Sid Brown, a trucking magnate and codefendant in George Norcross’ racketeering case, pleads not guilty

TRENTON — For almost 30 years Sidney R. Brown has served as chief executive of a family business that started as a one-dump-truck gravel hauler in Vineland during the Great Depression and has since grown into one of the largest trucking and freight services companies in the U.S.

Brown’s company, National Freight Inc., with sales now topping $3.5 billion a year, started a new chapter in its long history in 2017 when it announced it was relocating its corporate headquarters to Camden, taking part in a waterfront redevelopment plan by George E. Norcross III, the South Jersey Democratic power broker and insurance executive.

Now Brown, 67, has been indicted alongside Norcross and four others on state racketeering charges that accuse them of abusing their political power to squeeze out rival developers and obtain valuable real estate. Brown, making his first court appearance since the charges were announced in June, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of racketeering conspiracy, extortion, and related counts during his arraignment in Mercer County Superior Court.

Brown, of Philadelphia, declined to comment as he left the courtroom in Trenton.

In a statement issued shortly after the proceeding, his attorney Lawrence S. Lustberg said, “Sidney Brown pleaded not guilty today because he is not guilty. Sid has in fact done absolutely nothing wrong. He is proud to be an important part of the revitalization of Camden through his investment in residential and commercial real estate, which has transformed the city’s waterfront. It is just a matter of time before he is exonerated.”

Prosecutors accuse Norcross of conspiring with Brown and others to use threats and intimidation to force Philadelphia developer Carl Dranoff to sell property, development rights, and tax credits so that the insurance executive and his allies could develop the Camden waterfront.

Norcross’ firm, Conner Strong & Buckelew, partnered with NFI and residential developer the Michaels Organization on an 18-story office tower, Triad1828 Centre, backed by $245 million in state tax credits made available under a 2013 law that prosecutors say Norcross manipulated for his own benefit.

Norcross and the other codefendants pleaded not guilty last month, and his lawyer accused Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin of leading a legal “jihad” against his client.

Brown is the third-generation head of what’s now NFI. From 2012 to 2023, his compensation package was $60 million, according to court papers.

While Norcross, executive chairman of insurance brokerage Conner Strong & Buckelew, and codefendant John J. O’Donnell, CEO of the Michaels Organization, have both taken leaves of absence from their companies since the indictment was unsealed, NFI has announced no change in Brown’s status. The company hasn’t been charged.

With 17,000 employees, NFI says it is the sixth-largest U.S. provider of “dedicated” trucking services to corporate clients, who in the past have included Anheuser-Busch InBev, Nestle, Hanes, Lowe’s, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart. It is the fourth-largest U.S dry-storage warehouse operator, with more than 300 terminals and warehouses totaling 71 million square feet of warehouse space — more than all the office space in Philadelphia and King of Prussia combined.

The company was founded in the vegetable-farming center of Vineland, Cumberland County, by Sid’s grandfather Israel Brown in 1932. Sid’s father, Bernie, took over when his father died in 1951, and the company expanded as National Freight Inc.

NFI credits Bernie Brown with helping persuade the industry to use longer, taller trailers during the trucking industry deregulation that started in the 1970s and adding new services. He stressed community ties, including the creation of Cumberland County’s community college in the 1960s. He also founded the former Sun National and Citizens United Banks.

Bernie named Sid CEO in 1995. Sid also serves as chairman of the board. Sid’s brothers Ike and Jeff share the title of president and vice chairman. The brothers own and control the company, and some of their children work there, too. Bernie Brown died in 2021.

Sid borrowed money to build warehouses along the East Coast in the mid-1980s, a time of easy money as deregulated savings-and-loans lent aggressively.

“The bankers weren’t paying attention,” he recalled in a 2020 interview. “I got almost 100% financing. We were highly leveraged.”

Then the economy slowed, S&Ls went broke, NFI struggled, and Brown vowed not to go so deep in debt again. NFI survived the burst of the 2001 internet bubble and the Great Recession without layoffs, though the company cut driver hours for a time during COVID-era trucking disruptions, as big retailers like T.J.Maxx and Kohl’s shut stores.

NFI is growing again. This year it has announced new warehouses, while periodically closing some older ones. In June it bought a freight-brokerage operation serving thousands of brokers, shippers, and truckers from New York-based Transfix.

But much of NFI’s business still focuses on basic consumer staples, Brown said in 2020 — “food, water, beer, and other beverages, groceries, paper, stuff that people use every day. It’s not glamorous. It grows with the population, about 2% or 3% a year. But it’s steady-Eddie and will always be resilient in downturns.”

The Browns have supported Republicans such as fellow South Jersey trucking company owner Frank LoBiondo, who represented the area in Congress from 1995 to 2019. They have also supported Democratic groups, some promoted by Norcross. For example, records show Sid and Jeff Brown in 2018 each loaned $250,000 to General Majority PAC, a political action committee focused on New Jersey state legislative races that was widely seen as a fundraising vehicle for the Norcross-led South Jersey Democratic machine.

The Browns and Norcrosses also have served on boards together. Philip Norcross, George’s brother and now a codefendant in the state’s case, joined the Sun board as the bank reorganized in the early 2010s. Sid Brown also serves alongside the Norcross brothers on the board of Cooper University Health Care, the hospital network for which George Norcross is the longtime chairman.

Sid Brown is currently registered as an independent in Philadelphia, records show.

Brown’s ties to the Norcross family have now put him in the spotlight, as prosecutors say they were part of a criminal enterprise that muscled developer Dranoff out of Camden in order to obtain real estate and related tax credits.

Conner Strong, NFI, and Michaels received their first of 10 annual installments of state tax credits in 2022. NFI obtained $7.8 million in credits, which it sold for $7.2 million in cash, the indictment says. In addition, the ownership group of a Camden apartment complex known as 11 Cooper — whose investors include Norcross, Brown, and John J. O’Donnell of Michaels — received $3.5 million in tax credits between 2022 and 2023 and sold them for $4.3 million.

Prosecutors say these are gains from the criminal conspiracy.

Norcross has said he and his business partners have invested more than $300 million into development in Camden.

The indictment describes Norcross as the leader of a long-running criminal enterprise and depicts lesser-known figures such as Brown as willing participants in the scheme. For example, during an October 2016 conference call that was secretly recorded, Norcross and others discussed a plan to get the Camden Redevelopment Agency to condemn property rights Dranoff held that stood in the way of their plans to build the office tower, the indictment says.

They believed this would help them gain leverage in their negotiations with Dranoff, the indictment says. “Let me just make sure, is the goal here really to try and put some pressure on [Dranoff] to sign what we just tried to get signed?” Brown said on the call, according to the indictment.

“Of course,” Norcross responded. Later on the call, the indictment says, Brown added approvingly that “we should proceed and go ahead” with the proposed legal action.

They didn’t follow through with that plan because Liberty Property Trust, another developer involved in the negotiations with Dranoff, wouldn’t cooperate, the indictment says. But ultimately Dranoff agreed to sell various property rights for less than he thought they were worth amid a sustained pressure campaign, according to prosecutors.

Attorneys for the Norcross brothers have dismissed the recordings as “antiquated material” and said the allegations described in the indictment show nothing more than routine negotiating that goes on in executive boardrooms every day.

This article has been updated to correct the year Sid Brown became CEO of NFI and the company’s name and to clarify the relationship between the Brown and Norcross families and the ownership of 11 Cooper.