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TRENTON – Attorney General Anne Milgram and Criminal Justice Director Deborah L. Gramiccioni announced that a suspended employee of the state Division of Consumer Affairs pleaded guilty today to advising a consumer who called him at his state office to file a lawsuit through the firm where his wife worked.
According to Director
Gramiccioni, David Biederman, 75, of Cliffside
Park, pleaded guilty before Superior Court
Judge Michael A. Petrolle in Essex County
to unlawful official business transaction
where interest is involved, a fourth-degree
offense.
It is a violation of the state ethics code and New Jersey law for state employees to act in their official capacity in a way that involves doing business with or conferring benefits on themselves, their immediate family or a business in which the employee or immediate family has an interest.
Biederman was hired in April 2003 to work in the Speaker’s Bureau of the Division of Consumer Affairs as a Consumer Education Coordinator. In 2005, Biederman received a call from a man who had a complaint about a contractor performing renovations at his home. Biederman admitted that he advised the man that he should contact his wife, Lita Biederman, at a law firm in Palisades Park in order to file a lawsuit. Lita Biederman was an independent contractor who provided paralegal services to the firm under an agreement where she would receive $200 per week plus 50 percent of the revenues generated by any case she handled. The firm filed suit for the man in September 2005 seeking at least $150,000 in damages.
When the partner handling the case retired in 2006, he (Biederman) arranged for the client to transfer the case to a Jersey City law firm where his wife also worked and received a share of the legal fees for her cases. An investigation determined that David Biederman performed work on the case while it was with both law firms. Biederman negotiated an agreement with the second law firm regarding the portion of monies that would be awarded from the lawsuit to him and his wife, and he continued to assist in the civil litigation, including reviewing court documents and preparing the complainant for trial.
The investigation was conducted and coordinated by Deputy Attorney General Pearl Minato and Detective Harry Maronpot Jr. of the Division of Criminal Justice - Corruption Bureau. Minato represented the Division of Criminal Justice at the guilty plea hearing.
Biederman was suspended without pay from his job at the Division of Consumer Affairs on March 12, 2007, after his conduct was uncovered.
Biederman is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Petrolle on Sept. 29.
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