Witness: There was no need to hire Coniglio
The Record
Monday, March 31, 2009
BY MARY JO LAYTON and PETER J. SAMPSON
The star witness in the corruption trial of a former state senator pointed the finger at Hackensack University Medical Center’s leaders today, testifying they made him hire Joseph Coniglio for what prosecutors called a no-show consulting job that netted the hospital millions in state grants.
Robert Torre, the executive in charge of fundraising for the hospital, told a U.S. District Court jury that he had no need for a $5,000 a month consultant but still signed a contract with Coniglio at the behest of his bosses — three of the most powerful men at the medical center and in Bergen County politics.
Torre said the deal was effectively sealed after he participated in a conference call with John Ferguson, the hospital’s president and CEO, and two prominent members of the hospital’s governing boards, Joseph Simunovich and Joseph M. Sanzari.
Also putting in a good word for Coniglio, Torre said, was Richard Codey, a former governor president of the state Senate.
Torre, the executive vice president of the HUMC Foundation, the medical center’s fundraising arm, took the stand for less than an hour late Monday as Coniglio’s extortion and mail fraud trial entered its third week. He is expected to continue his testimony when the trial resumes this morning.
Coniglio, 66, of Paramus, is charged with accepting $103,900 in “corrupt payments” from the medical center in exchange for using his influence as a member of the powerful Senate Budget Committee to steer more than $10 million in state funds to the hospital.
