In Soprano State style, Clark Township Mayor Sal Bonaccorso admitted to public corruption just nine days after he was sworn in as the longest serving mayor in town history.
Bonaccorso, 64, pleaded guilty to using the mayor’s office to run his landscaping business and to forging credentials for the removal of hundreds of underground oil tanks in two dozen communities.
Despite charges filed a year earlier, Bonaccorso ran for reelection to his seventh term, and in Soprano State tradition, won reelection with 69 percent of the vote.
Mayor for 24 years in what is described as a GOP stronghold, a small suburban town in Union County, Bonaccorso described the charges to NJ Advance Media as “another weaponization against a MAGA Republican.”
In addition to using township equipment and employees to run his landscaping business, Bonaccorso’s company falsified an engineer’s signature on permit applications for tank removals and falsified the required involvement by an engineer in supervising and inspecting the projects, according to the charges. The value of the oil tank fraud amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Platkin.
Bonaccorso is no stranger to scandal. He came under fire in 2022 when he and two other township officials were secretly recorded making racist remarks and disparaging comments about female police officers. A resulting whistleblower lawsuit was settled for $400,000. While no charges were filed, Platkin labeled the settlement a misuse of public resources to coverup wrongs.
Riley Yates, NJ Advance Media, Jan. 10, 2025; NJ Attorney General Matthew Platkin, Jan. 10, 2025.
The new CEO of the State Commission of Investigation resigned after four days in the wake of an Asbury Park Press article detailing her dual residency (in Maryland and New Jersey) and her second full-time job as a professor at Howard University.
Prior to being named CEO, Tiffany Williams Brewer since July served as interim executive director of the SCI where anonymous sources told the APP she only came into the office on Tuesdays. She has been at the SCI as its chair since 2022.
“This is the watchdog agency that looks into waste, fraud and abuse, “a source told reporters Mike Davis and Michael L. Diamond during their detailed investigation. “And this is what’s happening within their own walls.”
The SCI is one of the few venerated agencies in New Jersey. You can find it in Chapters 2, 6, 8 and 9 of The Soprano State. In Chapter 8, “The Gospel According to the Mob,” we note that the SCI was created in 1968 after state Assistant Attorney General William J. Brennan III declared three members of the state legislature “entirely too comfortable with organized crime.”
The Soprano State describes the SCI as “tough and aggressive” and “hell on wheels for crooks.” The agency continues its good work, despite a blow during Gov. Christie Whitman’s administration that now forces the agency to immediately report anything that appears criminal to the state attorney general.
Williams Brewer, a lawyer and full-time assistant professor at Howard University since 2022, said she broke no laws, but said she resigned because employee-driven mischaracterizations of her actions to the media created a toxic climate that undermined the integrity of the agency.
Williams Brewer, when buying a house last year in Maryland, declared that state as her principal residence, APP reported. A spokesperson for the SCI maintained her principal residence was New Jersey. New Jersey mandates that public employees establish New Jersey as principal residence within a year of being hired.
Williams Brewer was earning $175,000 as SCI’s interim executive director. The title of CEO would likely have meant a salary of between $210,000 and $295,000, the APP reported.
Mike Davis And Michael L. Diamond, Asbury Park Press, Jan. 9 and 10, 2025.
