Incidences
of unlawful acts committed by Wayne Township, Passaic County Employees
The
unlawful acts of Wayne Township employees are also evidenced by the number of
illegal activities committed by its employees over the years.
For
example, in September 2009, the former Township Attorney Mark J. Semeraro was
arrested and charged with violating a restraining order. He then was forced to resign from his
position.
In
September 2011, Jerry Bello resigned from the Wayne township Environmental
Commission after it was discovered that he had been appointed to the board
despite his criminal record. Bello had been convicted in 1994 of
extorting $2,000 from a small-business owner who applied for a loan from
Paterson’s Economic Development Corporation. Bello’s wife, Nadine Bello
in fact was serving on the Municipal Council, the very entity that was aware
that the Township Assessor over-assesses the properties. Nadine Bello never
indicated that her husband was a convicted felon. Mayor Vergano was aware or should have been
aware of the felony convictions of Bello and he, in fact, re-appointed Bello to
the Environmental Commission.
In
2007, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice begun its
investigation of Wayne Township, New Jersey. Wayne Township had delayed a
mosque's building permits for several years, and then tried to use its eminent
domain power to seize the land to leave it undeveloped. The Civil Rights
Division of the Department of Justice in 2007 filed a brief with the federal
district court arguing that RLUIPA applied to the case. The court agreed,
leading to a settlement between the mosque and the township.
Paul C. Cavaliere Jr., a former
township attorney, who in 1994 was sentenced to six months in jail,
pleaded guilty to federal bribery and tax-evasion charges in one of New
Jersey's worst cases of municipal corruption. The once-prominent lawyer was one
of six onetime officials and four developers to be implicated in Messercola's
scheme to extract illegal payoffs for development approvals. Cavaliere admitted
helping former Mayor Louis V. Messercola disguise a $273,000 bribe as a real
estate commission, keeping part of the bribe but giving Messercola the largest
share.
Federal agents arrested Messercola
in June 1988. The former mayor pleaded guilty to extorting $50,000 from a
developer and was sentenced to 33 months in prison, then was sentenced to an
additional 15 months upon admitting to his role in the $273,000 bribe scheme.
Ex-Council Candidate Arraigned on Theft Charge
Arlene
Marchese and another woman allegedly stole more than $200K in insurance
payments.
A
one-time candidate for local office pleaded
not guilty to theft in State Superior Court Monday, NorthJersey.com
reported.
Arlene
Marchese, 34, and Karen Wright, 42, of Wyckoff, were arraigned on charges they
diverted more than $200,000 in insurance payments into their own private
accounts. They were originally charged Sept. 26, the website reported.
Marchese
was
a Democratic candidate in 2011 for the 2nd Ward council seat. Wayne
Democratic Chairman Ray Egatz replaced her for unspecified reasons.
Marchese’s
phone number was not listed.
Both
women face up to 10 years in state prison if convicted on the charges,
NorthJersey.com reported. They are scheduled to return before Judge Gooden
Brown for a status conference Feb. 4.
Unlawful
Activities by Passaic County Sheriff Employees
In May 2012, Passaic County
Sheriff’s Officer Rafael “Rae” Galan was indicted Tuesday on charges that he
threatened a former colleague who had accused him of corruption.
Last
year, The Star-Ledger published Galan’s name and photo in a three-part series
about the widespread use of anabolic steroids in law enforcement. The
newspaper found he was one of 248 officers and firefighters who obtained
steroids, human growth hormone and other drugs with the aid of a crooked
Jersey City physician, Joseph Colao.
The
newspaper’s figure was based on records from a single mail-order pharmacy in
Brooklyn. Colao, who died in 2007, is believed to have prescribed the drugs to
hundreds of other officers and firefighters through pharmacies in New Jersey.
While
anabolic steroids are legal with a valid prescription, The Star-Ledger found
Colao routinely prescribed them when they were not medically necessary. Moreover,
the officers used their government benefits to pay for the drugs, costing
taxpayers millions of dollars.
