An FBI investigation that led to a 68-count fraud indictment last year against Ronald J. O'Malley began with an inquiry into mortgage loans his firm brokered for the politically connected lawyer Dennis J. Oury, recently filed court documents show. O'Malley, 47, of Upper Saddle River, was the chairman of the Bergen County Improvement Authority, the county's public financing arm, when he was indicted last August in an alleged scheme to use his public post to boost his private brokerage business.
Ed Hynes, the recently retired executive director of the Bergen County Improvement Authority, routinely used taxpayer funds to pay for meals with local politicians, Democratic fund-raisers, staffers and consultants who worked for the agency. Officials with the publicly funded BCIA defended the spending as necessary for someone whose job is to serve essentially as a business executive. But The Record's review of agency documents suggests taxpayers got scant return on their money.
Ronald J. O'Malley, the former chairman of Bergen County's financing arm, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud contained in a 68-count indictment filed a year ago. O'Malley, 48, who led the Bergen County Improvement Authority and was CEO of a private mortgage brokerage firm, was indicted on charges of using his position at the authority to falsify employment records so he could secure loans for his firm's clients.
Democratic County Executive Dennis McNerney has never been indicted or convicted of any crime. But as head of county government for the past eight years, he has witnessed the indictments of at least three key political figures with whom he's had close ties: former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero, former party attorney Dennis Oury and, more recently, former Bergen County Improvement Authority Chairman Ronald O'Malley.
The Bergen County Improvement Authority is considering selling Bergen Regional Medical Center, the 1,000-bed behemoth, because it treats too many patients from outside the county and could need $13.2 million in upgrades this year, the authority's executive director said this week. Robert S. Garrison requested a litany of financial and operational information from the for-profit company that manages the Paramus hospital to determine if the county should continue to own the hospital, established to serve as the safety net hospital for the county's neediest residents. Bergen Regional provides acute services, behavioral health care and has the largest nursing home in the state.
Bergen County's chief financing agency boasts that its popular low-interest loan programs save taxpayers money while bankrolling public projects, such as hospitals, schools and public parks. But the once-obscure Bergen County Improvement Authority, now embroiled in a widening federal fraud scandal, also dishes out millions in fees to well-connected contractors and political insiders.
Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan on Friday vetoed two appointments to the county's chief funding agency and a contract extension for its deputy director. The appointments to the Bergen County Improvement Authority were made by a Democratic administration that had just two weeks remaining in office. The agency had been in the cross hairs of the Donovan campaign after it was linked to a 2010 federal fraud indictment, among other controversies.
Financing Bergen PAC In 2004, the Bergen County Board of Freeholders authorized the Bergen County Improvement Authority to issue mortgage revenue bonds on behalf of the Bergen PAC in order to maintain the PAC's center of operation at the John Harms Theatre in Englewood.
The Bergen County freeholders have approved a $3 million settlement of a lawsuit over disputed Medicaid payments filed by the company that manages Bergen Regional Medical Center. The board voted, 6-0, with no discussion Wednesday night to settle the suit filed in 2007 by Bergen Regional Medical Center LP against the Bergen County Improvement Authority without any admission of wrongdoing or liability.
A former Bergen County Economic Development Corp. employee is suing the county, the Bergen County Improvement Authority and the development corporation for handicap discrimination, a hostile work environment, wrongful termination and retaliation. Eva Tucci, an employee with the development corporation from September 2007 to July 2009, is also accusing Ciro Discalfani -- a current county employee, according to county payroll records -- of hitting her while at work.
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