Call to Digg on former Senator Robert Torricelli

Everything about this story sounds fishy. Robert Torricelli was implicated in a corruption scandal involving China and North Korea, was a huge fundraiser and recruiter for Democrat Senate candidates, is good pals with the Clinton's, and owns two businesses, Rosemont Associates and the Rosemont Foundation.

Horrific killing of woman took place at former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli’s horse farm in Hunterdon

The scene of the gruesome murder in Hunterdon County was a horse farm owned by former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, who was in Florida at the time of the attack.

“It’s horrific,” Torricelli told NJ Advance Media. “It’s an incredible tragedy. My head is still spinning,” he said about the death Sunday of Michele Carkhuff.

The farm has six buildings, including a main house and a smaller structure with apartments for a housekeeper and a farmhand who cares for the animals on the property. Carkhuff, a mother of two, had been visiting his housekeeper and arrived with Brandon Petersen, 31, who has been charged with her death.

According to Torricelli, an argument led to the deadly altercation and she tried to escape in his pickup truck parked on the property. He said Petersen slit Carkhuff’s throat. She was 38-years-old.

Petersen, a resident of Newton, has been charged with first-degree murder.

A warrant issued by the Stockton Municipal Court and released by New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts late Thursday said that Carkhuff was stabbed in the neck by a knife. In an accompanying affidavit, a witness told detectives that victim and Petersen had “consumed drugs and that they were in the kitchen preparing a stew to cook, which included them cutting vegetables with a kitchen knife. The unnamed witness reported that “Petersen suddenly took a large knife and stabbed victim in the side of the neck.” There were also cuts to her hand.

A search by investigators “revealed brownish red stains throughout the kitchen and bathroom, and a kitchen knife amidst the stains,” according to the court documents.

The Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office, who released the name of the victim late Wednesday morning, has not revealed further details about the incident — including how she was killed or her relationship to Petersen.

Investigators said Petersen was apprehended in Upper Black Eddy in Pennsylvania and remains incarcerated in Bucks County pending extradition. According to the court filing, he was arrested after police received a phone call from a girlfriend of Petersen, who asked her to pick him up.

In addition to murder, he was also charged with third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and fourth-degree unlawful taking by means of conveyance, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Delaware Township police said they first received an emergency call at approximately 9:13 p.m. on Sunday, according to the prosecutor’s office. Authorities said friends of the victim took her to a local hospital in Mercer County prior to their arrival, where she succumbed to her injuries.

Petersen has a record. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2008 for repeatedly stabbing a neighbor during a robbery that took place in 2005 when he was 15 years old, court records show. Those records indicate he stabbed a 57-year-old woman numerous times on her head, cheek, forehead and wrists outside her home because he wanted to rob her of about $200 to repay a drug dealer.

He was released from Southern State Correctional Facility in August 2019, state corrections officials said.

Torricelli represented New Jersey in the U.S. House and Senate for two decades. The 69-year-old Democrat dropped out of his re-election campaign in 2002 over ethics charges. He has worked as a real estate developer over the last decade.

https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/12/horrific-murder-of-woman-took-place-at-former-us-senator-torricellis-horse-farm-in-hunterdon.html

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The farm has been his refuge for the past 17 years; a place he has shared with horses, donkeys, chickens and a rescue dog. The property includes equine facilities, a pond, two caretaker apartments, a guest cottage, a pool and a cinema room that adjoins a “party barn.” He said only two staff people were working on site on Sunday, including the housekeeper, when the incident occurred.

“I’m assuming given the behavior of the assailant that there were drugs involved,” said Torricelli.

He learned that a fight began over dinner. Part of the altercation outside the apartment was caught on video surveillance cameras. “I could see my truck being driven down the driveway,” he said.

The GMC Sierra pickup was later found abandoned in Kingwood Township, a few miles from the scene of the crime, according to police. Torricelli said he learned about what happened after his property manager texted him and told him the police had been called.

He said he had met Carkhuff in the past, but did not know her well.

What he knows is that living on the farm will never be the same.