In 2010, a records clerk at the
county jail who is the former president of the clerical union at the Passaic
County Sheriff's Department was arrested for stealing more than $23,000 in
union funds, according to a report on NorthJersey.com. Valerie Jacalone, 53, of
Passaic was taken into custody after reporting to work Tuesday at the county
jail. She served as union president from July 2008 to July 2010 and is the
daughter of Victor Jacalone, the former police chief for the City of Passaic,
according to the report
Sheriff's Officer From Wayne, NJ Accused of Sex Abuse
of Girls
In
October 2012, Thomas Ingham charged with sexual assault and endangering the
welfare of a child. A
long-serving Essex County Sheriff’s Officer from Wayne was charged Thursday
with sexually abusing two juvenile girls, NorthJersey.com reported. Thomas
Ingham, 48, an Essex County sheriff’s officer, was charged with sexually
assaulting one girl and endangering the welfare of another. The girls reported
the allegations to Wayne Police July 19, the website reported.
FREEHOLD, October 12, 2012 — A central New Jersey police detective will give up his job after
admitting that he requested sexual favors from a woman he had arrested late
last year.
According to reports 33-year-old
Philip Emanuele, a Brick Township resident who served with the Eatontown police
force for the past eight years, pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of criminal
coercion and tampering with physical evidence.
Besides forfeiting his job, Emanuele
is expected to get a probationary sentence when he's sentenced later this year.
In return for his plea, Monmouth County prosecutors dropped two counts of
official misconduct and one count of sexual assault.
Emanuele, a married father of two,
sought the favors from the woman, who is in her 20s, after arresting her on a
theft charge in December.
N.J.
undersheriff who used county-owned generator for personal use resigns
GREEN — A Sussex County sheriff’s officer
resigned this week after he was caught using a county-owned generator to
provide power to his house, Sheriff Mike Strada said today.
Undersheriff George DeOld lost power
at his home on Hibler Road in Green Township during Hurricane Sandy and had
another sheriff’s officer deliver one of two emergency generators owned by the
sheriff’s office to his home on Friday morning, Strada said.
A resident noticed the generator
being delivered and sheriff’s officers recovered it from DeOld’s home a short
time later, Strada said.
"It was an unfortunate incident
and he has taken responsibility for his actions. He made the right choice by
resigning," he said.
By using the county-owned generator
for his personal use, DeOld violated an internal office regulation. Criminal
charges will not be filed, Strada said. He declined to identify the officer who
delivered the generator to DeOld’s home.
DeOld, who joined the sheriff’s
office last year, was one of three undersheriffs in the 135-member office,
serving as administrative undersheriff. He earned $97,000 annually.
He was a member of the Paterson
Police Department from 1971 and 1998 and was later employed by the state
Department of Treasury and the state Department of Community Affairs. In
addition to his salary from the sheriff’s office, DeOld was collecting a
$66,000 annual state pension from his previous positions.
Strada said the resignation would
not affect DeOld’s pension status.
"It was wrong and he admitted
it," the sheriff said, declining further comment.
A call to the county prosecutor’s
office was not immediately returned.
A woman who answered the phone at
DeOld’s home said "no comment" and immediately hung up.
A woman who answered the phone at
DeOld’s home said “no comment” and immediately hung up the phone.
Unlawful Activities by Other New
Jersey Officials
Nicholas
Bissell was the District Attorney in Somerset County New Jersey. On Friday, May
31, 1996, he was convicted on all 30 counts of his federal indictment, two of
the counts involving official misconduct in relation to the forfeiture of
property from James Giuffre.
The
charges against Bissell included a wide variety of fraud, as well as
professional misconduct and corruption and threatening to have cocaine planted
in the car of man with whom he had an argument.
Bissell
was also convicted on both counts of the official misconduct charges involving
forfeiture victim James Giuffre. Bissell was convicted of committing perjury in
the separate civil suit filed against him by Giuffre, and of ordering
subordinates to destroy Giuffre's written request for a lawyer.
On
November 13, Nicholas Bissell, former D.A. of Somerset County, N.J., was
scheduled to be sentenced on 30-counts of his federal indictment, 3 of the
counts growing out of his official corruption in the handling of James
Giuffre's forfeiture case. His sentencing was postponed.
