News Article

Wayne Bryant Trial Begins In Trenton

By Phil Gregory, WBGO News
Trenton. January 31, 2012

The latest corruption trial of former New Jersey Senator Wayne Bryant is underway in federal district court in Trenton.

The once powerful chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is accused of accepting 192-thousand-dollars in bribes in exchange for using his influence to help controversial development projects in Camden, Pennsauken and the Meadowlands.

In his opening argument, Assistant U-S Attorney Paul Krieger said Byrant used his power to benefit himself at the expense of the people he was elected to serve.

Defense lawyer Henry Klingeman calls it a circumstantial case. He maintains the payments were for hiring Bryant's firm on retainer and were ethical for a sitting lawmaker.

The 64-year-old Bryant is serving a four year federal prison term as a result of his 2008 conviction for steering state money to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. In return for those grants Bryant got a job at the school in which he did little or no work.

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