Published: Saturday, November 27, 2010, 2:25 PM    

Updated: Saturday, November 27, 2010, 2:25 PM

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/11/fbi_informant_solomon_dwek_won.html

A familiar face apparently will be absent at the upcoming corruption trial of a former state legislator: Solomon Dwek, the disgraced real estate speculator whose secretly recorded meetings as a government informant led to the arrests of more than 40 people last year.

The U.S. attorney's office said in a court filing that it doesn't plan to call Dwek to testify in the trial of former state Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith. Jury selection in Smith's extortion trial is scheduled to begin Monday.

The decision to leave Dwek on the sidelines represents a change in strategy for prosecutors who have relied almost exclusively on his testimony, along with the secret recordings, in three previous trials.

The first two trials ended in the convictions of former Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini and former state Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt. In the third trial, however, Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez was acquitted of extortion and bribery last month after testifying and giving his own version of conversations he had had with Dwek.

In all three trials, Dwek was attacked by defense attorneys on his criminal past, which included a Ponzi scheme that Dwek admitted cheated investors — some in his own Syrian Orthodox community — out of hundreds of millions of dollars. He became an informant in 2006 after his arrest in a $50 million bank fraud.

The U.S. attorney's office didn't comment Friday on the decision not to call Dwek as a witness.

Dwek secretly taped hundreds of hours of meetings with public officials as well as rabbis and members of Orthodox enclaves in Brooklyn, N.J., and New Jersey for more than two years. Last year, 46 people were arrested and charged with crimes including extortion, bribery and money laundering.

Tapes played during the three trials have showed Dwek, using the pseudonym David Esenbach, pushing his sometimes reluctant targets to accept money for their political campaigns in exchange for helping him with fictitious development projects in their districts.

Smith is accused of taking $15,000 from Dwek after telling Dwek he would speak to other state officials about environmental permits. Smith says he is innocent.

Without Dwek, the government is expected to call former Jersey City Housing Commissioner Edward Cheatam, who admitted brokering the meetings between Dwek and numerous public officials, and Richard Greene, a Hudson County employee who was charged with passing $5,000 from Dwek to Smith in Smith's car outside a Bayonne restaurant.

Cheatam pleaded guilty in September 2009 to extortion conspiracy and faces a prison term of up to nine years; charges against Greene were dropped last week.

Smith's attorneys didn't respond to a message seeking comment on Friday.