On
Monday, November 18, 1996, Bissell removed his electronic ankle bracelet and
became a fugitive from justice. Authorities conducted a nationwide man hunt,
and tracked him down to a casino hotel room in Laughlin, Nevada. At around 1:30
on Tuesday, November 26, U.S. Marshalls surrounded the room and tried to
persuade Bissell to surrender. Bissell put a gun in his mouth and shot himself
to death.
Trenton of Mayor Corruption
In
July 2012, FBI agents staged a middle-of-the-night raid Wednesday at the home
of Trenton's mayor, whose administration of the state's impoverished capital
city has been marked by accusations of cronyism and reckless spending. They
also searched the home of his brother and a convicted sex offender who was one
of his biggest early campaign donors. Later, the federal officials charged the
Mayor and other accomplishes with a number of corruption crimes.
The
mayor of neighboring Hamilton Township, New Jersey's largest suburb, also is
the target of federal investigators. Mayor John Bencivengo, a Republican,
pleaded not guilty in federal court last week to charges of extortion and money
laundering.
In
September 2012, the U.S. Attorney filed charges against the Trenton Mayor and
several accomplishes for corruption.
Toms River School Corruption
In
September 2012, Calling it the "worst case of public corruption he has
ever seen," a federal judge sentenced the disgraced former superintendent
of Toms River Regional, Michael J. Ritacco, to 135 months – just over 11 years
– in prison.
"This
is the worst case of public corruption I’ve ever seen," Pisano said. Other
cases of public corruption are "nickels and dimes compared to this."
Pisano
sentenced Ritacco to 135 months on the first count of an indictment, and 60
months on the 19th count. He ruled the sentences will run concurrently.
Ritacco pleaded guilty April 5, 2012 to two of the 27
charges he was facing, and admitted his role in years of corruption at the
school district, where as much as $2.5 million in bribes were allegedly passed
between Ritacco, insurance brokers and intermediaries.
New Jersey internal records document widespread racial profiling of black and Hispanic motorists
By Fred
Mazelis
2 December 2000
The
release of 91,000 pages of internal records by the state of New Jersey reveal
that a systematic policy of searching cars driven by blacks or Hispanics has
been carried out for at least a decade. The statistics show that minority
drivers, making up 13 percent of state motorists, accounted for more than 80 percent
of those stopped by state troopers.
The
mountain of official records constitutes the most damning evidence of crude
official racism, fostered or accepted by top state officials of both the
Democratic and Republican parties. The state's chief law enforcement officials
knew about racial profiling since at least 1989 but refused to admit it until a
report was issued in April 1999.
The
official records consist of everything from police training manuals to
thousands of pages of individual traffic tickets issued by state troopers. They
have been compiled in 185 binders as well as on 15 CD-ROMs, which are being
distributed to interested parties at a cost of $1,000.
The
state police officially prohibited racial profiling, but according to a 1999
memo from Deputy Attorney General Debra Stone, “racial profiling exists as part
of the culture.” Stone reported that veteran troopers functioned as “coaches”
in showing new troopers how to carry out racial profiling. “Trooper after
trooper has testified that coaches taught them how to profile minorities,”
Stone wrote. “The coaches also teach this to minority troopers.”
These
practices stretched back more than a decade. A 1987 state police training memo
listed the following descriptions to assist police in finding possible drug
couriers: Colombian males, Hispanic males, a Hispanic male and a black male
together, or a Hispanic male and female.
Among
the documents released by the state attorney general's office were numerous
bitter complaints from motorists who had been stopped and in many cases singled
out for abuse and humiliation. State troopers themselves, if they were off duty
and were black or Hispanic, were not immune from being pulled over for
“DWB”—driving while black. One such officer, a state police sergeant, wrote
that he had been stopped 40 times by state troopers while off duty. “There were
times when I was the fourth vehicle in a line of five exceeding the speed
limit,” he wrote. “I was the only one stopped. It doesn't take long to realize
that you (the minority) are the choice of the day.”