Jonathan Soto

Former Passaic City Councilman Jonathan Soto was sentenced to 75 months in prison following his conviction on federal corruption charges.  Earlier this year, a jury found Soto, a former Republican Municipal Chairman, guilty of all 23 counts in an indictment that accused him of taking $44,500 in bribes for himself, former Mayor Sammy Rivera, and former Councilman Marcellus Jackson.

He was also convicted of one extortion charge connected to his role in bribing other public officials, including former Pleasantville Board of Education member Jayson Adams, and one count of procession of illegal drugs.

"Soto joins the long line of politicians going to prison for putting public office up for sale," said Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra. "We once again hope that a clear message has been sent to those in public life, that if you corrupt your office you will be brought to justice."

Scott Rumana, left, an Assemblyman and the Passaic County GOP Chairman, accepting an award from a onetime employee of a Catskills ski shop.

Passaic County GOP Chairman Scott Rumana is proposing a change in the party by-laws that would prevent a convicted felon – or that person’s designee – from serving on the executive committee of the county organization.  Rumana’s objective is to remove two municipal chairmen, Jonathan Soto of Passaic and Peter Murphy of Totowa.  Both are convicted felons.  Murphy has served his sentence, and Soto is facing jail time after his jury conviction last month.

A jury took about four hours today to convict former Passaic City Councilman Jonathan Soto on all 23 counts of federal bribery, extortion and drug possession charges.  He faces up to 30 years in prison.

The 33-year-old Soto, who still serves as the Passaic Republican Municipal Chairman, was convicted of accepting $44,500 in bribes for him and two other city officials who have already pleaded guilty, former Mayor Sammy Rivera and former Councilman Marcellus Jackson.

"Like so many others we've encountered in this investigation, Soto leveraged his position as an elected official and sold his office for cash," said Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra, Jr. "We are gratified that the jury recognized this and convicted Soto on all counts."

Could be that Rumana the self-anointed Reformer is a fraud?  

Former School Board President Alex Blanco: Politicker photo

Passaic mayoral candidate Alex Blanco says he is not the high-ranking public official implicated in a new indictment of former Councilman Jonathan Soto.  

Federal prosecutors added to Soto’s indictment yesterday, alleging the former councilman received cash payments from undercover agents posing as health insurance contractors. The government says Soto received money in exchange for exercising his official authority to secure business with the City of Passaic, including the Board of Education.

Blanco, who served as school board president during the time, insisted he never played any role in the case.

"I absolutely deny any involvement in that, and I unequivocally deny that Mr. Soto solicited any payments on my behalf," said Blanco, who called Wednesday’s news regarding Soto "shocking."

U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, right, and FBI Director Weysan Dun last year in Trenton on the day Mims Hackett was arrested.

NEWARK - The steps of City Hall.

That was the image U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie used to tell the bad ending story of former Assemblyman and Orange Mayor Mims Hackett, who twice pleaded guilty today: once in federal court to one count of attempted extortion, and once in state Superior Court to a charge of official misconduct.

Flanked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office by state Attorney General Anne Milgram and state FBI Director Weysan Dun, Christie made special mention of the fact that it was outside City Hall that Hackett took the bribe which started his fall.

"This is a public servant who decided that $5,000 was a good down payment for him to sell his office," said Christie.

The defiant U.S. Attorney recalled critics who questioned his office’s motives when Hackett and ten other elected officials first appeared in court last year to answer to federal corruption charges.

Less than a week after Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera and Councilman Marcellus Jackson were arrested on bribery charges, City Council President Gary Schaer says the Council will hire an independent special counsel to review city contracts over the last two years. Schaer says he wants to hire a lawyer with “significant experience in matters before the U.S. Attorney.”

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announces criminal charges against 11 public officials, including two legislators
The ironic presence of a framed portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware was not lost on two courtroom artists crouched over their easel with erasers and pastels Thursday. In their rendering, they took some license in centering the framed and famed heroic portrait of 12 men braving the elements over the heads of the 12 men in the docket, who crowded together, resembled another band of ragtag shipmates.

The trouble was they weren’t crossing the Delaware, but stranded this side of the river in handcuffs and leg-irons in Trenton’s Clarkson S. Fisher Federal Building, in the uncomfortable position of fighting off U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie.

Magistrate Judge Tonianne Bongiovanni acknowledged the charges of either conspiracy to extort corrupt payments or attempting to extort corrupt payments that Christie’s office brought against the men - 11 of them elected or former elected officials from Pleasantville to Passaic, among them dual-officeholder Mims Hackett, an Assemblyman and the Mayor of Orange, Assembly Deputy Speaker (and Passaic County Undersheriff Alfred Steele), and Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie continues his war on corruptionU.S. Attorney Christopher Christie today announced indictments against eleven current and former public officials on bribery charges, including Assembly Deputy Speaker Alfred Steele, Assemby State Government Committee Chairman (and Orange Mayor) Mims Hackett, Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera, and Pete Callaway, a member of a prominent and controversial Atlantic County political family.