Their work examining the sweetheart deals, no-bid contracts and widespread patronage behind the scenes at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey led to the unprecedented federal takeover of New Jersey’s only medical school and mammoth criminal and civil investigations.
In 2009, their stories uncovering millions in secret spending by the football program at Rutgers University won the National Journalism Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation for service to the First Amendment; honors from the Associated Press Sports Editors for investigative journalism; and the prestigious Public Service Award from New Jersey Press Association. Those stories led to state investigations, reforms at Rutgers, and the firing of the university’s long-time, politically powerful athletic director.
Both have been writing for years about the corruption that continues to plague New Jersey and its politics. They followed the scandal that plays out in The Jersey Sting since the day of the arrests. Coverage of the investigation by Sherman and Margolin and The Star-Ledger staff was awarded the Jesse Laventhol Prize for Deadline News Reporting last year from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and also was honored as finalists for the Pultizer Prize.
The Jersey Sting takes you deep inside a one-of-a-kind case, through a narrative fashioned from scores of interviews — both on and off the record — and from thousands of pages of documents, criminal complaints, transcripts of federal wiretaps, court records, and sworn depositions.
Sherman, a senior investigative reporter for The Star-Ledger, is a graduate of Hofstra University with an advanced degree in economics from Rutgers University and has written about politics, campaign finance, aviation safety and mortgage fraud. He has won a Deadline Club award for investigative reporting in connection with stories on unchecked political patronage. A series on a statewide house flipping scam led to a federal probe that resulted in guilty pleas from three men — including one he found on a luxury yacht in St. Lucia after the illegal business folded. Recently, his stories about widespread abuse by the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners — including the hiring of wives, brothers and in-laws — led to the firing of six members of the authority's board by the governor. The stories won an award this year from the New Jersey Press Association for reporting uncovering actions detrimental to the public good.
Margolin, a graduate of Long Island University, was New Jersey’s top political writer for nearly a decade, and exposed the scandals and corruption that came to the governor’s office with the popular but flawed Jim McGreevey. Assigned to the Star-Ledger’s Statehouse Bureau from 2002-2010, he served as the main contributor to the widely read inside political column, “The Auditor.” Margolin was named one of the state’s 101 most influential people in New Jersey by New Jersey Monthly and the most powerful journalist in the state by PolitickerNJ.com. “The Fix” of Washingtonpost.com called him the best political reporter in New Jersey.
Margolin is a regular contributor to television and radio news programs and his appearances have included segments on The Today Show and National Public Radio. Margolin has won a number of additional awards and has served as a story and plot consultant for the hit CBS series “The Good Wife.”
A former senior reporter with The New York Post, covering politics and national security, Margolin is now a senior investigative reporter at ABC News.
