Cammarano,Elwell,NJ Mayors Corruption

On The Waterfront: Hoboken, Secaucus Mayors Arrested Along with Brooklyn Rabbis

By Joel Zand on July 23, 2009 11:58 AM No TrackBacks

Peter Cammarano, III, the Hoboken, New Jersey Mayor (inset, left and center), and Dennis Elwell, Mayor of Secaucus, New Jersey (inset, right), face high-level political corruption charges, along with more than 40 other people who were also charged with crimes ranging from corruption, extortion, money laundering, illegal money transmitting, to conspiracy to transport human organs.

Cammarano was allegedly caught by the FBI on tape in June telling a government cooperating witness, Solomon Dwek, "I stopped being a lawyer last month, um, hopefully for good." The FBI allegedly recorded a conversation that the Hoboken Mayor had with Dwek in a Hoboken diner where Cammarano is said to have conspired to extort $5,000 from Dwek, and bragged before his election that "[r]ight now, the Italians, the Hispanics, the seniors are locked down. Nothing can change that now. . . . I could be, uh, indicted, and I'm still gonna win 85 to 95 percent of those populations."

You can read these and other fascinating allegations of political corruption in the federal charges here:

The list of more than forty defendants accused in the charges spans a wide variety of individuals in New Jersey and New York. They range from New Jersey local and state politicians and officials, to a number of Rabbis in Brooklyn.

You can read the names of other accused individuals here:

According to the Asbury Park Press, the government's reputed cooperating witness is believed to be Solomon Dwek (inset, left), who was arrested and charged with federal bank fraud in May 2006 after passing a bad check of more than $25 million at a PNC Bank branch in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

He is said to have posed as a real estate developer for the FBI and allegedly tried to bribe from New Jersey officials to see if they would be willing to engage in criminal wrongdoing while in office.

You can read Dwek's original 2006 bank fraud criminal charges here:

Related Resources:

• Peter J. Commarano's Thomson Legal Record
• Mayors, rabbis, arrested in NJ corruption probe, Reuters, (Jul. 23, 2009)
• FBI: Van Pelt took $10,000 bribe for Waretown development, Asbury Park Press, (Jul. 23, 2009)
• 2 N.J. Mayors Arrested in Broad Inquiry on Corruption, New York Times, (Jul. 23, 2009)
• White Collar Criminal Defense Lawyers