In a ruling released late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp blocked a law signed last year legalizing sports betting at New Jersey casinos and horse racing tracks. The ruling sided with the NCAA and the country’s four largest sports leagues and the U.S. Justice Department in finding a federal ban on sports gambling was constitutional and superseded state law. NJ Today Managing Editor sat down with state Attorney General Jeff Chiesa to get his reaction on the sports betting ruling as well as his thoughts on the recent child pornography bust and gun buyback programs.
Although he was disappointed in the District Court’s ruling, Chiesa said he wasn’t surprised by it and always knew the case would proceed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Chiesa didn’t rule out the possibility that case could go to the U.S. Supreme Court. “It’s certainly the kind of issue that may require Supreme Court review, but let’s hope that we get a successful result in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals where we have great confidence in our arguments.”
Asked about concerns that sports betting in the state would be vulnerable to organized crime, Chiesa said, “we’ll do everything that we can as a regulatory agency because we regulate the gaming industry through my department to be sure that the right people are involved and to be sure that we put all the safeguards in that are necessary, to be sure that Internet gaming goes forward in a safe and fair way for everybody involved.”
When he first assumed his post as attorney general, Chiesa said that one of the priorities of his office would be to tackle child pornography in the state.
“What we’re trying to do is give New Jersey a fair shot at this and have New Jersey not be treated unfairly,” said Chiesa. “One state shouldn’t be singled out and a few other states with some modest ability to engage in sports gambling.” Earlier this week, his department announced the arrests of 25 people from 25 different municipalities in the latest sweep to crack down on the possession and distribution of child pornography.
When it comes to case of child pornography, Chiesa said there is no such thing as a victimless crime.
“It’s something that I made a priority because some people view this as victimless crime because people view these things in the privacy of their homes. It’s anything but because what happens is children are victimized when they’re raped and tortured and they’re victimized forever because we can’t pull this stuff back off the Internet so they also live their adult lives knowing this stuff is out there.”
The message from these arrests is clear, he said. “if you;re going to do this stuff and we find out, you’re going to jail and the state police,” warned Cheisa. “Our county prosecutors and our local law enforcement officers did a tremendous job finding this stuff and they’re the ones that have to slog through and look at it to confirm what’s on these videos. So I really owe a great debt of gratitude to the folks who did this case, the state police especially.”
Chiesa touted the recent gun buyback programs held in Camden, Mercer and Essex counties as an effective way to get illegal guns of the street, saying the effort result produced a total of 5,400 guns, 1000 of which were illegal.
“That’s an enormous public safety impact. It’s not a solution and I understand that,” he said. Still, he said he was pleased to get guns like the AR-15, which was used in the Newtown massacre, and some other “nasty” guns out of circulation.
While he can’t say if there is a pattern of where the guns came from, he said he knows that they come from outside the state.
“New Jersey hasn’t been manufacturing guns for many, many, many years,” he said. “We know they come in from many different states and that’s why we do gun trafficking cases because those are important as well.”