On Wednesday, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy finally acknowledged the dubious campaign “contributions” I have been reporting on for two weeks, which came from a rogue’s gallery of fallen Hudson County political fixers, mostly all of whom were arrested for extortion by the F.B.I. on July 29.
According to the F.B.I. criminal complaint against Healy’s campaign treasurer, Leona Beldini, who was also arrested July 29, the “contributions” were apparently financed by cash from a F.B.I. confidential witness who was posing as a real estate developer intent on bribing the city government.
Trying to put the matter behind him, Healy said he would donate an amount matching the “contributions”—which he said totaled $17,600, but I have counted as $20,000—to charities.
However, Healy has not explained major discrepancies between the description of his conduct in the F.B.I. complaint, in which he acknowledged he is described as “JC Official 4”, and the way his campaign and political organizations accounted for those “contributions” which he has said he will donate to charities.
This afternoon, I submitted these six questions for Healy to his press secretary, Jennifer Morrill:
1. Do you dispute the account of your actions in the F.B.I. criminal complaint against your campaign treasurer, Leona Beldini, including the descriptions of your actions during meetings among yourself, Beldini, Jack Shaw, Edward Cheatam, and the man described as a confidential witness?
2. When did you become aware of the plan alleged in that F.B.I. criminal complaint, in which Shaw would take cash from the man described in the complaint as a cooperating witness, and then turn the cash into “checks” for your political organizations, to be given to Beldini, by dividing the money and distributing the smaller amounts to various people who would make contributions in their own names, in order to conceal the role of the confidential witness?
3. When you signed your mayoral campaign’s Election Law Enforcement Campaign report for June 1, 2009, can you state positively that you did not know the four $2,500 donations from Jack Shaw, Edward Cheatam, Catherine Chin, and Michael Schaffer listed in that report might have been financed by the F.B.I.’s confidential witness, reported by multiple media sources to be Solomon Dwek?
4. According to the F.B.I. criminal complaint against Leona Beldini, you met twice with the man described as a confidential witness and acknowledged donations from him to your political organizations. At one of the meetings you are described as stating to the confidential witness that your relationship could be “mutually beneficial.” (page 11 of F.B.I. criminal complaint against Beldini, Shaw and Cheatam) Do you dispute saying that and if not, what did you mean?
5. Do you know of any contributions to your campaign or to political committees under your control that are listed on ELEC disclosure reports under names other than the name of the person who originally financed the contribution?
6. On your campaign’s disclosure report to the ELEC, dated June 1, 2009, a payment of $500 to Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez is reported. Suarez was arrested on July 23, 2009, under an F.B.I. criminal complaint in which it is alleged he accepted illegal payments from a confidential witness for the F.B.I., apparently the same confidential witness in the complaint against Beldini. What was the purpose of the payment from your campaign to Suarez?
I have tried my best to make these questions fair and impartial; while I am not shy about saying Healy has a lot to answer for, I want to give him a fair chance to answer.
I will print his responses unedited as soon I receive them.
D.C.
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