N.J. scam artist turns star FBI informant

Solomon Dwek is the kind of guy who can get you a kidney.

He’s also the kind of guy who authorities say knew how to get dirty money cleaned and could easily navigate the backrooms of New Jersey politics. He is, after all, a self-described member of the “green party,” where “green is cash.”

The FBI put Dwek’s knowledge to use, and that has placed him at the center of a corruption case that is unprecedented by even New Jersey’s notorious standards.

Relying largely on Dwek’s work as an informant, authorities in July arrested 44 people — seven of whom have since pleaded guilty — on corruption and money-laundering charges. Those arrested included the mayors of three cities, two state lawmakers and several rabbis.

And in the most bizarre case: A rabbi was charged with brokering black-market sales of kidneys for transplant.

“The list of names and titles of those arrested today sounds like a roster for a community leaders meeting,” Weysan Dun, head of the FBI’s Newark office said the day the arrests were made. “Sadly, these prominent individuals were not in a meeting room but were in the FBI booking room this morning.”

Dwek was the common thread and none of the cases would have been possible without him.

He appeared to have a perfect pedigree to become a persuasive police informant: He is, after all, a convicted con man who pleaded guilty Oct. 20 to bilking a bank out of millions.

Not everyone is enamored with Dwek’s work as an informant.

Robert Fuggi, an attorney for one of the public officials charged, Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt, called Dwek’s plea agreement in the bank-fraud case, which calls for him to receive decades less time in prison than he could have faced, a “sweetheart deal.”

“It’s interesting that those who are righteous and have laws on their side would stoop to such a level to use one of the most vilified defendants in New Jersey in the past 10 years,” he said. “I definitely think the integrity of the investigation has to be questioned, and it has to be challenged.”

Mr. Fuggi said the government should use informants to expose ongoing criminal activity, which he said is not the case here.

“Dwek was the criminal activity,” Mr. Fuggi said. “He instigated and precipitated much of what occurred in this case.”

Overall, the individual cases Dwek worked have little relation. Broadly, about half the cases involved purportedly crooked politicians, while the other half involved rabbis who are accused of running separate money-laundering schemes.

He wore a wire and secretly recorded conversations that allowed investigators to build cases against each of the defendants. Like most informants, Dwek came into the employ of the FBI in a last-ditch effort to get out from under his own serious legal problems.

Story Continues →