NJ mayor at center of racist scandal charged with corruption

NEW JERSEY — A New Jersey mayor, who has faced calls to resign after allegedly making racist, sexist and hateful comments heard on tape, has been charged with multiple corruption-related charges after allegedly using his office to fill pockets through his own landscaping business, state officials said.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) jointly announced Monday the filing of criminal charges against Salvatore Bonaccorso, the decades-long mayor of Clark Township, alleging that he filed false documentation to nearly two dozen municipalities to aid the improper removal of hundreds of underground storage tanks by his landscaping company.

Bonaccorso, 63, is charged with official misconduct in the second degree, tampering with public records or information in the third degree, witness tampering in the third degree, forgery in the fourth degree and falsifying or tampering with records in the fourth degree, according to prosecutors.

The charges against Bonaccorso come after an OPIA Corruption Office investigation allegedly found that, while acting as mayor, Bonaccorso operated his landscaping and underground tank removal business out of the mayor’s office using municipal resources, the court said. attorney general and OPIA. The resources used by Bonaccorso allegedly include storing business records in his township office, using township computers, fax machines and other devices, as well as having township employees perform tasks related to the operation of his private business.

Additionally, the mayor allegedly misrepresented to the municipalities that an engineer from his landscaping and underground storage tank company, Bonaccorso & Son LLC, was the on-site supervisor for the removal of the tanks as required by state law, according to authorities. .

During the investigation, OPIA discovered that Bonaccorso allegedly used the name and license number of an engineer and forged his signature on permit applications submitted to municipalities for the removal of tanks without required inspections.

“In fact, it is alleged that neither Bonaccorso nor his company have the underground storage tank removal license necessary to perform such work,” the attorney general’s office said, adding that the tank removal work performed by the Bonaccorso between 2017 and 2023 amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Bonaccorso was also charged with witness tampering for allegedly telling a witness interviewed by state investigators to lie after learning of the investigation into his alleged actions.

“Any elected leader who abuses his power and position and misuses public property and public employees for his own benefit, at the expense of taxpayers, betrays the public trust,” Platkin said in a statement. “In this case, the complaint charges that the defendant also abused the trust of officials in other cities, allegedly submitting fraudulent documents with forged signatures to enrich his company while evading New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection regulations.”

The mayor’s office and Bonaccorso’s attorney, Michael Robertson, declined to comment after the charges were announced.

BONACCORSO’S CONTROVERSIAL BACKGROUND

Bonaccorso found himself at the center of controversy in April when shockingly racist and sexist recordings involving him and a former police chief were revealed for the first time in legal documents.

On Monday, the state attorney general’s office also issued a long-awaited report on how Clark Township, its police department and later county prosecutors handled what they said were credible allegations of misconduct within the Clark Police Department. Clark. Platkin’s office called for the firing of the former police chief and an internal affairs sergeant. The attorney general said criminal charges were not warranted, but that reforms were needed to ensure fair policing in the city that is 93% white.

Recordings of him using racial slurs to describe Jews and African Americans sparked outrage and calls for Clark’s mayor to resign.

Days after NBC New York and NJ.com reported on the recordings, Bonaccorso apologized to residents.

“I have made mistakes. And I would like to apologize for the pain I caused the residents of Clark, my family, my friends and all those who were offended by my comments,” Bonaccorso said in a video. “They had the right to expect more from me. My words should not affect any of them.”