Bergen insurance broker admits to evading taxes, illegal campaign donations

THURSDAY MAY 10, 2012, 12:14 PM
BY KIM LUEDDEKE AND JEFF PILLETS - STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD

Bergen County insurance broker Joseph Bigica, a deep-pockets Democratic contributor who won millions in no-bid government contracts across North Jersey, pleaded guilty Wednesday to making $98,600 in illegal campaign donations to an unnamed federal official.

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez later acknowledged that the Democrat from Union City was the federal official referred to in the court papers, but maintained that the senator had been a victim of Bigica.

Bigica, a 46-year-old Franklin Lakes resident who appeared in federal court in Newark, also pleaded guilty to evading federal taxes over a 10-year period beginning in 1999 and agreed to make restitution to the government of more than $2.1 million.

The government alleges that Bigica used 19 family members and business associates as ?straw donors? to make a series of 30 illegal contributions to the official between 2005 and 2009, according to court documents filed by the U.S. attorney.

The Record reported last year that Bigica and members of his family have contributed more than $400,000 to a who?s who of New Jersey Democrats, ranging from Menendez to city officials in Passaic and Jersey City.

The contributions from Bigica, his wife and other family members ? often in lump sums of $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000 ? in many cases benefited the same municipal officials responsible for awarding the multimillion-dollar insurance contracts Bigica managed across North Jersey.

?Today, Joseph Bigica admitted he cheated the United States of millions in taxes and by intentionally skirting campaign finance laws,? said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. ?By putting assets and political contributions in the names of others, Bigica spent millions on a luxury lifestyle and illegally funneled nearly $100,000 to a federal campaign while claiming he didn?t have the money to pay his taxes. By deceiving two government agencies at once, he sought to illegally influence a national election while shirking his responsibilities as a taxpayer.?

In addition to being a political contributor, Bigica, whom friends described as a flashy figure who drove designer sports cars and entertained local politicians in strip clubs, was also a fundraiser for national figures such as the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry.

In November 2005, Hudson County Democrats thronged to a party Bigica threw for Menendez at the Borgata Hotel and Casino during the annual League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City. Menendez, who had accepted $46,900 in Bigica contributions as of the end of last year, has been the largest individual recipient of his largesse.

Contacted for comment Wednesday afternoon, Menendez said through a spokesman that he had helped federal investigators in their probe and will now donate Bigica?s recent contributions to charity.

?As a victim of the accused, the Menendez campaign has assisted authorities in pursuit of this case, and now that charges have been filed and a plea entered, Senator Menendez deems it appropriate to take contributions from the accused and donate them to two causes he holds dear: the Alzheimer?s Association (Greater New Jersey Chapter) and Autism Speaks,? said Mike Soliman, who is managing the senator?s campaign for reelection against state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, R-Monmouth.

Soliman said the campaign would contribute $18,800 in donations linked to Bigica in the current election cycle.

No one associated with the Menendez campaign has been accused of any wrongdoing, according to the government?s press release.

Bigica?s lawyer, Raymond Flood of Hackensack, said his client was not a cooperating witness in any federal probe. Bigica, he added, made political donations because he believed in the candidate, not for any personal benefit. He declined to identify the unnamed federal official cited in court documents.

Flood also defended his client?s insurance work, saying that Bigica saved money for public agencies that hired him.

?My client provided outstanding service to the municipalities he served,? Flood said.

Bigica?s once-booming insurance brokerage business has faced a series of recent setbacks.

In 2010, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners awarded Bigica a three-year contract that would have given him about $600,000 in commissions. The contract was terminated in September 2011 by Wayne J Forrest, the new executive director installed by Governor Christie to preside over a series of reforms at the patronage-prone agency.

Forrest did not give specific reasons for ousting Bigica, but suggested that the unusual three-year contract, which took PVSC employees out of the state health-insurance pool, was costly and inefficient.

In 2011, the Passaic City Council rejected Bigica?s controversial plan to shift city employees away from the state health plan. Bigica?s plan, which he said would have saved the city $500,000, had won the support of Mayor Alex D. Blanco and other key officials to whom he and family members had made campaign contributions.

But the plan fell apart amid widespread opposition from unionized employees who feared the savings would come from coverage cutbacks. Bigica and his supporters on the council also failed to produce documentation that would detail the supposed savings.

Court documents show that Bigica took elaborate steps to conceal millions in income and assets. Among his hiding places were bank accounts in the names of companies he controlled and in the name of his spouse, Laura, the daughter of the late Englewood Cliffs Mayor Joseph C. Parisi.

The government also maintains that Bigica made extensive use of an unnamed Jersey City check-cashing business, which handled some 240 checks totaling ?more than $2.5 million payable to Bigica, companies with which he was affiliated and others,? according to court documents.

While claiming he was unable to pay his tax obligations, documents say, Bigica spent lavishly on personal expenses such as Lambor?ghi?ni and Ferrari cars, a pool service, a residence at a club in the Virgin Islands and on campaign contributions.

Records show Bigica spread his donations widely. The Bergen County Democratic Organization, for example, got $111,000 in Bigica donations, mostly during the tenure of former party chairman Joseph Ferriero. Bigica and his family gave $40,000 to the Passaic County Democrats, most of it before Democratic-controlled boards awarded him contracts in the city of Passaic and at the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners.

Bigica?s beneficiaries also included leading Democrats such as U.S. Reps. Steve Rothman and Bill Pascrell Jr., former Gov. Jim Florio, former U.S. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli and disgraced party figures such as ex-state Sen. Joseph Coniglio and former Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski.

U.S. District Court Judge Faith S. Hochberg scheduled Bigica?s sentencing for Sept. 19.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Frank ... ction_fraud.html?page=all

Peter Brennan (Center) William Gaughan (Far Left)

I understand that Healy's 2009 council candidates (including Gaughan and Brennan) took tens of thousands of dollars from this guy and that Healy, the HCDO and the JCDO took many thousands as well. Anyone know more about any of this?

2 Jersey City councilmen quizzed by FBI about city's involvement with insurance broker: report

December 13, 2011, 11:32 PM
By The Jersey Journal

Two Jersey City councilmen have confirmed that FBI agents recently approached them about the city's dealings with Bergen County insurance broker Joseph Bigica, a prominent campaign contributor who has brokerage contracts with a number of communities in northern New Jersey, The Record reported.

Councilman Peter Brennan and William Gaughan, while confirming the meetings, didn't provide any details about the FBI inquiries, according to The Record.

Brennan told The Record: "I don't really know the guy. I might see him once a year. All I know is he makes a lot of campaign contributions."

Bigica's web site states that he has provided brokerage services for the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, Jersey City, Bayonne, Secaucus, Garfield and the Hudson County Schools of Technology, the newspaper reported.

The Jersey City City Council in September 2010 unanimously awarded, without public bidding, a three-year brokerage contract to Frenkel & Co., a New York firm that has a consulting arrangement with Bigica, calling it "an extraordinary, unspecifyable service," according to The Record.

Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said she didn't know why the contract was awarded without public bidding, but said the city has saved money through it, The Record reported. Morrill also told the newspaper that Bigica doesn't have a day-to-day role in administering insurance coverage for the city's current and retired police, firefighters and other workers.

Bigica lists himself as a fund-raiser or finance committee member for the Hudson County Democratic Party, the Bergen County Democrats and the National Democratic Party.