterprise,” the allegations “do not constitute extortion or criminal coercion as a matter of law, Redd “did not commit and act of official misconduct” and the charges in the indictment are “facially time-barred.”
State Attorney General Matt Platkin said he “strongly disagreed with the trial court’s decision, and we are appealing immediately,” while Michael Critchley, lead defense attorney for the co-defendants, said the judge “obliterated” the state’s allegations in “a sham political indictment.”
Kevin A. Marino, attorney for Philip Norcross, claimed Platkin would “have to contend with 96 pages of bulletproof findings that are based entirely on the statutes themselves.”
When presenting the case for dismissal in January, defense lawyers argued that having access to Camden City leaders is not a crime.
“Defendants correctly argue that when considering private parties negotiating economic deals in a free market system, threats are sometimes neither wrongful nor unlawful,” Warshaw wrote in his 100-page decision. “In these situations, there may be nothing inherently wrong in using economic fear to obtain property.”
Meanwhile, Camden continues to grow. The Coriell Institute for Medical Research – based at Cooper University Hospital – has announced plans to build a $90-million complex on a five-acre site as its new home, between the Gateway and Parkside neighborhoods.
And on Jan. 28, Cooper University Health Care officials, including George Norcross, held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $3-billion expansion of Cooper’s health sciences campus.
