Joseph Vas

Today is Election Day in Middlesex County.  Democratic County Committee members from Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, Carteret, Sayreville and South Amboy will meet tonight to choose a new State Assembly candidate in the 19th district.  Embattled South Amboy Mayor John O'Leary dropped out last month.  Democrats will choose between former Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez of Perth Amboy, former Edison Municipal Court Judge Craig Coughlin of Woodbridge, and Jean Pierce, a health care professional from Woodbridge.

The seat is currently held by Joseph Vas, who decided not to seek re-election after his indictments on federal and state corruption charges.  Vas was defeated for re-election as Mayor of Perth Amboy in 2008, a post he had held for 18 years.

Rodriguez, who resigned from the bench in August to run, has the backing of the new Mayor of Perth Amboy, Wilda Diaz.  Sources say that Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) is also backing Rodriguez, while O'Leary is quietly pushing Coughlin.

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Staffers working for a legislator who resigns or dies in office keep their jobs until a successor is elected and seated.  While there are no formal rules dictating how legislative offices should operate in the event of a vacancy, in recent years the Senate President and Assembly Speaker have authorized district offices to remain open and staff to continue to be paid.  Those staffs are supervised by the Senate Secretary or the Assembly Clerk, although there is relatively little oversight in those situations.

The staff of former Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean) remains intact, even though Van Pelt resigned last week after being arrested on federal corruption charges.  And while Speaker Joseph Roberts has effectively suspended two legislators facing criminal charges without pay, Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy) and L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City) continue to have district offices and staffs who report to them.

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Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean Twp), the lone Republican arrested in last week’s corruption bust, resigned today at a press conference in Toms River.

The Press of Atlantic City was there.

“While I have an unblemished record of over 20 years of public service, I fully understand the outrage that accompanied these accusations and I recognize the public has its right to its reaction," the paper quotes Van Pelt saying.  He was accompanied by his attorney and took no questions from the press.  

Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore told PolitickerNJ.com last week that his organization would move quickly to replace Van Pelt both in office and on the ballot when he resigned.

Van Pelt is charged with taking a $10,000 bribe from an FBI informant.

“It was the correct move," said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany). "There was no way he could properly represent the  people of the 9th District with these criminal allegations hovering over him."

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Since the three assemblymen who were charged with corruption this year have so far refused calls to resign, Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) today took it upon himself to suspend their pay and benefits.  

Roberts said that his legal counsel informed him that he does have the authority to strip Assemblymen L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City), Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean Twp.) and Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy) of their $49,000 per year salaries and health benefits.    

“The right to the presumption of innocence is a hallmark of our democracy, however, serving in the Legislature is a privilege, not a right. The Assembly is often referred to as the ‘People’s House,’ and I want the people to have full confidence in the integrity of its members,” said Roberts.

Van Pelt and Smith were netted in last week’s huge federal corruption bust for allegedly taking bribes.  Vas has been charged by federal and state authorities who allege that, during his time as Mayor of Perth Amboy, he used city funds for personal benefit, rigged an affordable housing lottery, and used his insider status to flip his own property at a huge profit.

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State Sen. Bill Baroni (R-Hamilton) wants the Senate leadership to allow a vote on his proposal to immediately suspend indicted elected officials, saying that temporarily replacing officeholders accused of crimes until due process has been completed would be in the best interests of their constituencies.

"This bill balances due process -- not suspending an official until a grand jury of his neighbors has handed up an indictment -- with the overwhelming public interest in removing these indicted public officials from their positions," Baroni said. "This bill strikes a fair, reasonable balance that will go a long way to helping us end New Jersey's culture of corruption"

Baroni says that his bill would deal with someone like Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who has been indicted on state and federal corruption charges, but Vas has refused and continues to serve in the Legislature. 

There has been a public outcry for the resignations in Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield, where mayors were arrested last Thursday on federal corruption charges.  So far none have resigned; neither have two legislators who were also charged, despite calls for their ouster by legislative and party leaders.  None of these officials have been indicted, and Baroni's plan would not kick in until a grand jury returned a formal indictment.

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Some Democrats may wish Attorney General Anne Milgram would take the summer off, especially since it's an election year.  Instead, Milgram has been going after Democrats in Essex, Middlesex and Union counties.

The Star-Ledger reported tonight that investigators from Milgram's office seized a computer last week from the office of the Essex County Superintendent of Elections in connection to their indictment of Antonio Santana, a volunteer on the 2007 campaign of State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark).  Santana is accused of changing an absentee ballot in Ruiz's favor - a tactic that had no effect on the final results of the election.  But an investigation into the Ruiz campaign is an annoyance to her political mentor, Newark Democratic leader Stephen Adubato, and to Essex County, where Ruiz works as Deputy Chief of Staff to the County Executive. 

