Ex-county official gets four-month prison term
BY TALI ISRAELI
Staff Writer

NEWARK - Thomas Broderick escaped a possible 20 years in prison last week and was sentenced to four months in prison for money laundering. Broderick's attorney, Robert S. Bonney Jr., of Freehold Township, credited the light sentence to the judge's recognition that Broderick's case was not one of public corruption.

Broderick, 56, served on the Marlboro Township Council in the 1990s. He is a former assistant supervisor at the Monmouth County Division of Highways and a former Monmouth County undersheriff. He is a retired New York Police Department officer.

Broderick was one of the 11 Monmouth County officials who were arrested on Feb. 22, 2005, in an FBI investigation known as Operation Bid Rig. He pleaded guilty on Jan. 18 to one count of money laundering.

In his guilty plea, Broderick admitted that he accepted $15,000 for assisting in the laundering of large sums of cash from a cooperating government witness whom he believed was a corrupt demolition contractor. According to the charges, the money exchanges occurred during four different transactions in 2004.

At the time of his plea in January, Broderick was facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

On Oct. 12, U.S. District Judge William J. Martini, sitting in Newark, sentenced Broderick to four months in prison to be followed by six months of home confinement with electronic monitoring. The judge also ordered Broderick to perform 160 hours of community service and to pay $15,000 in restitution.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Broderick paid the government that money on Oct. 6.

On Friday, Bonney said he believed the judge understood that Broderick did not go looking for a money-making scheme but was pressured into the situation by Anthony Palughi.

Palughi is the former superintendent of the Monmouth County Division of Bridges. He pleaded guilty on Aug. 2, 2005, to soliciting, demanding, accepting and agreeing to accept cash payments in exchange for official action and influence.

According to Bonney, it was Palughi who got Broderick a county job and then used his position to put pressure on Broderick to go along with the money laundering operation. Bonney said he believes that if the two men had not known each other, Broderick would not have been involved in the scheme.

The attorney said Broderick felt indebted to Palughi because he was the person who got him his job. According to Bonney, Palughi also asked for a 10 percent cut of the deal Broderick was making.

"What is clear and often has been missed in the 'Bid Rig' publicity is that Tom's case was never a case of public corruption," Bonney added.

The attorney said he believes the judge recognized that when he sentenced Broderick to only four months in prison.