Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III is proclaiming his innocence and says he will not step down from office despite being one of the 44 suspects arrested in a major federal corruption investigation on Thursday.
“The charges that are leveled against me in a federal court are completely baseless, and I deny any wrongdoing in connection with the allegations taht are contained in that complaint. Like anyone else that’s involved in a matter in a U.S. District Court, in a matter like I am, there is a presumption of innocence, I am entitled to that presumption of innocence. I look forward to a day in court to vigorously defend against these charges and to redeem and clear my name. I have no intention of resigning my office and I believe that I am fully capable of carrying out my oath of office and duties of my office while this case is pending,” he said Friday morning.
Cammarano said he would not be making any further comments regarding his arrest.
Many Hoboken residents were shocked to learn of Cammarano’s arrest, calling their new mayor a “disgrace.” That’s just one of the sentiments from people all over New Jersey Friday morning, as they learn more about what may be the largest corruption bust in state history.
More than 40 people were arrested and arraigned, including mayors, politicians and rabbis.
As the shock from Thursday’s FBI raids settle across the area, the question now is what happens next.
Cammarano may have just set a speed record for allegations of corruption. Just three weeks into office, he is now caught up in New Jersey’s latest and biggest corruption scandal. Many residents and public officials alike believe Cammarano should now resign. In fact, when Hoboken’s Housing Commissioner was busted on different corruption charges a week earlier, Cammarano insisted his buddy resign.
So what should Cammarano do now?
“He should resign immediately. That was his own policy,” said Chris Carbine, former City Council candidate. “One-hundred percent no tolerance, so he should resign immediately.”
It was a 10-year investigation into corruption and international money-laundering that authorities described as “unprecedented,” even in a state known for its scandals. Forty-four people were arrested, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, accused of illegal sales of body parts, secret negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms. Now in their walk of shame, they’re all facing the same question:
Whether these public officials or religious leaders have anything to say to their voters or followers, or whether they feel any shame for what they’ve done.
So far there are no answers.
Both of the state assemblymen have been asked by their leadership officials to resign their committee posts.
In Hoboken, where Cammarano was a rising political star and had been in office less than a month, residents can’t believe it’s all happened to him so fast.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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8 Responses
this whole thing makes no sense. the ‘biggest scandal in nj history” is innacurate since none of these politicians had anything to do with one another. the only connection is that the informant who framed them was the same person. there were not “44 people arrested in nj” many were in ny, and again, the organ selling had no connection with the politicians same way the ny rabbi had no connection with the politicians.
the “10 year” investigation? this man is in office only 3 weeks, how can they have followed him for 10 years? dreck is an informant for only 3 years where are the the other 7? the whole thing is grossly blown out of proportion and is a disgrace to the fbi and the police more then it is to anyone else.
To #1
Git Gezukt!
#1, 100%. This is many different cases tied together by 1 common denominator (Cooperating Witness). If you read through the criminal complaints you will see about 2 years, no more.
What puzzles me is that you got 44 people arrested and there is no victim that really suffered from this. They only people benefiting from this is the law enforcements and the cw who defrauded a bank of 50 Million.
On the other hand there are on-going crimes of internet fraud going on day by day and you can’t get any law enforcement to assist you with that.
Again, I’m not saying this is not a crime – I’m just saying that taxpayers money should rather be used to stop crimes that people suffer from – and just for “book crimes”.
who said they specifically investigage HIM for 10 years? The entire investigation was 10 years. Could be he was corrupt before he got to office or could be he was just corrupt for the last three weeks. Either way it does not contradict with the fact that there was a 10 year investigation.
#1 What do you know about the allegations. It seems from all the reports that they are all intertwined with one another.
there were no 10 year investigation whats or ever the only thing that did happend was they smelled some thing 10 years ago or they started an investigation about it 10 years ago but the investigation got no resultes and shut down untill the deal with the cw
#4 The victim in these things is unfortunately you, me and all people who try to follow the law.
When politicians favor people who give them bribes it makes it much harder for other people to compete in a fair manner.
When body parts are sold by people in financial distress it creates an environment where people may try to help make sure people are in financial distress so that they will be willing to donate their organs. Or possibly criminals could forcefully cut the organs out of someone and be able to profit from it. By restricting the trade in organs you cannot easily profit from this as it would be very hard to get paid.
When someone making the same money as you tries to hide the money in order to evade taxes, it puts you on an uneven financial footing, because you follow the law. When someone who stole money tries to hide it, he is hurting the people who he is hiding it from.
I am neither condoning the actions of the “CW”, but it is foolish to think that these actions, where ever committed and by whoever done, causes no harm. Further, if these actions are not prosecuted then we will be living in an environment where breaking the law is okay which is, simply put, not a good thing.