FBI: Start with the Campbell Suit

Dear F.B.I. Friends,

Did you read GA yesterday?  We know you've been monitoring Hoboken blogs for some time now. Well just in case, here's a recap.

GA took 3 events: the Bill Campbell lawsuit, the Patrick Ricciardi affair, and the Mason/Russo Email Jihad, and placed them on a timeline.    The chronology is telling.

The narrative begins with Patrick Ricciardi.

In early January 2010 (after getting a bargain basement price on a luxury condo via a City-sponsored Workforce housing program) Ricciardi set up his private Archive and began stealing the mayor's email.

Eight months later, Hoboken's PIO, Bill Campbell, was laid off.   The date was August 6, 2010.

On October 12, 2010 Campbell filed a lawsuit against the City of Hoboken.  The complaint lays out his claim that his replacement, Melli, is a political hire, thus he was ousted due because the Mayor politicized the City's communications office.

Six months AFTER Campbell filed his suit, on April 1 2011, Mason and Russo sponsor a City Council resolution to obtain ALL of the mayors staff's emails: those of Melli and Bryan.  The basis of the Mason/Russo demand: the "politicizing of the City's communications"  mirrors the Campbell complaint with one extra target: Zimmer's Chief of Staff,  Bryan.

Six weeks later, on May 18, 2011.  Patrick Ricciardi, also the City Council Meeting videographer, is absent from that night's meeting; his IT office is reported padlocked.

I will stop there, my F.B.I. friends, because YOU know the rest.  (Notice how GA still calls you 'friends' though you've NEVER invited me for falafel at Mamoun's).

C'mon FBI... I know you want it and want it BAD...

Okay, so that's the timeline recap.

The reason I call your attention to this is because GA thinks the emails of Zimmer's aides were in fact 'ordered' for the Campbell lawsuit, Phase 1 of the larger political strategy to attack the Mayor for 'politicizing' her staff. ( GA imagines Ricciardi ran his data theft like a 'Sears and Roebuck' catalog, filling requests for particular individuals' emails by copying them from the City servers into folders in his private 'Archive'.)
 
GA believes Phase 2 was to attack Zimmer at the City Council on the SAME charges, the fledgling law suit would be unfolding with the backdrop of the email battle with City Hall, buttressing its otherwise dubious claims. GA theorizes that those leading the charge at for the staffers' emails, Mason and Russo, were in on Phase 1 and knew about their acquisition from Ricciardi and had seen them.  Remember what Mason said at the CIty Council on November 14, 2011:

"That there are significant issues here and unless there's proof I'm going to say I've NOT seen those emails..."

 Now, where does the Mason videotape of Zimmer's testimony in the Campbell case come in?

The grueling cross examination by the plaintiff's attorney, Catherine Elston, hit precisely on the Mason-Russo 'politicization of City Hall' charges, including events which happened AFTER Campbell's August 6, 2010 firing (like the City posting the Russo-Dwek transcript).

F.B.I., was any 'help 'provided by elected officials to Elston in her case against the City?  Do you know?

Not that Ms. Elston herself would have known the shady provenance of anything that may have been provided for her use, if anything was.

But the presence of the Mason videographer, Mason's leak of the video to the Hoboken Reporter AND the posting of the watermarked video on the virulently anti-administration Hoboken411 seem to validate GA's suspicion the Campbell suit was a political operation from the get-go. And it not only suggests elected officials may be cooperating with the plaintiff suing the City, but  may have orchestrated  the law suit to damage the mayor and her staff.

This is GA's THEORY.

So F.B.I., if you buy this theory, does it jive with what you've heard from these officials in your interviews with them?

Is the theory supported by any of the electronic data you have in your custody?

Do you know if any emails were procured by Ricciardi for the Campbell case? At whose request?

Gee, F.B.I.  This opens up another can of worms, doesn't it.

Blech.

 
Maybe this is why all of GA's links on this subject keep getting deleted on the nj.com message board keep getting deleted.

Did you know they've blocked my IP, too? What does THAT tell you, F.B.I.  Do you smell fear?