Judge tosses RICO portion of Connolly Properties lawsuit

The racketeering lawsuit against Plainfield-based Connolly Properties reached a climactic juncture yesterday with the dismissal by federal judge William J. Martini of the RICO portion of the case.

Both the Courier's Plainfield reporter Mark Spivey (see here) and the Ledger's Joe Ryan (see here) cover the story in today's editions.

In an email to Flor Gonzalez of the Latin American Coalition, Jose L. Perez, associate general counsel of LatinoJustice, cited Martini's ruling that the --

"...crux of plaintiff's argument is that renting apartments to illegal aliens constitutes racketeering activity because it constitutes harboring, encouraging, or inducing an illegal allien in violation of the INA (Immigration and Naturalization Act). However, no court in this Circuit or any other has ever found this to be the case. Without more, renting an apartment to an alien does not amount to harboring, encouraging or inducing. Thus plaintiff has not alleged a pattern of racketeering activity and the RICO claim can not survive the motion to dismiss..."

As far as I know, this leaves the matter of 'steering' tenants to specific properties unsettled. In a conversation I had with Mr. Perez early last month, it seemed that the allegation that Connolly Properties maintained segregated buildings, with African Americans in some buildings and Hispanics in others, was a portion of the case that might proceed independently of the RICO allegations under federal and state Fair Housing laws.

Additionally, complaints about alleged decrepit conditions in Connolly properties are matters that properly belong to the City's inspections division, though Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs' shutdown of the Safe Housing Unit which was responsible for monitoring and correcting just such conditions leaves the Division without the resources to properly monitor and correct any problems.

Because the Plainfield case is part of a tactic that FAIR says it plans to use elsewhere, I am appending a complete list of links on the matter at the end of this post.

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• Courier: "Judge tosses lawsuit on legality of renting to illegal immigrants"
  
• Ledger: "Federal judge dismisses immigrant housing lawsuit"
  
• Alipac | 6/05/08: "IRLI sues NJ landlord for renting to illegals, discrimination"
• Docket Info: "DelRio-Mocci et al v. Connolly Properties Inc. et al"
  
• Ledger | 6/21/08: "NJ immigration lawsuit employs racketeering laws"
• NY Times | 6/22/08: "Group Wields Racketeering Law Against Landlords"
• Courier | 8/31/08: "Plainfield Hispanic-rights group hires lawyers in immigration suit"
• Courier | 9/29/08: "Motion filed to dismiss renting lawsuit over Connolly Properties"
• Courier | 10/7/08: "Lawsuit against Connolly becomes civil rights battle"
  

-- Dan Damon

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