US: The top money-raiser for Governor James McCreevey of New Jersey has been indicted in a blackmail scandal involving prostitutes and secret video-tapes that would do justice to a pulp novel or an episode of The Sopranos.
New Jersey developer and philanthropist Mr Charles Kushner (50) allegedly hired a New York call girl to have sex with his brother-in-law and his accountant, to prevent them testifying against him in a federal probe of tax fraud and illegal campaign contributions.
While not implicated in the indictment, the scandal is damaging to Mr McCreevey, a rising Irish-American star in the Democratic Party and friend of the Clintons, whose administration has been battered by financial scandals.
The plot was hatched in August 2003 when Mr Kushner became aware of a federal grand-jury investigation into his affairs, according to a criminal complaint. He allegedly gave two men $25,000 to find a prostitute willing to seduce his brother-in-law and book-keeper, so he could blackmail them into silence.
When they couldn't find a willing hooker, Mr Kushner went to New York and found a call girl himself willing to co-operate for $10,000. In December she approached Mr Kushner's brother-in-law outside a diner, and asked him for a lift to her motel. There she invited him for a drink. He declined but called the next day and had sex with her in the motel room.
A hidden video-camera recorded the action and the tape was delivered to Mr Kushner's office where, according to the indictment, he "expressed satisfaction with it". The second person targeted by the prostitute rejected her repeated advances.
In May when the federal authorities began to move in, Mr Kushner got a colleague to drive to Canada and post the tape to the wife of the victim - his sister - and she turned it over to the authorities.
Mr Kushner pleaded not guilty to several charges, including conspiracy to promote inter-state prostitution, in Newark district court on Tuesday and was released on bail.
In a separate federal indictment last week another donor and childhood friend, Mr David D'Amiano, allegedly brokered a land deal by using the word "Machiavelli" as a code to signal the governor's acquiescence. Mr McCreevey has denied wrongdoing.
Three years ago Mr McCreevey, whose grandfather, a New Jersey policeman, emigrated from Banbridge, Co Down, apologised after the Star Ledger newspaper in New Jersey disclosed he spent $70,000 of taxpayers' money on a week-long Irish trade mission. This included $3,187 for a family reunion in a Banbridge restaurant, which Mr McCreevey said he would repay from his own pocket.