Cory Booker, New Jersey’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, today released 15 years of tax returns revealing that he received hefty payouts from his old law firm while serving as mayor of Newark, N.J.
The returns show that Booker received annual payouts between 2007 and 2011 from Trenk DiPasquale, his old law firm, totaling over $600,000. He left the firm in 2006 in order to “avoid the appearance of impropriety” once he took the mayoralty.
According to a spokesman, the payouts were fixed and were not affected by contracts worth over $2 million the firm received from the city’s Housing Authority and Newark Watershed, two entities that Booker now has indirect control over through his office.
The mayor announced that he would also be leaving the board of a new-media startup that he helped found, Waywire. His holdings in that company, which are worth between $1 million and $5 million, will go to charity. Spokesman Kevin Griffis said that the holdings were not included on tax returns because Booker had neither derived income from them nor sold them.
Lonegan has attempted to portray Booker as someone with something to hide. He’s blasted Booker over his tax returns and his affiliation with Waywire and even went so far as to sue the city of Newark yesterday, alleging that it had not complied with an open-records request for financial information relating to Booker and other city-hall employees. Lonegan released the last three years of his tax returns to the New York Post three weeks ago.
Via The Star Ledger and New York Post.