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| Credit: Hudsonreporter |
UPDATE: GA just spoke to Stick. It appears that he had been unclear about Calicchio's testimony. I relayed the extent of what I knew: that Calicchio told the court he'd been wired, and taped Romano and others. Here is what Anthony Romano wants to put on the record,
"I had nothing to do with the 2013 election."
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GA figured it must be important. Freeholder Anthony "Stick" Romano calling twice on a Saturday afternoon? So I picked up the second call from where I was in Hanover, New Hampshire.
"Hey, what's up?"
Stick sounded agitated. "[redacted] " Romano fumed.
"[redacted] !"
"[redacted] !"
We chatted briefly, but I was unable to stay on.
"Okay, I'll call you tomorrow," he said.
Never did. He texted me on Sunday that he was at an "event."
Hey Stick, it's Monday. You still at the event? Let's finish that conversation.
I believe the Freeholder was talking about prosecution witness Matt Callichio's testimony at the trial of Frank Raia. As reported in the Jersey Journal:
I believe the Freeholder was talking about prosecution witness Matt Callichio's testimony at the trial of Frank Raia. As reported in the Jersey Journal:
"[Matt Calicchio] also told the jury that, while working with the FBI, he was wired up during conversations with Gonzalez, Peter Belfiore, a former council candidate, and current County Freeholder Anthony Romano. The subject of those recordings was not discussed in court on Tuesday, but prosecutors did say those recordings were admitted as evidence."
I hope to get clarification from Romano. If so, will update here!
Caliccio obviously didn't lie about having taped Romano, which is the only thing Caliccio said about Romano publicly during his testimony. Caliccio said nothing in his testimony about the content of the tapes, or about Romano otherwise.
ReplyDeleteSo it stands to reason that Romano was talking about something else - something that Romano believes Caliccio told prosecutors and that is the subject of an ongoing investigation.
We can only guess at what that might be, but since Caliccio did not plead to any crimes relating to the 2017 election, it likely does not involve criminal activity by Romano or his campaign that Matt himself was directly involved in.
More likely it relates to stuff Caliccio says he heard, either directly from Romano or from others, about stuff done by Romano's campaign, and probably DeFusco's as well and the feds are trying to corroborate it. Hence the reason why they would have taped people like Romano and Belfiore.
They could also have used Matt's account to subpoena records (phone, email, texts etc.) and to get a warrant to surveil in other ways like a wiretap.
This may end with Raia, but if I were a Hoboken politico or operative who was involved in paying for votes in any election post 2013, I'd be pretty nervous right now.
Since the feds like to go after high profile targets, that means they are almost certainly looking closely at the Romano and DeFusco 2017 mayoral campaigns.
All proponents of good government in Hoboken should wish them godspeed!
This is one of the best things to happen to Hoboken (potentially) politics in a long time. Last time was the outing of Cammarano and changing of the guard in City Administration. I do hope the Feds are comprehensive in their investigation and are not only able to clear out the weeds but also pull out the roots.
ReplyDeleteIMO, Raia is the tip of the iceberg. No Hoboken candidate from 2014 to the present who has ever been the beneficiary of paid-for votes should feel safe. Not just candidates, either.
DeleteAgreed. I don't think Raia is either the beginning or the end. He's just another big fish who wanted to get fat off the people. He just got caught (thankfully). And hopefully he leads the Feds to the other fish. There are more like him and I have zero love for any of them. The government exists to serve the people and community in a position of trust and authority. With that is responsibility and fiduciary duty. To violate that goes so against the grain, I think there should be special punishments for this type of person - not just white collar low security BS prisons.
DeleteYep. I think the max penalty for Pupie if he is convicted, is 5 years imprisonment and a $250k penalty. Not sure the Feds need Pupie to talk because I believe plenty of other fish are talking. A reliable source told me that Camis spilled the beans on a person whom she worked with/for... and shared anecdotes such as watching this person go through bags of ballots, to toss out 'bad' ones. Dunno if that will lead to an indictment, but I don't think anyone who's been involved in ballot harvesting should feel safe. They should sleep with one eye open.
DeleteI'm not understanding the assumption that this investigation will go on indefinitely.
ReplyDeleteSure I'd like to see it close the loop on the other vbm-dependent politicians. After all the people who keep insisting that Defusco lost because of the flyer never come to terms with what the final totals would have been without 325 Raia-Yacco vbms. And Ramos has gotten to play the gentleman's version of Carmelo long enough. Other than people who are stuck with defending those two to keep a not-worth-saving coalition together, everyone knows they're uber-dirty.
But the feds aren't staying here forever. What's to say they'll be here past the verdict in Raia's trial?
By including stuff about 2015 in their criminal information, and forcing Caliccio to plead to a 2015 offense, the feds clearly signaled that their investigation was not limited to the 2013 election.
DeleteDoes that mean anyone else will be prosecuted? Of course not. That depends on whether sufficient reliable evidence can be gathered for the feds to believe they can prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.
At some point, they will either prosecute or move on. My guess is we'll know by the end of this year which way they go.
Until then, folks like Ramos, DeFusco and Romano, if their campaigns benefitted from VBM fraud, ought to be having sleepless nights.
That said, since it is all out of our hands, the best solution, as has always been, is to outvote them.
Also - and I'm hoping for this - there are the optics of taking down a big fish. In my opinion, Raia doesn't represent a big enough fish for so many man-hours put into an investigation of this significance and magnitude. I'd see it as a waste of resources, frankly, if the biggest scum bag here is Raia. Also, if he were the only one taken down out of all the other possibilities and it stopped there, it wouldn't be much of a disincentive for the other big fish in the pond to stop. So, I breadcrumbs keep going past Raia. It can't last forever, but this isn't yet the satisfying ending to this story.
DeleteCallichio, and anyone else engaged in and convicted for their participation in the illegal VBM scheme, who lives in public housing, will face eviction under HUD's one strike rule, as it covers more than drug dealing.
ReplyDeleteGiven this, I would expect there be a lot of evictions due to acceptances of $50. Would HUD actually go after these people/families?
DeleteI don't think HUD would go after them. It would be local prosecutors, after a conviction is handed down. The FBI investigator stated that most of the illegal VBM's came from subsidized buildings, some number close to 400 people. When Raia exploited those folks, did he and his henchmen bother to mention, oh yeah, if caught, you might lose your apartment. And DeFuckup was only too happy to benefit from this, even though they were his constituents who might be made homeless from this scheme gone bad.
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