A federal judge has dismissed a case against U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) that charged he failed to properly oversee Newark's now bankrupt watershed corporation when he served as mayor of New Jersey's largest city, NJ.com reported yesterday. However, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Vincent F. Papalia let stand a civil complaint against Vaughn McKoy, the former board vice chairman of the Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corp. The ruling yesterday came in the wake of a lawsuit filed last year by the provisional trustees of the agency against Booker and McKoy, along with former executive director Linda Watkins-Brashear and more than a dozen others, following allegations that the non-profit corporation had bilked millions of dollars from taxpayers. Created in 1973, the agency was formed to manage Newark's vast watershed properties in Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties, and later expanded its reach to manage the city's Pequannock water treatment facility and manage Newark's reservoirs. The corporation operated under the radar screen for decades, until it came under fire in a scathing report issued in 2014 by the state Comptroller's Office, which accused the former director of the agency and her cohorts of siphoning off millions of city dollars in illegal payments, insider deals and risky stock ventures.
