September 28, 2007 - 11:58am
Guttenberg mayor indicted
By Matt Friedman
Tags: David Delle Donna
Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna and his wife Anna have been indicted by the U.S. Attorney on charges of mail fraud and extortion.
The couple allegedly accepted bribes and used the cash for plastic surgery, dog accessories and gambling trips to Atlantic City. The bribes also included about $1,000 in department store gift cards and bottles of liquor, acording to the indictment.
Delle Donna has been mayor of this tiny northern Hudson County town of about 11,000 since 2002. Anna Delle Donna served on the town’s planning board during the same time period.
According to the indictment, the Delle Donnas allegedly took bribes from an unnamed local bar owner in the form of thousands of dollars in tickets to campaign events. In turn, they are accused of helping the bar owner get a variance for construction on a piece of property, get rid of citations for property violations and smooth over “problems” that the bar owner was having with the town’s police department and council.
In January, the the FBI raided the Delle Donnas’ home. News accounts at the time said the raid was likely related to a human trafficking ring that netted former bar owner Luisa Medrano and several others in 2005. The indictment did not specifically name Medrano as the “bar owner.”
The couple also allegedly diverted funds from the mayor's campaigns and those of several Township Council Members for personal use, then falsified the records. The donations were made by the bar owner, a real estate developer and a fire department official.
Dave Della Donna was affiliated with the Hudson County Democratic Organization. Today, the HCDO’s president, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, said that he is giving Della Donna the presumption of innocence and has not asked him to step down.
“I know Dave, I like Dave. I’ve always thought him to be a man of honesty and integrity, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Healy. “I can only say he’s been a good person and we’ll wait and abide by the events.”
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Watch Your Facts
Delle Donna is serving his third term. He served two 2 year terms and is currently serving a four year term. The terms were extended from two to four in 2005.
"The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer." -Theodore Roosevelt
"Book 'em, Dano"
Chalk another one up for U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. Looks like there is just no end in sight. Just when you thought you'd seen it all, the Delle Donna case comes along.
When will we all share the outrage and express zero tolerance for the betrayal of the public trust? It is disheartening to see the HCDO Chairman express a form of sympathy through a "benefit of the doubt" and his belief in the busted pols' "honesty and integrity". How about some outrage and intolerance for these kinds of crimes!
Chris Christie and his band of crimebusters do not accept "politics as usual" as an excuse. And neither should the HCDO Chairman.
HCDO=Tangled Web of Corruption
The fact that Healy is so supportive of these creeps says a lot.
As heinous/terrible as these charges and associations are; they are relatively petty (at least in dollar terms) compared to the systematic corruption that LEGALLY permeates every nook and cranny of every dark little corner of NJ governance.
Let's hope that Cristie has the goods and ths isn't just a political game.
Again, the kinds of crude stupid blatant outrageous corruption that Christie occasionally goes after are indicative of the fact that he will never pursue the larger systemic corruption that is where the really big money is. Why? Because the perpetrators of the systemic corruption and the beneficiaries of it comprise the economic and political establishment.
Every law and every regulation that is written is unduly influenced by the dirty money of legalized bribery known as "campaign contributions" that insures that the ordinary citizens of this state (who don't have any "connections") will continue to get shafted in a thousand different ways.
There is no justifying/minimizing the kind of corruption alleged in Guttenberg; but it pales in comparison to what Christie is turning his back on in obesiance to his political masters.
Meanwhile the HCDO continues to slowly sink; and let's hope the "rats tell all" before they jump ship.
Finally, anyone found guilty of human traffic-ing (or of knowingly aiding/abetting it) needs to spend the rest of their lives imprisoned with zero possibility of parole. I say that only because I don't believe in the death penalty.
From Frederick Douglass
PS: For a More Complete Analysis/Commentary on This Story....
I suggest, y'all check out our friend Xpatriated Texan's extended blogging....
http://www.bluejersey.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5803
From Frederick Douglass
speaking of fish..in another post..
Hopefully Christie is using the disgusting little fish as bait for the big ones.
Guttenberg today, Fairview and Cliffside tomorrow
There is a fence of corruption on Anderson Ave. Hudson County is getting closer
Ft Lee Republican....Enquiring Minds Want To Know
Please, elaborate on your comments re the "fence" on Anderson Avenue.
Tell us what, specifically, you're talking about and why you believe it's not a great and good thing.
Provide any factual/historical information/citations/links that might illuminate the readership here that may have no idea what you're referring to.
Thank You
From Frederick Douglass
D Fence
Ah Nick...its just another graveyard of broken dreams where a fellow Greek lost his restaurant and livelyhood due to Calabrese's eminent domain.
Eminent Domain Abuse: re "D Fence" etc etc etc....
Wasn't it a Republican dominated Supreme Court decision that gave Democrat Calabrese the legal pretext/"right" to, in effect, steal this land?
It all goes to show how the kinds of coarse/gross/blatant/stupid corruption that we see in this Guttenberg case pale in (Dollar) comparison to the hundreds of millions of dollars that will flow from just this one single "deal".
Again, THE ONLY WAY to clean up this mess is 100% public financing of campaigns AND the passing of TRULY tough criminal laws against any fool who ever would dare to betray the public trust or to try to corrupt a public official. I'm taking 25 to life no parole.
And it's all "legal"! As i recall, the property owners took it all the way to the NJ Supreme Court and lost the case. (Though I have to wonder if Christie or Milgram were to ever do a truly thorough investigation of the guts of this enterprise whether it would pass legal muster? There's little danger of that, however, eh? ;-)
Again, THE ONLY WAY to clean up this mess is 100% public financing of campaigns AND the passing of TRULY tough criminal laws against any fool who ever would dare to betray the public trust or to try to corrupt a public official. I'm taking 25 to life no parole.
It's so effing pathetic! A few thousand bucks in "contributions" can sway projects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars....and we'll never know about all the hidden connections and offshore accounts and "favors" that are behind the paper trails! This goes on all the time throughout the state!
We should treat the corruption of our governance with the same vehemence with which we treat treason. Why? Because BOTH are an assault on our democracy!!!
There's all kinds of "terrorisim" in the land and all kinds of "terrorists" that "hate our freedoms"! The Bin Ladens are relatively easy to deal with when compared to the home grown leeches who suck the life out of our democracy and the dollars out of our treasuries.
These issues transcend all conventional party politics.
Again, THE ONLY WAY to clean up this mess is 100% public financing of campaigns AND the passing of TRULY tough criminal laws against any fool who ever would dare to betray the public trust or to try to corrupt a public official. I'm taking 25 to life no parole.
The people now stealing us blind are smart. They would be deterred by truly draconian punishments for violating the public trust.
Imagine a government in which public servants were actually serving the public interest instead of their own private agenda$!
Democracy, what a concept! Let's make ours work, before we lose it.
From Frederick Douglass