“It’s an incredibly bucolic setting, but this level of violence,” Torricelli said, his voice trailing off.

https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/12/horrific-murder-of-woman-took-place-at-former-us-senator-torricellis-horse-farm-in-hunterdon.html

Robert Torricelli Wikipedia

He is notable for his tenure as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In September 2002, Torricelli ended his Senate re-election campaign after having been formally admonished by the U.S. Senate in connection with a campaign finance scandal. He later founded Rosemont Associates, a consulting group.

In 2000, he headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee which regained the Democratic majority in the Senate. Torricelli was responsible for recruiting Senate candidates including Hillary Clinton.

Torricelli founded business and government affairs consulting firm Rosemont Associates. He is a partner in real estate firm Woodrose Properties, which is invested in over 50 multi family or commercial properties in 10 states. Torricelli has represented the Iranian opposition group, the MEK.

Torricelli was married to Susan Holloway and has dated Bianca Jagger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Torricelli

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Illegal Donor to N.J. Senator Sentenced

May 23, 2002

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) _ The man at the center of the criminal inquiry into the 1996 campaign of Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in federal prison for illegal donations.

Businessman David Chang was also fined $20,000 and barred from political fund-raising, one day after filing court papers in which he claimed the freshman senator had threatened his life and urged him to lie to investigators.

The sentencing was the last major event in the three-year investigation into Torricelli’s finances, prompting U.S. District Judge Alfred Wolin to say that ``another sordid chapter in the history of American politics is laid to rest.″

The probe closed in January without charges against Torricelli, who is seeking re-election this fall and has denied knowing anything about the illegal donations. Prosecutors gave their material to the Senate ethics committee, which is looking into the matter.

``Despite constant attacks on my credibility by the senator, I want the court and the world to know that all the details I gave the government were true and accurate,″ Chang said.

The judge, however, said Chang’s ``deceptive and obstructive″ behavior ruined him as a potential witness in any trial. No indictments were returned after Chang’s plea.

``His attempt to manipulate a United States senator through expensive gifts in connection with a North Korean grain deal, and the purchase of a South Korean insurance company, betrays Chang’s self-styled aura of a reputable and honest businessman,″ Wolin said.

Chang could have been sentenced to 27 months in prison under federal guidelines.

In a statement, Torricelli said: ``David Chang has now been caught in his own web of lies. Today, justice was served.″

Chang, a naturalized citizen born in China and raised in South Korea, was one of the biggest political donors in the United States. He gave more than $300,000 to political causes between 1996 and 1998, mostly to the Democratic Party.

Chang admitted making $53,700 in illegal contributions to Torricelli. In court papers, Chang said the two met in 1995, when Torricelli was a congressman, and that the politician later demanded gratuities including donations, expensive gifts and jewelry.

In exchange, Chang asked Torricelli for help in recouping about $71 million he was owed for grain shipped to the North Korean government and with buying a bankrupt South Korean insurance company, Daehan.

Torricelli wrote at least one letter on Chang’s behalf, and introduced him to South Korea’s finance minister. The senator has portrayed the actions as routine constituent service.

In a legal brief seeking leniency at sentencing, Chang said Torricelli urged him to leave the country rather than cooperate with the investigation and asked him to falsely claim the cash and gratuities were loans.

Chang also accused Torricelli of threatening him by talking about friends with organized crime connections and following him into a convenience store with a prominent waste disposal contractor.

Senator Torricelli repeatedly warned him that his life would be in danger if he cooperated with the government,″ Chang’s lawyer, Bradley D. Simon, wrote in the memorandum.He specifically told Mr. Chang that he had friends in high-ranking positions within the Newark FBI who would frustrate any attempts to bring the investigation to the senator’s level.″

https://apnews.com/article/927edb9be84bdedf4a792d0eef67f10f

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Torricelli follows Clinton's playbook

May 14, 2001 WASHINGTON - During the depths of the Clinton scandals, Bob Torricelli staunchly and steadfastly defended his friend the president.

