Letter hints at a scandal's tangled roots

On its face, there is nothing too unusual about the March 2002 letter that State Sen. Wayne Bryant signed in support of R. Michael Gallagher's promotion to dean of the School of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Writing such recommendations is, after all, fairly routine business for lawmakers.

But five years later, federal prosecutors say the powerful Camden County Democrat's lobbying efforts on behalf of Gallagher marked the beginning of a "symbiotic relationship" between the pair that led to Bryant's getting a no-show, pension-boosting job at the state school - and to the raft of corruption and fraud charges both men now face.

All of a sudden, the letter has become a source of special interest. So have the stories of the four other South Jersey lawmakers who signed the letter with Bryant.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, and State Sen. John Adler, all of Camden County, and Sen. Stephen Sweeney of Gloucester County, have been interviewed by the FBI about Bryant, Gallagher and the letter.

None of the lawmakers has been implicated in the alleged plot that prosecutors say Bryant and Gallagher hatched to enrich themselves and each other. And though one declined to comment for the article, the rest say their involvement with the letter, though perhaps regrettable in retrospect, was purely innocent.

But their explanations of how they met and came to support Gallagher shed new light on the circumstances surrounding the genesis of his alleged partnership with Bryant.

According to a 20-count federal indictment returned last month, after Gallagher rose to become dean of the osteopathic school in Stratford, Camden County, he put Bryant on the payroll in a bogus "program support coordinator" position. In return, prosecutors say, Bryant, then chair of the Senate budget committee, was expected to use his influence in Trenton to represent the school's interests and secure millions of dollars in extra state funding.

Bryant and Gallagher have pleaded not guilty and have declined through their attorneys to comment on the charges.

The indictment does not spell out how the two met. But they have a strong connection in Warren Wallace, a South Jersey Democrat with close ties to Bryant who worked under Gallagher at UMDNJ.