Joseph Vas

Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy) pleaded not guilty today to charges the state filed against him last month, according to reports from the Star-Ledger and Gannett.

Vas, who appeared today at Superior Court in New Brunswick is charged with stealing about $5,000 in goods and services from the city of Perth Amboy during his time as mayor and rigging an affordable housing lottery in favor of his personal driver, Anthony Jones, who also pleaded not guilty today.  

Vas’s bail was set as $25,000, but he was allowed to post 10 percent.

The number of Hispanics that will serve in the State Assembly, currently nine, could drop by one-third next year with the death of Eric Munoz (R-Summit) and the retirements of Nilsa Cruz-Perez (D-Camden) and Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy).  A fourth Hispanic legislator, Matthew Milam (D-Vineland) is considered the most vulnerable incumbent in the November 2009 general election.  Munoz and Vas are not expected to be replaced by Hispanics.

Attorney General Anne Milgram, who is building a case against former Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas, won her second guilty plea form a Perth Amboy official today.

Perth Amboy recreation supervisor Ana Pastrana, 49, pleaded guilty today to using city funds to pay off a credit card in her name that she used for personal expenses for herself and Vas.  In her plea, Pastrana said that Vas directed her to reimburse the card for purchases of sneakers, beachwear and sportswear through a bank account for the city’s Housing Development Corporation.  

“With this second guilty plea, we continue to advance our case against former Perth Amboy mayor Joseph Vas, who we charge conspired with other officials to enrich himself at the expense of his struggling city and its taxpayers,” said Milgram.

Anne "Little Chris" Milgram has been on a roll lately, announcing six politically relevant indictments in the last two weeks.  With the exception of Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), the others are relatively minor players: Antonio Santana, who allegedly falsified three absentee ballots in Newark; former Perth Amboy Democratic Chairman Raymond Geneske; two former Vas aides, Melvin Ramos and Jeffrey Gumbs; and Rosemary McClave, the Treasurer for the and Neil Cohen's campaign treasurer.

There is some speculation that the indictment of the 66-year-old McClave might be more about her longtime political alliance with fellow Hillside resident Charlotte DeFilippo than about allegations that she used Cohen's campaign account to pay for $5,562 in personal expenses charged to an American Express card.  According to published reports, Milgram's office has spent the last two years looking at top Union County officials, including DeFilippo, the Executive Director of the Union County Improvement Authority.

A former Perth Amboy official today pleaded guilty to helping former mayor and current assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy) steal funds from that city, according to Attorney General Anne Milgram.

Jeffrey D. Gumbs Sr., who lives in Wilmington, Del., admitted to submitting fraudulent invoices to the city to pay for personal expenses for both himself and Vas.  

Gumbs was the city’s director of human services and superintendent of recreation under Vas.  

“This guilty plea is a significant step in our investigation and prosecution of this case,” said Milgram in a press release. “Mr. Gumbs admitted that he helped the mayor to steal taxpayer funds. We charge that Joseph Vas used the city like his own piggybank.”

Source: Perth Amboy Chamber of Commerce Web site

Ray Geneske, shown here in 2005, was charged today with campaign contribution fraud

The chairman and the treasurer of former Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas’s ill-fated 2006 congressional campaign were charged today by the State Attorney General’s Office with soliciting fraudulent campaign contributions.

Raymond Geneske, 73, a member of the Perth Amboy Board of Education and former municipal Democratic chairman who headed up Vas’s campaign, and Melvin Ramos, 53, a formal mayoral aide to Vas who served as his campaign treasurer in 2006, were each charged with three counts for conspiracy, official misconduct and money laundering.  

Geneske and Ramos are accused of pressuring city employees to write checks to Vas’s campaign fund and reimbursing them with cash, thereby skirting federal reporting requirements.  

“We charge that these defendants engaged in an elaborate fraud to pump cash into Joseph Vas’ congressional campaign,” said Attorney General Anne Milgram. “By pressuring city employees to go along with their scheme, they were able to conceal the source of the cash and skirt bank reporting requirements.”

Several members of the State Assembly enjoyed a laugh yesterday at the expense of their colleague, Joseph Vas, who was indicted last week on state corruption charges.  Vas skipped Monday's Assembly session, but at one point during a vote a green light appeared next to his name - either an inadvertent mistake by a staffer or a deliberate attempt at humor by another legislator.  Either way, a large group of legislators laughed at the notion of Vas' faux affirmative vote, and then moved on.

George Otlowski, whose career in Middlesex County politics included service as an Assemblyman, Freeholder and Mayor of Perth Amboy, died on Monday at age 97.  His passing comes less than a week after the man who pushed him out as Mayor, Joseph Vas, was indicted on state corruption charges.

Otlowski was elected to the Middlesex County Board of Freeholders in 1954, part of David Wilentz's Perth Amboy-based political machine that dominated Middlesex County politics for four decades.  He broke from the machine, briefly, in 1962, to run for Congress when New Jersey picked up a fifteenth congressional seat after the 1960 census - a new district that included nearly all of Middlesex County.   He lost to Edward Patten, a former Perth Amboy Mayor and N.J. Secretary of State, by a 56%-44% margin.

In 1973, Otlowski returned to public office as an Assemblyman, representing the 19th district.  His running mate was Alan Karcher, who would later become Assembly Speaker and one of the most dominant legislators of his time.  Perth Amboy voters elected him Mayor in 1976, and he served there until 1990, when he resigned rather than face a recall vote organized by Vas.  Vas won a special election to replace Otlowski as Mayor.

Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who was indicted on Wednesday on state corruption charges, has notified Middlesex County Democrats that he will not seek re-election to a fourth term in the State Assembly this year. 

Democratic leaders, including Gov. Jon Corzine, Speaker Joseph Roberts, State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Woodbridge), and Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan, have called on Vas, the former Mayor of Perth Amboy, to resign his Assembly seat immediately.  Vas has had no public comment since his indictment.

Unless you're Speaker or Majority Leader, serving in the Assembly Democratic leadership is really nothing special. Just last week, 25 of the 49 Democrats in the Assembly held a leadership post.  Still, Joseph Roberts' decision today to strip indicted Assembly Deputy Majority Leader Joseph Vas of his leadership post means someone gets to move up - assuming Roberts believes in the importance of having six Deputy Majority Leaders, rather than just five. 

For Roberts, the easy decision would be to move John McKeon (D-West Orange) up from Minority Whip to Deputy Majority Leader, even though Minority Whip actually sounds more meaningful since there is just one.  Then he could promote Deputy Majority Whip Vincent Prieto (D-Secaucus), and pick one of the mere mortal legislators with no leadership post or committee chair to take his spot.