New Jersey’s attorney general charged the longtime mayor of Clark Township with public corruption Monday, saying he ran his landscaping company out of town hall.
He also recommended firing two top police officers after a years-long investigation found rampant racism, sexism and poor professional practices in the township’s police department.
Attorney General Matthew Platkin said detectives uncovered a scheme that Mayor Salvatore Bonaccorso used city resources and personnel to run his private landscaping company. The AG also accused Bonaccorso of fraudulently obtaining permits to remove underground oil tanks while taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for the work.
“While acting in his official capacity as the mayor, Bonaccorso allegedly operated his tank-removal business out of his township office,” Platkin said.
He said Bonaccorso used an engineer’s name and license number on permit applications in nearly two dozen towns for tank inspections and removals, without the engineer’s knowledge.
Bonaccorso, 63, has been the mayor of Clark since 2000. He was charged with official misconduct, records tampering, forgery, falsifying records and witness tampering — the latter because, officials said, he told a witness to lie to investigators.
Platkin’s office was investigating allegations of racism, sexism and the improper handling of a whistleblower when it discovered the allegations about the mayor’s underground tank business.
He released a 43-page report on his office’s findings Monday and called for Police Chief Pedro Matos and internal affairs head Sgt. Joseph Teston to be fired.
In late 2019, a whistleblower, police Lt. Antonio Manata, provided local officials with recordings of Bonaccorso, Matos and Teston using racial slurs. But NJ Advance Media reported two years later, Clark officials agreed to keep it quiet by paying the whistleblower, police Lt. Antonio Manata, a $400,000 settlement and let him stay on the payroll for another two years without…
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