The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump brings back memories of an assassination attempt against a candidate for governor of New Jersey, except that one turned out to be a hoax.
In April 1981, an alleged gunman dressed as a doctor threatened to kill State Sen. James Wallwork (R-Short Hills), who was running in the Republican primary that year.
Wallwork was speaking at the Veterans Administration hospital in East Orange about five weeks before the primary election when a patient observed a man wearing surgical garb and a mask holding a gun.
The patient yelled, “There’s a man with a gun, and he’s going to shoot the senator.”
No shots were fired, and hospital security escorted an unharmed Wallwork out of the building. Police officers were later placed outside his home and escorted him to campaign events.
The incident occurred less than a month after the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan and received considerable attention.
The hospital’s chief of police, Joseph Lancellotti, claimed he wrestled the would-be assailant to the ground but that he got away.
But an FBI investigation found that the incident was just a hoax perpetrated by Lancellotti to gain attention. He had apparently perpetrated similar incidents during his career in law enforcement, and the U.S. Attorney said he had a history of mental health issues.
A former police officer, Lancellotti served a six-month prison sentence in 1959 for calling in a fake bomb threat at the American Can Company in Hoboken. In the 1960s, prosecutors said, he made multiple fictitious police reports, including a claim that he was kidnapped. He once told police his car was shot at.
The FBI found that the patient who initially yelled, “gun,” was in the hospital dealing with his own mental health issues. He was unable to corroborate Lancellotti’s statement. A police officer at the bottom of a stairway which Lancellotti claimed was the assailants escape route said he saw nothing.
It never became clear how the Veterans Administration came to hire him as their security chief.
A federal judge ordered Lancellotti to undergo psychological testing and he was placed on leave without pay.
A month later, federal prosecutors obtained an indictment against Lancellotti on charges that he illegally wiretapped two members of his staff. He admitted to the charges and was sentenced to two years on probation. He was never charged in the assassination hoax.
In reporting the Wallwork incident, the Gannett-owned Home News Tribune reported that Lancellotti was an East Brunswick resident. But the newspaper later admitted that they had the wrong Joseph Lancellotti, a newspaper story that caused the East Brunswick man with the same name considerable grief. Editor’s apologized and acknowledged that they never thoroughly checked that detail.
Wallwork, a conservative West Point graduate with a reputation as a boy scout, during his 18 years in the New Jersey legislature, had no idea that what he thought to be an attempt on his life was simply a fabrication.
Former Assembly Speaker Thomas Kean won the primary with 31%, with Wallwork finishing fourth in a field of eight candidates with 16%.
The 93-year-old Wallwork, who served on the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor and ran for governor again in 1993, now lives in Maryland.
His daughter lives a few houses down from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Chevy Chase. She was 14 at the time she watched and read media accounts of an assassination attempt on her father.
She was among a group of pro-choice Kavanaugh neighbors who think it’s time protestors stop.
“The vast majority of people here are pro-choice,” she told The Washington Post. “And the very vast majority of people here think that these protesters have gotten out of control.”