Milgram has also won an indictment against Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), and has been conducting a probe of Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo.  State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan have formed a legal defense fund to help pay for DeFilippo's lawyers.

Lesniak and State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden), both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are battling with Milgram over her pick to run the state Division of Civil Rights, Chinh Le.  Lesniak and Scutari sent a letter to Gov. Jon Corzine complaining that Le is not licensed to practice law in New Jersey, according to a Star-Ledger report

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Sources say that embattled South Amboy Mayor Jack O'Leary is digging his heels in and remaining in the race for State Assembly in the nineteenth district.  There had been speculation early last week that Middlesex Democrats would push him out of the race for Joseph Vas' seat and replace him with Mathias Rodriguez, a Superior Court Judge since 1989.

 

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While South Amboy Mayor John O'Leary battles to prove he's done nothing wrong, the Middlesex County Democratic Party has made moves to replace him as a 19th Legislative District Assembly candidate --  just in case his efforts prove futile.
 
The state Attorney General's Office is reportedly investigating work with area towns by O'Leary's insurance brokerage firm, and work allegedly performed in South Amboy by the Baltimore-based insurance company Federal Hill Risk Management.  O'Leary has denied that the firm has any affiliation with the one he operates with his brother.

A replacement candidate for three term incumbent Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who backed out of running for re-election amid federal and state corruption indictments, O'Leary received a subpoena last week - the result of an anonymous letter circulating in the district, which charges the 23-year mayor with abusing his office.

Insisting he's innocent, O'Leary has vowed to weather the bad news cycle and to clear his name. But sources close to party leaders say the Democrats don't want a firestorm in a safe Democratic district. Some Democrats want O'Leary to withdraw, an outcome that to some could prove fortuitous, given the early demands and subsequent frustration of the powerful Latino Leadership Alliance (LLA).

"I don't know the particulars about the O'Leary situation, but I have spoken in the past with (Middlesex County) Democratic Party Chairman Joe Spicuzzo indicating to him the importance of replacing Joe Vas with another Latino," said Martin Perez, the alliance's founder and executive director.

That didn't happen when the party nominated O'Leary without a challenge.
 
For the moment, "Mayor O'Leary maintains he hasn't done anything wrong, and right now there is no reason to believe he's going to get out of the race," said Spicuzzo. "He's talking it over with family and friends, but he maintains that he is in the race."

When Vas's re-election candidacy went belly up with the impact of corruption charges earlier this year, his conqueror in last year's mayoral race, Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz, faced the prospect of working with party leaders to select a successor to Vas from the district's second most populous town.

Insiders, including members of the LLA, told Diaz to field a Latino candidate from Perth Amboy, but the new mayor instead backed cross-the-river veteran O'Leary.

Now sources say Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez is interested in running - in the event that O'Leary abandons his candidacy, and party leaders like him. Read More >

There is some discussion among Middlesex County Democrats that Jack O'Leary will drop out of the race for State Assembly in the nineteenth district, although the suddenly embattled South Amboy Mayor seems to be standing firm in his desire to remain a candidate.  O'Leary has been fighting the political effects of a widely-distributed nine-page anonymous letter that accuses him and members of his family of numerous corrupt acts.  O'Leary strongly denies the allegations, but admitted that South Amboy received a subpoena from the state Attorney General's office regarding aspects of his insurance business, according to The Home News' Rick Malwitz.

O'Leary was unopposed for the Democratic nomination after the incumbent, Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), withdrew following his indictment on federal and state corruption charges.  If O'Leary does exit the race, look for Democrats to replace him with a Latino.

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Former Perth Amboy Democratic Municipal Chairman Raymond Geneske, a longtime political advisor to indicted Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), pleaded guilty today to charges that he participated in a straw-donor scheme to funnel campaign contributions to Vas' 2006 congressional campaign.  He faces a maximum two year prison sentence. 

Vas, who was Mayor of Perth Amboy for eighteen years before his 2008 defeat, challenged Albio Sires for the Democratic nomination for Congress in District 13 in 2006.  He received 25% of the vote. Geneske admitted to a role in a scheme to circumvent federal campaign contribution limits by accepting approximately $30,000 in cash from a "prominent developer in Perth Amboy" and trading the cash for personal checks from other individuals.   Geneske, in his court appearance, alleged that Vas was aware of the straw-donor plan.

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