Employee of law firm seeking to block mayor’s re-election leaves racist, terroristic threat

Warning: This story includes offensive language.

An employee of a law firm seeking to block Penns Grove Mayor LaDaena Thomas from being certified as the winner of last month’s election left a racist, terroristic voicemail for the borough’s police director, calling her a “black fucking nigger bitch” and threatening to “fucking destroy her.”

The call came from John Groff of the Lento Law Group in February 2021 after learning that Thomas intended to replace them as borough solicitor for unethical behavior.

The police director, Richard Rivera, said in court filings that Groff and the law firm had recommended the retention of Praxis HCS, Inc. to conduct COVID-19 testing for the municipality without disclosing that Groff owned a piece of the company.

“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna have some black fucking nigger bitch, okay, tell somebody that’s it’s my fucking fault that she don’t know what the fuck she’s doing,” Groff said.  “But I’m gonna tell you right now . . . I’m going to destroy her.  I’m going to fucking destroy her.”

The firm now represents Republican Louis Pasquale, who appears to have lost the election to Thomas, who ran as a write-in candidate.  Relying merely on the representation of the Lento Law Group, Superior Court Judge Benjamin Morgan ordered election officials not to certify the election and set a hearing for December 12.

Deputy Attorney General Levi Klinger-Christiansen asked Morgan to lift the temporary restraint two days later, but that was never addressed.

Rivera said he interpreted Groff’s threats as “criminal coercion and extortion” if the Lento Law Group wasn’t hired as the borough solicitor and made a report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“I later accompanied Mayor Thomas to meet with investigators of the New Jersey Office of Attorney General regarding the extortion attempt and threat to destroy her,” Rivera said.

Rivera said he worked as a consultant for the Lento Law Group as a police practices expert before taking a position with Penns Grove.

Another person from the Lento firm, Samuel D. Jackson, representing Pasquale, claims that Thomas was on probation when she registered to vote in 2019; she pleaded guilty to third-degree theft of service charge 23 years ago after she obtained telephone services she had not paid for.  He says the conviction — Thomas now suggests she felt strongarmed into pleading guilty – makes her ineligible to vote.

Thomas’ attorney, Scott Salmon, has asked Morgan to disqualify the Lento Law Group from representing Pasquale because they represented Thomas personally in her bid to get that conviction expunged.

“Mayor Thomas spoke with Groff several times and provided confidential, attorney-client information to him and other lawyers with the firm,” Salmon said in a letter to Morgan filed with the court.

Groff, the law firm’s administrator, has an extensive rap sheet that includes as many as eight convictions of various offenses, including check and insurance fraud.  In 2016, Groff was accused of promising to keep a Camden man out of jail in exchange for sex with both him and his girlfriend.

Klinger-Christiansen said his client, the Salem County Board of Elections, has a statutory duty to certify a winner in the election and that a candidate is free to file a contest of the election after that.

Morgan threw Thomas off the general election ballot after finding that she had sought write-in votes in the Democratic primary and that her independent candidacy violated the state’s Sore Loser Law.

Thomas appeared to receive roughly 200 write-in votes – maybe more – with Pasquale getting 191 votes and 153 going to Democrat John Washington, a former mayor unseated by Thomas four years ago.

Warning: This recording contains offensive language.