Did judge interfere with Clark mayoral race?

A Superior Court Judge might have inadvertently interfered with a mayoral election in Clark because she couldn’t squeeze a guilty plea onto her calendar before the November 5 general election.

The 24-year-incumbent, Republican Sal Bonaccorso, had agreed to a plea deal with the attorney general’s office in October, but prosecutors could not get on Judge Regina Caulfield’s calendar until after Election Day.

After being charged with a series of crimes last year, Bonaccorso publicly proclaimed his innocence. Privately, he had agreed to admit his guilt, but that information was withheld from the public.

Had Caulfield accepted the request of the attorney general’s office to schedule a plea appearance before the election, it appears that Bonaccorso would have resigned before Election Day and been banned from holding office in the future.  Still, his name would have remained on the ballot.

Sticking to his denials, Bonaccorso wins re-election with 59% of the vote against Democrat Michael Shulman.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, believes even in solidly Republican Clark, a guilty plea would have swung the election to Shulman, giving him a four-year term.

“I don’t buy the argument that voters knew about and therefore accepted the charges against him — an admission is different,” Rasmussen said.  “An admission removes all doubt, all of the willful denial of supporters.”

Instead, Caulfield scheduled Bonaccorso’s court appearance for November 6, the day after the election.  Then she moved it to November 20 and called in sick that day.  Assignment Judge Lisa Miralles Walsh took over and said her next available court date was January 10 of next year.

“Last week’s adjournment of the mayor’s case is an example of why people have lost faith in our institutions,” Shulman said.  “Both the scattershot prosecution by the attorney general’s office and the court’s inability to timely hear cases and permitting this case to extend into 2025 without a resolution or trial date are baffling and without explanation.”

Shulman added, “If it turns out that these inexcusable delays result in Mr. Bonaccorso becoming eligible for lifelong health insurance or to handpick his successor, we have all but legalized election interference in this state.”

A spokesman for the judiciary, Peter McAleer, refused to answer questions about the delays: why was Caulfield unable to accommodate a court date before the election? When did the judiciary become aware that Caulfield was unavailable for November 20?  Why was Caulfield removed from the case and replaced by Miralles Walsh? And when does the judiciary consider the public interest in elections and the appearance that scheduling could be a form of inadvertent election interference?

“The Judiciary does not comment on the management or scheduling of cases,” McAleer said.  “Under court rule 1:38-2, records pertaining to the management of cases are excluded from public access.”

Rasmussen said judges need to do a better job paying attention to immovable election calendars.

“Failing to do so undermines the public’s confidence that elections matter and that being a fully informed voter matters,” he explained.  In this case, the government and the court made it impossible for voters to be fully informed about an essential question they were being asked to decide.”

Unless a judge decides to speed up Bonaccorso’s appearance in court, he will be permitted to take the oath of office for another term as mayor on January 1.

Had Bonaccorso been terminated from office before January 1, it would have triggered a free-standing special election sometime in late March or early April.  But by not coming up with a court date until January 10, a potential resignation would mean Republicans would fill the seat on an interim basis until the winner of a November 2025 special election is certified.

Bonaccorso was charged in November 2023 with using township property and employees to run his landscaping business and filing forged permit applications in about two dozen towns to remove underground oil storage tanks. He also faces official misconduct charges – and a five-year minimum state prison sentence — for running a tank removal business out of the mayor’s office.