Tape adds to Menendez ethics debate

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, September, 2006 | by Chris Mondics

For nearly two years, Oscar Sandoval worked as an FBI informant in a criminal probe resulting in convictions of a half-dozen North Jersey politicians and government vendors, shaking the state's political establishment. But fallout from his role in Hudson County government may not be over, as new ethical questions are raised in a highly charged U.S.

Senate race in which Sen. Robert Menendez's activities in county politics and patronage have come under scrutiny. In court papers filed in March, the North Jersey psychiatrist says he was pressured in 1999 to hire a doctor favored by Menendez or risk losing $1 million in government contracts. Sandoval surreptitiously tape-recorded what he took as the threatening conversation, and provided a copy of the previously unreleased...