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Yahoo
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Paterson councilman again seeks pretrial relief in 5-year-old election fraud case
PATERSON — For the second time in four years, Councilman Alex Mendez is trying to get the election fraud charges pending against him wiped away through New Jersey's pretrial intervention probationary program, known as PTI. The state Attorney General's Office has rejected Mendez's PTI application — just as it did in 2021 — but the councilman is appealing that decision, officials said. Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed has said he will decide on the appeal on Sept. 10, according to officials. Mohammed was the judge who denied Mendez's appeal in 2022 regarding the initial election fraud case filed by the Attorney General's Office."There is a strong societal need to deter candidates for public office from unlawfully submitting voter registration applications and mail-in ballots they know to be materially false," Mohammed wrote in his previous ruling on Mendez's PTI application. "In short, the court finds that there is a societal need to have a fair and untainted election," the judge wrote. Defendants who successfully complete PTI — which is monitored by New Jersey probation officers — can emerge with clean criminal records. But in most cases, accused criminals cannot get PTI unless the prosecutors agree to it. Allege Mendez team stole mail-in ballots, trashed votes Mendez's most recent PTI application focused on the superseding charges that the attorney general's prosecutors filed against the councilman. Those accusations say investigators have witnesses, video and photos of wrongdoing by Mendez and his campaign workers, including allegations they stole mail-in ballots from people's mailboxes, trashed votes for his opponent and replaced them with Mendez votes. The superseding charges expanded the case to include other defendants: the councilman's wife, Yohanny, and campaign workers Omar Ledesma and Iris Rigo. Officials said Mendez's co-defendants also are seeking PTI. Mendez, who officials said appeared in court on July 21, did not respond to messages seeking his comments on his PTI application. William McKoy, Mendez's opponent in the 2020 City Council election that triggered the charges, called Mendez's PTI application 'disingenuous' and 'despicable.' McKoy cited the extensive evidence that the Attorney General's Office has said it has against Mendez. 'There's no question of his guilt,' McKoy said. 'The only question is whether he's going to be man enough to take responsibility for his behavior.' Bribery indictment against developer and influencer Mendez this month has come under scrutiny as the result of a separate federal indictment filed by the United States Attorney's Office accusing real estate influencer Cesar Pina of making $50,000 in bribes to a Paterson official for help in trying to get a development project approved by the city zoning board. Pina allegedly paid the city official with cash, checks, campaign contributions and bogus real estate commissions in exchange for the official's influence over the Paterson zoning board to get approvals to convert a long-vacant school building on Totowa Avenue into 60 apartments, the indictment said. Mendez, who repeatedly has professed his innocence of all accusations, used a building then owned by Pina as his campaign headquarters in 2024. Mendez is the only elected official in Paterson who works in real estate, political insiders have said. This article originally appeared on Paterson councilman seeks pretrial relief in election fraud case Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former Paterson councilman rips AG for delays on 5-year-old election fraud case
PATERSON — William McKoy, who spent 20 years on the City Council, says the state attorney general owes the people of Paterson an explanation for the five-year duration of the still-pending election fraud case against current Council President Alex Mendez. Otherwise, McKoy said the state prosecutors ought to start the trial against Mendez without further delay, assertions he made in statements issued to Paterson Press on June 26 and June 27. 'The residents' and voters' confidence in the justice system has been shattered and must be restored,' McKoy said. 'This is the sole responsibility of the attorney general.' McKoy has more than a passing interest in the was the other candidate in the 3rd Ward council election in May 2020 in which state investigators say Mendez and his campaign staff stole absentee ballots from home mailboxes, destroyed those with votes for McKoy, and replaced them with votes for Mendez. Mendez — who was in the Dominican Republic in recent days based on his social media postings — couldn't be reached for comment. He repeatedly has professed his innocence and predicted he will clear his name when the charges go to trial. McKoy and Mendez — longtime, bitter political rivals — seem to agree on one thing. They both say they are frustrated by the lack of progress in the case. But McKoy has accused Mendez of causing some of the delays, by doing such things as filing motions attempting to have the charges against him dismissed. 'It is entirely understandable that a candidate who competed against Mendez in the election at issue would be frustrated by the alleged criminal acts committed by the defendants,' said Daniel Prochilo, an Attorney General's Office spokesman. Prochilo noted that Mendez has been 'accused of attempting to deprive Paterson residents of a fair and impartially conducted election by submitting fraudulent ballots and vote-by-mail registrations, and of stealing the ballots of prospective voters with intent to deprive them of their votes.' 'But our office doesn't set the trial calendar,' the AG spokesman added. 'Cases are set for trial when the case has reached the appropriate point, as determined by the court. "The discovery of additional acts, additional charges, defense review of discovery, defense pretrial motions, and court rulings can take time before a trial is scheduled, and they are an essential part of the due process that must occur before a defendant's innocence or guilt can be decided,' Prochilo said. The AG's office also has a separate election fraud case from 2020 pending against Paterson's 1st Ward councilman, Michael Jackson. That prosecution has been stalled by a two-year cell phone passcode battle as authorities pursue witness tampering charges against Jackson after a witness recanted testimony, a judge said. In the Mendez case, the AG's office waited 40 months after filing the initial charges to expand the prosecution in Oct. 2023 to include criminal complaints against the councilman's wife, Yohanny, and two of his campaign workers, Omar Ledesma and Iris Ruiz. A grand jury rendered indictments against all the defendants at the end of April. Probable cause documents say investigators have a cooperating witness from within the Mendez camp as well as recordings and photos. 