Now the New Jersey senator is using a Clinton-style defense of his own to fend off a long-running federal corruption investigation that could wreck his career and frustrate his party's effort to gain control of the evenly divided Senate.

The 49-year-old Democrat, who counts "The Sopranos" among his favorite shows and isn't shy about being seen with a gorgeous woman on his arm, these days looks drawn and sleep-deprived.

A steady drip of published charges during the past year - including allegations that he took bribes worth tens of thousands of dollars from a former supporter - are clearly wearing on Torricelli, who denies doing anything illegal.

His Englewood, N.J., home has been searched by federal investigators. Fellow Senate Democrats, grateful for his prodigious fund-raising efforts on their behalf but increasingly nervous about what they read about him, are holding him at a distance.

…

A creature of Washington back rooms since his days as an aide to Vice President Walter F. Mondale, Torricelli assesses Bush as "very much" the sort of president with whom a pragmatic legislator could do business.

With a reputation for abrasiveness that was already well-known, Torricelli is rubbing many in his party the wrong way with his overtures to the Bush administration. They began last fall when he was one of the first Democrats to suggest that Al Gore concede the election. They continued when he praised Bush's choice of John Ashcroft as attorney general (although he wound up voting against him).

Critics hinted that Torricelli was trying to win the favor of the Justice Department, which began investigating the financing of his 1996 Senate campaign four years ago.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-05-14-0105140106-story.html

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Danny O'Brien, Head of Government Relations at Fox News, connected to Biden and Torricelli

Danny O’Brien

EVP, Head of Government Relations at FOX Corporation

Danny O’Brien is the Executive Vice President and Head of Government Relations for Fox Corporation. In this role, he leads the Company’s legislative, regulatory and strategic policy matters.

Before joining FOX in October 2018, Mr. O’Brien served as the Government Relations Leader for GE Transportation, where he oversaw GE’s global engagement on commercial and public policy issues impacting GE’s aviation and locomotives businesses.

Mr. O’Brien served as a long-time senior advisor in the United States Senate where he was chief of staff to Senators Torricelli, Biden and Menendez. Serving the three Senators, Mr. O’Brien managed their policy, communications and political strategies. In the Senate, Mr. O’Brien also served as the staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he managed the Committee’s policy and legislative priorities in the areas of national security, economic statecraft, human rights and democracy.

Mr. O’Brien holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Redlands in political science and Spanish.

https://theorg.com/org/fox/org-chart/danny-obrien

Former Biden Chief of Staff is Fox News’ Top Lobbyist

A former key Biden official began lobbying for the rightwing news channel in July, recent filing shows.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

Sludge produces investigative journalism on lobbying and money in politics. The American Prospect is re-publishing this article.

When Rupert Murdoch sold part of his 21st Century Fox company to Disney, he formed a new firm, Fox Corporation, which retained the rightwing news network Fox News, Fox Business Network, and many television stations and sports broadcasting companies. Multiple former Trump White House and GOP officials joined the company, including Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director, as chief communications officer and, later, former Wisconsin Republican and House Speaker Paul Ryan as a board member.

But Fox also hired another political figure: Danny O’Brien, a former top aide to Democratic former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden. From March 2003 to August 2006, O’Brien was then-Sen. Biden’s chief of staff. Two years later, he signed on as Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) chief of staff and then as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In late 2014 he left Congress for an executive-level government affairs job at General Electric.

In October 2018, Fox Corporation named O’Brien as its executive vice president and head of government relations, the company’s chief lobbying position. Over the past few years, Fox News and the Trump White House have enjoyed a well-oiled revolving door, but O’Brien’s hire doesn’t fit that pattern.

According to a lobbying report posted in late July, O’Brien began officially lobbying for Fox News in the second quarter of 2019, his first registered federal lobbying activities, according to Senate records. Along with two others, O’Brien lobbied Congress on various issues including online privacy and data collection, sports betting, advertising, the First Amendment, and “media ownership.”

https://prospect.org/power/former-biden-chief-of-staff-is-fox-news-top-lobbyist/