John Kolesar

July 15, 2008 - 2:11pm

New Jersey's best scandals

About twenty five years ago, former Associated Press Trenton Bureau Chief John Kolesar wrote a story for New Jersey Monthly listing the biggest political scandals in New Jersey history. Among the best: the scam in which some Burlington County Republican leaders, including former Acting Governor Clifford Powell, bought two Delaware River bridges for $8 million and sold them the same day to the county for $12 million; the 1872 scandal when the Assembly Speaker forged an amendment to a bill the legislature had passed that would have broken the Pennsylvania Railroad's mainline monopoly in New Jersey; the 1899 gubernatorial election when Hudson County produced a 14,000-vote margin for the successful Democratic candidate, including 10,000 votes from people were deceased or non-existent. (67 Democratic election workers went to jail); in 1871, the Jersey City Treasurer was found to have looted the city treasury, but law enforcement officials could nail him, he beat it to Mexico, where a bandit relieved him of his booty; and Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague's entire career, in which he never made a salary higher than $7,500 but left an estate worth a couple of million dollars.

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