Martin Greenberg, former Senate Judiciary Chairman, dies at 92

Martin L. Greenberg, a brainy former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman who advocated for sweeping changes to the state’s penal code while representing Essex County in the New Jersey State Senate in the 1970s, was a fierce opponent of the death penalty, and later served as a Superior Court Judge, died today.  He was 92.

He left the Senate in 1979, midway through his second term, to become the president and general counsel to Golden Nugget and helped them obtain a casino license during the early days of legalized gambling in Atlantic City.

Greenberg had been Gov. Brendan Byrne’s close friend and law partner. 

As a young attorney in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Greenberg served as an assistant counsel to Gov. Robert Meyner, and then as a Deputy New Jersey Attorney General and Assistant Essex County Prosecutor.  He authored a legal opinion that employers avoid collecting city wage taxes for Philadelphia residents working in New Jersey.

After leaving state government, Greenberg became a labor lawyer and was the general counsel to the state Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store union.

Greenberg made his first bid for public office in 1971 as a candidate for one of five State Senate seats elected in at-large countywide elections in Essex County.  Republicans had swept the Essex Senate seats in 1967.  

Essex County Democratic Chairman Harry Lerner gave the organization line to Freeholder Director Wynona M. Lipman (who would become the second woman and second Black to serve in the New Jersey Senate); Assemblyman Frank “Pat” Dodd (D-Orange), Irvington Councilman Henry Smolen; and two South Orange attorneys, Ralph DeRose, who had been an aide to State Sen. Donal Fox (D-South Orange) and nearly won a 1969 race for Essex County Supervisor, and Greenberg.

First, Greenberg faced a fierce Democratic primary against an off-the-line slate that included Joel Jacobson, the head of United Auto Workers Union in New Jersey, and Newark City Council President Louis M. Turco.  Three other Democrats joined Jacobson and Turco on their slate: Irvington Board of Education secretary-business manager Michel A. Blasi, the former nine-term president of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Local 430; former Newark Fireman’s Mutual Benefit Association Local 4 president Francis X. McCarthy; and former Newark Police Captain Edward Williams.

(When the Newark riots started in 1967, Mayor Hugh Addonizio had appointed Williams as the city’s first Black police captain with the hope that the move would placate rioters.  Williams served as the police department’s director of community relations.)

Lerner’s line prevailed by a wide margin.  Greenberg finished fourth in the primary, 7,705 votes ahead of Turco, who finished sixth. 

Democrats won three of the five Essex Senate seats – incumbents Michael Giuliano (R-Bloomfield) and James Wallwork (R-Short Hills) were re-elected.  DeRose and Dodd won, and Lipman ousted State Sen. Milton Waldor (R-South Orange) by 908 votes for the fifth seat.  Greenberg was in seventh place, 2,445 votes behind Waldor, 84,736 to 82,291.  In addition to Smolen, Republicans Matthew Carter, the mayor of Montclair, and Frederic Remington, a future Essex GOP chairman and assemblyman, lost.  They also defeated a full slate of Essex Bipartisan Independents headed by former State Sen. John J. Giblin (D-Newark).  

When New Jersey adopted a new map that included 40 single-member Senate districts for the 1973 election, Greenberg ran for the new 28th district seat that included South Orange, Irvington, and the West Ward of Newark.

Essex County Freeholder Director Philip Keegan, a 31-year-old rising star in Essex County politics, wanted the Senate seat.  Lerner decided to go with Greenberg, putting Keegan on the Assembly ticket. 

While Greenberg ran on the Essex Democratic organization line headed by Lerner’s preferred gubernatorial candidate, DeRose, despite playing a top post in Byrne’s bid for the Democratic nomination for governor.

In the general election, held under the backdrop of the Watergate scandal when Democrats won 29 seats in the State Senate and 66 in the Assembly, Greenberg coasted to victory.  He defeated a strong Republican candidate, Irvington Council President Joseph Galluzzi, by twenty percentage points and an 8,689-vote margin. 

In his first term, Greenberg served as chairman of the Senate County and Municipal Government Committee.  He sponsored a law that banned racial discrimination in mortgage lending. 

In 1977, he faced a spirited challenge Republican James Pindar, a Roman Catholic priest and a professor at Seton Hall University.  Greenberg won by 5,587 votes, 58%-39%.  A former Democratic state senator, Nicholas Fernicola, won nearly 3% of the vote as an independent.  

As Senate Judiciary Chairman, Greenberg engaged in a bitter feud with U.S. Attorney Robert Del Tufo.

Del Tufo had accused Greenberg of using a committee hearing to interfere with a federal investigation of another senator, William Vincent Musto (D-Union City) in 1978. Musto has already been indicted on federal gambling and conspiracy charges but remained a member of the Judiciary Committee. Del Tufo, also a Democrat, said that Greenberg had showed up at his office as Musto’s lawyer.

Greenberg had called a hearing to address allegations of ethical breaches by state law enforcement and investigative agencies. The U.S. Attorney viewed the legislative probe as an attempt by Greenberg to influence potential jurors by giving Musto a public forum to defend himself.

The main subject of the Judiciary hearings was James Jelicks, a New Jersey state police informant who was scheduled to appear as a witness at Musto’s federal trial. Jelicks was expected to accuse the State Police of authorizing him to break into the home of a horse breeder as part of their probe of the state racing commission. As part of his testimony, he was also prepared to allege that federal prosecutors pushed him to lie during their investigation of Musto.

Greenberg and Musto wound up staying away from the hearing, but Senate Majority Leader John Russo (D-Toms River) and five other Judiciary Committee members steadfastly backed up Greenberg and Musto.

Musto was acquitted on the 1978 charges; four years later, he was convicted on racketeering, extortion, and fraud charges. He was re-elected mayor of Union City the day after his sentencing, and a judge later ordered his ouster as mayor and senator.

Greenberg and Musto became friends when Greenberg worked in the governor’s counsel’s office and Musto was an assemblyman. Byrne was Meyner’s chief of staff at the time.

When Del Tufo sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1985, Greenberg supported someone else.

After Greenberg left Golden Nugget, Gov. Jim Florio named him general counsel to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. 

In 1992, Florio nominated him to serve as a Superior Court Judge in 1992. He was the Presiding Judge in Hudson County, and served in the Chancery, General Equity, and Probate divisions.

He retired from the bench in 2003 and became Of Counsel at Walder Hayden.

His daughter, Jen Greenberg, was elected South Orange Village Trustee in 2023.