Sign-stealing Readington committeeman pleas to lesser offense

Readington Township Committeeman John Albanese, Jr., accepted a plea deal that included admitting to the theft of a rival’s campaign signs during a 2024 Republican primary after the other side in a Republican war placed an electronic tracking device on their sign and tracked them to his home, where he was arrested.

But the saga continues: one of the victims, Deputy Mayor Vinny Panico, has filed a complaint against Albanese’s wife, Victoria, and two of their political allies, after they allegedly harassed and threatened him outside the courtroom after the hearing ended.

Albanese will pay a $750 fine, but won’t have a criminal record and does not have to resign his township committee seat.  Instead of pleading guilty to theft, he accepted a lesser charge: creating a public nuisance.

The charges against Albanese stemmed from a heated local Republican primary been moderate old guard Republicans and a newer, significantly more conservative faction in a Hunterdon County municipality split by supporters and opponents of Donald Trump.

Like many local government fights, tensions are running high.  There have been allegations of sign stealing over the last few years – some Republicans were informally caught swiping Kean placards in 2022 after a hunting camera was used to keep watch.

The conservative faction grew tired of playing the game and built out an independent sting operation.

They decided to attach Apple AirTags to repurposed signs from Kean’s 2022 race with a severe anti-Malinowski message and position them adjacent to the Smith and Hindle signs.

The AirTags allowed the group to ping the sign to determine its exact location.

The opposition followed the signal to Albanese’s home.  Panico telephoned a police sergeant to report the theft.  They found the six anti-Malinowski signs there and placed Albanese under arrest.

A summons was issued to Albanese, a former mayor, by Patrolman Brandon Griffiths.

Albanese has admitted to taking the signs.

“I removed six political signs from two roadside public locations in Readington Township that do not belong to me and stored them in my garage at my home.  In so doing, I did not damage the signs.  Rather, I kept them safe and secure.  I did not use any threats of harm or violence,” Albanese said in court filings.  “I simply removed the signs in a weak moment of poor judgment.”

A Superior Court judge dismissed Albanese’s attempt to dismiss the case after the Republican argued that the thefts were “too trivial” to prosecute. Superior Court Kevin Shanahan instead returned the case to municipal court.

“In retrospect, I recognize that regardless of how I felt or what I was thinking, I did not have the right to remove signs that I did not own,” he said in a court filing, “I did not intend to malice or harm anyone…I recognize my mistake.  I am sorry.  I take full responsibility for my actions.”

In January, two political allies of Albanese, Jacqueline Hindle and Christina Albrecht, were sentenced to 30 months in a PTI program for planting a recording device at a local restaurant to record a private meeting of two elected officials who are Albanese’s rivals. Under the PTI program, the women will avoid a criminal record if they go through a mental health screening and 30 months without legal troubles.

The two factions have been in a civil war since 2022 when three-term Township Committeewoman Betty Anne Fort, a Republican rabidly opposed to Trump, lost the primary by a 2-1 margin to Panico, a conservative former president of the Hunterdon Central Regional Board of Education who ran off the line with the blessing of party leaders.

Fort had endorsed Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) in 2020 over Republican Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) and contributed $7,900 to his 2020 and 2022 campaigns.  That cost her re-election.

In 2023, two incumbents from the moderate faction, Albanese and Jonathan Heller, lost party support but ran off the line and narrowly won the GOP primary.

Last year, incumbents R. Juergen Huelsebusch and Adam Mueller, the current mayor, faced two old guard primary opponents allied with Albanese, former Mayor Benjamin Smith and Hindle.  Albrecht is married to Smith; Hindle’s husband, John, was in court today, along with Fort and members of Albanese’s family.   Heller and Robert Quinn, a former Hillside police chief, were the other two individuals Panico signed a complaint against.

In the 1990s, Albanese was an aide to State Sen. Bill Schluter (R-Pennington), the state’s government ethics king.