Change Comes

Yesterday NJ Attorney General Paula Dow announced she would be seeking a "lengthy sentence" for former Transportation and Parking Director John Corea, who pled guilty to stealing over 4 million quarters from Hoboken's parking meters.  From Patch:

"This defendant corruptly exploited his public office, at a high cost to the City of Hoboken," Dow said in a statement. "We are seeking a lengthy prison sentence for this flagrant betrayal of trust."

Corea, 47, pleaded guilty to superior judge to Francis Hodgson Jr. in Ocean County. Corea will be sentenced in February.

Dow announced that she will be recommending that Corea be sentenced to eight years in state prison, including three years of parole ineligibilty. She also announced that he must pay $300,000 in restitution to the City of Hoboken and will never be allowed to have public employment in the state of New Jersey.

According to the Attorney General, Corea admitted that, as director of the Hoboken Parking Utility, he steered three separate no-bid contracts to United Textile Fabricators to collect, count and manage the coins from the city’s parking meters. He admitted that he made false statements to the city council about the qualifications and experience of the company, which is a coin-operated arcade game manufacturer.

He further admitted that he came to believe that United Textile and its owner, Brian Petaccio, 51, of Toms River, had stolen a substantial amount of the city’s parking revenues, but didn't notify the city.

Petaccio pleaded guilty on Sept. 30, 2009 to stealing $1.1 million from Hoboken parking meters between June 2005 and April 2008.

Does anyone think that Dow's NOT sending a message to the FOC (Friends of Corea)- his enablers here in Hoboken?

And that not only are THEY on her radar, they'd better meet with their attorneys pronto to discuss WHAT they know, and hone their defense strategy and (hopefully) offer up something to make the best deal for themselves.

Da Horsey had a nice piece on Corea's City Council enablers yesterday.  With video-  that was before Beth Mason joined the sticky-fingered gang.

And long before the F.B.I. came here FOR the sticky-fingered, data thieving, election buying gang.

Well, GA was reminded of why Ian Sacs has been constantly under attack by Mason and her operatives, Russo, Castellano, Occhipinti... and all the Dark forces that crawl beneath the surface of our Mile Square, and the words of former informer Deep Uvula:

From reliable sources. Remember that prior to Ian, the Parking Utility/Parking administration was headed by John Correa and MA $5 a Tow Russo. The easy quarters, kickbacks, cash generated by the parking meters/towing in town was a steady source of low hanging fruit for the grafting Russos.

So after the missing 4 tons of quarters scandal (Mikey head of the Finance Comm. tries his hardest to cover it up) Ian arrives on the scene.

The Russos instantly feared/hated/loathed this educated pup who showed them up royally - increased collections/re routed buses, got rid of all the kickbacks and "tip" money that got special favors done. They tried to embarrass him at meetings, got their reports on his management from their City Hall "insiders" - long term employees, the types that the Russos like. So they see that their grip that they had on the easy money was getting away from them.

The decision was made that Ian had to go.

Something had to happen that would make it impossible for the Mayor to keep him on the payroll. Not sure how or if the incident with the bus panned out exactly as intended, but it was not really an accident. Employees were encouraged to spy on Ian and report back any "dirt", they were encouraged to disrespect him, give him a hard time, and goad him. Bait him, like Russo/Castellano and Mason did every council meeting.

They thought that they had him with the trip to Vancouver and if they could force him to pay for the trip that he would just leave. That did not work, so.......... the lowest levels were encouraged to cause enough friction to create chaos in the department and hope that Ian would crack - or a situation would arise that would put Ian in a compromising situation - it is not clear that there was an actual plan to leave the bus where he would find it, but it did happen against the backdrop of what I just outlined.

Funny how the right cop was there to catch it all and then to overcharge Ian. The charges are bogus and there is no way in hell that any sane prosecutor would proceed with them. In fact, if this were any where else, the cop would get busted internally for making a bad arrest.

No one wants to leak the name of the arresting officer, which is weird.

It is clearer that the Russos created the cauldron of hate and venom in which the events of yesterday occurred. I understand that the Russos, with Al Arezzo gone, are getting very nervous that long term institutional changes are occurring and new people coming to City Hall, like the zoning officer, who they don't control and who don't play games and they need to make every effort to stop any further progress so that if they buy another election in May, they can rearrange the players.

I hear that they have in mind to create the old Parking Utility and have it go to one of their henchmen to run. Talk about putting foxes in charge of the hen house.

Bottom line - even if not successful completely, there is the intent to send the message that if you want to raise your hand and participate in Hoboken gov/ politics, you:

1) First have to ask permission of the "right " people; and

2) agree to play by "their" rules;

and

3) If you ignore 1 and 2, then you will suffer the consequences.

Indeed.

The heat on those who don't play by their rules has been intense, painful.

Yet, their targets soldier on and do their jobs, much to  the consternation of the Dark Side.  We are waiting each other out.

And yesterday Dow sent us a message: she's coming.