3. A newspaper
report details
Goldenberg's South
Florida heroics.
4. Goldenberg with
then governor Jim
Florio in 1995 at
Riverside Cemetery
in Saddle Brook after
vandals desecrated
the Jewish burial
park.
PEOPLE
came in and arrested him—as soon as they
stopped laughing,” says Goldenberg.
Working undercover in South
Florida, Goldenberg made more than
200 felony arrests, broke up a major organized crime operation, and
recovered millions of dollars in stolen
property. In one memorable bust, he
rounded up a group of Jamaican gang
members who had been dealing guns,
drugs and stolen cars. In the police
van, he taught “Hava Nagila” to the
perps. They sang the Israeli folk song
all the way to the slammer.
Not surprisingly, Goldenberg’s high-risk lifestyle did not amuse his wife,
Dianne. As he rose through the ranks,
she pined for her native New Jersey.
“It was really tough on Dianne,”
Goldenberg says. “She was a young
mother with our second child on the
way. We were so deep undercover that
family and friends had no idea what I
was doing. Some friends in Irvington
thought I was corrupt....Dianne felt
deceived. She was under the impression
that I would become an attorney, but
that wasn’t going to happen.”
IN 1986, AFTER FIVE YEARS IN FLORIDA,
Goldenberg and his family moved back to
New Jersey where he joined the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office. He was
appointed head of a special unit battling
ethnic terrorism and organized crime.
For the next year and a half, Goldenberg spearheaded the investigation into
the DeCalvacante family, long suspected
of money laundering, loan sharking,
bank fraud and drug trafficking.
“They used a bank, which is no longer
in existence, for illicit loans,” says Gold-
A Man of
Many Faces
1. Goldenberg as a young cop
in Irvington. 2. Living the undercover life in South Florida,
where he created a phony
persona as the operator of a
car wash.
P
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T
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O
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PA
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