The can got kicked down the road again for James Devine, the controversial and mendacious political consultant under indictment for filing fake nominating petitions for the 2021 Democratic gubernatorial primary after the New Jersey Attorney General’s office agreed to a seven-week delay.
“Defense counsel requested additional time to review the discovery, and we consented,” said Michael Symons, a Division of Criminal Justice spokesman.
Now, Devine is due back in court on August 26.
This is the third postponement granted to Devine since his March indictment. After charges were filed against him in 2023, Devine sought and received five extensions before the case went to the grand jury.
He turned down an offer of probation.
Legal issues for the political gremlin have been going on since he filed 1,948 fraudulent signatures to get shadowy perennial candidate Lisa McCormick, Devine’s life partner, on the primary ballot for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2019. An administrative law judge determined the petitions to be “fraudulently created without any input from actual voters,” the matter was referred to the attorney general’s office by Secretary of State Tahesha Way.
McCormick had filed to challenge Gov. Phil Murphy in the Democratic primary two years ago when an executive order during the COVID-19 pandemic permitted candidates to file nominating petitions with electronic signatures.
The counsel to the Democratic State Committee, Raj Parikh, alleged that McCormick’s petition resulted from a mail merge of an outdated voter database. He produced multiple witnesses who testified that they never signed the petitions even though their names appeared as signatories.
Devine was McCormick’s campaign manager and the circulator of her petitions.
He had sought admission into the state’s pre-trial intervention program, which would have allowed him to be on probation for a year, followed by a dismissal of the charges, but a judge denied Devine’s request.
Devine faces up to thirteen years in state prison if convicted on three counts of falsifying petitions, tampering with public records, and falsifying public records.
McCormick was not charged.