Five defendants charged alone in rapist complaints with second-degree temptation in central and domestic matters: Sudhan Thomas, Jersey City propagandize house president; John Cesaro, former Morris County freeholder; Mary Dougherty, former Morris County freeholder candidate; Jason O’Donnell, former State Assemblyman and former Bayonne mayoral candidate; John Windish, former Mount Arlington legislature member | New Jersey Attorney General’s Office
PHILADELPHIA — Five stream and former internal inaugurated officials from New Jersey — including a former state representative and a propagandize house boss — were charged Thursday in a crime prick in that they allegedly betrothed to drive open work to a auxiliary declare in sell for thousands of dollars in bribes.
The bribes, authorities say, were delivered to a bipartisan organisation of North Jersey politicos in paper bags and envelopes filled with cash, in debate checks from straw donors and even a coffee crater pressed with $10,000 in $100 bills.
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The bust is a latest colorful section in a state’s prolonged and contemptible story of domestic corruption.
Three of a 5 charged in a sting, that was orchestrated by a state profession general‘s office, hold open bureau during a time they allegedly supposed a bribes. They came from civic Hudson County, scandalous for domestic corruption, and wealthy, suburban Morris County, that has a cleaner reputation.
“We lay that these domestic possibilities were all too peaceful to sell a management of their open bureau or a bureau they sought in sell for an pouch filled with income or bootleg checks from straw donors,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal pronounced in a statement. “This is old-school domestic crime during a misfortune — a kind that undermines a domestic routine and erodes open faith in government.
“We are operative by a Office of Public Integrity and Accountability to emanate a enlightenment of burden in New Jersey, where open officials know they contingency act with firmness or else face a consequences,” Grewal said.
Charged were: former Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell, Jersey City Board of Education President Sudhan Thomas, former Morris County Freeholder John Cesaro, former Mount Arlington Councilman John Windish and former Morris County freeholder claimant Mary Dougherty.
In further to bribery, a 3 officials who were in bureau during a time — Thomas, Cesaro and Windish — were charged with “second-degree acceptance or receipt of wrong advantage by a open menial for central behavior.”
All 5 defendants face adult to 10 years in jail and a $150,000 fine. The charges opposite Thomas, Cesaro and Windish lift a five-year imperative smallest sentence.
According to Grewal, a biggest bribes went to Thomas, whose position on a propagandize house bureau is inactive in a heavily Democratic city. He allegedly took $35,000 in dual income payments from a adviser — a taxation profession — in May and Jul of this year while using for reelection to a propagandize board.
The adviser wanted Thomas to designate him as a board’s special warn for genuine estate, Grewal said.
“Yeah, nobody questions anything,” Thomas pronounced in response, according to Grewal. “Nobody questions all of that stuff.”
Thomas mislaid his reelection bid final month.
O’Donnell allegedly supposed a $10,000 income cheat to compensate for “street money” — a tenure typically used for a canvassing operation — for his catastrophic 2018 mayoral debate in Bayonne. A Democrat from Hudson County, O’Donnell served in a Assembly from 2010 to 2016, carrying succeeded Democrat Anthony Chiappone, who quiescent after pleading guilty to equivocating debate financial reports.
“I only wanna be your taxation guy,” a adviser allegedly told O’Donnell after handing him a income in a paper bag.
“Done,” O’Donnell responded, according to a profession general’s office.
Cesaro, a Republican, allegedly supposed an pouch from a adviser filled with $10,000 in income and $2,350 in checks. However, he returned a income and allegedly asked for checks instead, that eventually came from “straw donors” — people whose names are used on checks to censor a loyal source of a donations.
Cesaro, who mislaid reelection to a Morris County freeholder house in 2018, had wanted to use a income for his designed debate for mayor of Parsippany-Troy Hills, Grewal said.
When a taxation profession pronounced he was looking for taxation work in a town, Cesaro allegedly responded, “I turn mayor, we got your back,” according to a profession general’s office.
Windish, a former Republican assemblyman in a tiny Morris County precinct of Mount Arlington, allegedly took $7,000 in income in an pouch for his 2018 reelection debate in sell for ancillary a adviser for reappointment as precinct attorney. Windish mislaid reelection that year.
“I need we to, we need your dedicate that I’m your precinct profession and we need some-more work, John,” a adviser told Windish, according to a profession general’s office.
“You got it,” Windish allegedly responded.
Dougherty, a catastrophic Democratic Morris County freeholder candidate, allegedly met a adviser in a grill in Aug 2018, where he upheld her a take-out coffee crater pressed with $10,000 in $100 bills, Grewal’s bureau said.
She after allegedly returned a income and asked a adviser to cut her checks from 4 straw donors for her debate fund. Dougherty, a genuine estate agent, allegedly supposed a checks during a same grill in Oct 2018.
According to a profession general’s office, after delivering a checks to Dougherty, a adviser asked that she support his reappointment as Morris County counsel.
“Don’t forget me,” a adviser says, according to a profession general’s office.
“I won’t. we promise,” Dougherty, who is also a member of a Democratic State Committee, allegedly responded. “A crony is a friend, my friend.”