'It is clear that the attorney general has the necessary evidence and eyewitness accounts of his criminal voter fraud activities to successfully prosecute this case and convict him and his criminal associates on all charges,' McKoy said of Mendez. 'The only outstanding question is whether there is the willingness on the part of the attorney general to actually do so before his term in office comes to an end,' McKoy added. 'Having observed the attorney general's commitment to the defense of our civil liberties and constitutional protection under the law, I choose to believe that in the end, justice will ultimately prevail.' In Jun 2020, McKoy successfully filed a court challenge having Mendez's May 2020 election victory nullified. But Mendez defeated McKoy in a special election in Nov. 2020 and did the same in Paterson's 2024 ward contests. In the past, Mendez has dismissed McKoy's attacks on him regarding the election fraud charges as whining by what he called a 'sore loser.' Back in 2020, Mayor Andre Sayegh was one of McKoy's strongest backers in his condemnations of Mendez. Sayegh even made a political contribution to McKoy to help pay his legal fees in the court challenge. But Sayegh and Mendez have forged somewhat of an alliance in the past years, as Mendez became president of the council in July 2023. This article originally appeared on Former Paterson councilman rips AG over election fraud case
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Politics
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13 Paterson police officers made over $100K each in overtime last year
PATERSON — Overtime spending in the Police Department skyrocketed during 2024, with 13 officers collecting more than $100,000, including one officer who made $224,470. In total, the department spent $8 million on overtime last year, a 60% increase over the $5 million expended in 2023. Those numbers show the impact of the additional funding the state has provided for Paterson law enforcement efforts after the New Jersey Attorney General's Office seized control of the city Police Department in March 2023, providing an extra $10 million each of the past two years. Before the attorney general's takeover, Paterson police overtime spending amounted to about $3 million per City Council President Alex Mendez called the state intervention the 'best thing that ever happened' to the municipal police department, saying the overtime has provided a massive increase in law enforcement presence. 'They are out there 24-7,' Mendez said of the police overtime initiative targeting crime hot spots and illegal nightclubs. Most of the top overtime earners from 2024 have worked on the Violent Crime Suppression initiative, which assigns extra patrols using overtime to areas where shootings have been a problem, officials said. Community activist Ernest Rucker said anyone who travels on Broadway or 10th Avenue will see the benefits of the overtime surge. 'There's been a large impact on those troubled streets that we've been complaining about for years,' Rucker said. 'What that presence has produced has been very effective.' In 2024, 23 Paterson police officers collected more than $80,000 in overtime. In 2023, just three city officers surpassed that amount. Mayor Andre Sayegh did not provide a response when asked Thursday for his reaction to the police overtime spending numbers. Sayegh is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit pending before the New Jersey Supreme Court that is seeking to end the attorney general's takeover of the Police Department. Local officials and community leaders said they expected the overtime spending to increase with the extra money from the state. But the city had not revealed the scope of that spending surge until it provided Paterson Press this week with documents on employee overtime for 2024. In past years, members of the Public Works Department ranked among Paterson's top overtime earners. In 2024, 63 of Paterson's 65 highest overtime recipients were officers in the Police Department. The overtime totals do not include 'extra duty' work that officers perform for traffic control at road construction sites and other tasks paid for by utilities or private entities. New Jersey does not include overtime payments in police retirees' pensions. Not everyone is celebrating the jump in police overtime spending in Paterson. Jason Williams, a Black Lives Matter member who teaches social justice classes at Montclair State University, called the overtime numbers 'a scandal,' asserting that law enforcement officials were 'hiding behind' fears of crime to justify the spending. 'It's wasteful. It's big government out of control,' Williams said. 'I don't think it's being regulated the way it needs to be.' Williams said he thinks the money would be better spent on social programs in the city and questioned whether the overtime has been effective in reducing crime. 'The people on the streets still live in fear,' Williams said. 'They don't want to walk down the street because something can happen to them.' Statistics provided by the Paterson Police Department show that the number of killings in the city during state control had dropped by 61%, but that overall crime numbers have stayed about the same. From 2023 to 2024, killings fell by 35% and burglaries by 4.7%, while robberies increased by 15% and aggravated assaults by 9%. 'The Paterson Police Department has implemented a number of initiatives to increase presence and enforcement in designated hotspots that have historically seen elevated levels of violent crime and quality-of-life issues within Paterson in order to drive down crime and dispel fear and disorder in the community,' said Rob Rowan, a spokesman for the department. 'Since the strategy was put in place, there have been double-digit decreases in major violent crime reporting categories,' Rowan said. Policemen's Benevolent Association President Angel Jimenez said the use of overtime patrols to increase police presence in the city is not a sustainable strategy. He and other officers said some of the overtime assignments are mandatory and are wearing down officers in a city where Attorney General Matthew Platkin has acknowledged the department is understaffed. 'I've talked to the guys, and one of the big reasons our morale is so bad is the mandatory overtime,' Jimenez said. 'The guys appreciate the money, but they need a day off.' Jimenez said he thinks the only practical solution is for officials to approve an increase in the size of the city Police Department, a staffing issue contingent on decisions in Trenton, because Paterson gets extra funding from the state to balance its budget. Community leaders wonder whether the extra funding for police work in the city will continue. Gov. Phil Murphy, who has less than a year left in office, is supposed to unveil his proposed budget later this month. Also, it's not clear whether the state would continue providing Paterson extra law enforcement funding if the mayor wins the lawsuit and regains control of the Police Department. This article originally appeared on 13 Paterson police made over $100K each in overtime in 2024
