The Daily Newarker

??New York Times??: “Former Newark Mayor Warned About Charges”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/nyregion/10james.html. Nothing new to see here, but as the federal probe into James’ dealings during his last months in the mayors office gains attention in the headlines, political pressure to produce some charges and a conviction are likely to increase.

I’d be curious to know what sort of penalties can result if an indictment is handed up. Will Sharpe James see some hefty fines for his misconduct in a political office? Or could he even incur jail time? It’s bad enough that his “legacy is marginalized by his misdeeds”:http://dailynewarker.com/2007/04/12/sharpe-james-discusses-his-political-exit-with-the-times/, but I would imagine that a prison sentence — no matter how short — would be quite the black mark on the record of a highly successful New Jersey politician.

He was swept into office as a reformer in 1986, unseating Kenneth Gibson, Newark’s first black mayor, and presided over a surge in downtown development and rising real estate prices. But Mr. James’s critics say he often overlooked the city’s neighborhoods and schools at the expense of the power brokers and business leaders who contributed to his campaigns.

Mr. James has been dogged by allegations of financial impropriety since 1995, when a federal investigation into his charitable foundation, the Sharpe James Civic Association, which could not account for hundreds of thousands of dollars, ended without any charges against the mayor. A separate investigation in 1997 led to the conviction of his chief of staff, who took kickbacks from insurance brokers.

The reduced-rate sale of city property, which occurred mostly in 2005 and 2006, became a major issue in the campaign of Mayor Cory A. Booker, who was easily elected after Mr. James decided not to run.

Mr. Booker criticized the James administration for selling property for $4 a square foot when similar parcels were appraised at more than $20, saying they were a giveaway of city resources to people with political connections. The Booker campaign also won an injunction blocking dozens of sales.

Among those who were allowed to buy the low-priced property was Tamika Riley, a public relations consultant who occasionally traveled with Mr. James. Ms. Riley bought at least nine city-owned properties for $46,000 and later resold them for $700,000. She was also scheduled to buy three more properties before those sales were blocked by the injunction.

Federal agents also subpoenaed records regarding a series of transactions involving Karen Hilliard-Johnson, who worked for Mr. James as a director in the city’s Department of Economic and Housing Development. Property records show that in 2000, Ms. Hilliard-Johnson bought a home for $200,000 — when similar homes were selling for well over $300,000 — from a developer who later purchased dozens of low-cost city lots from the department where she worked. In an interview earlier this year, Ms. Hilliard-Johnson said she had done nothing improper.