Monmouth Court House Will Reopen Tomorrow. Bomb Threat Was An Apparent Hoax

Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said that the K-9 search for explosives in the Court House this afternoon came up negative and that normal operations will resume tomorrow.

A male caller using a cell phone in Freehold Borough called 9-11 at 12:40 this afternoon and said that there were pipe bombs in the Court House that would explode this afternoon.

Investigators from the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor’s office are investigating the call.

Golden said there is no indication that the incident is in anyway related to the unsolved chemical/environmental event that closed the Court House for a week last June.

• Tweet

Bomb Threat Closes Monmouth County Court House

All bomb threat called into 9-11 early this afternoon has closed down the Monmouth County Court House for the rest of the day as bomb sniffing dogs are searching the building.

• Tweet

Christie defends Oxley nomination

State Street Wire, the pay sister site of Politickernj, is reporting that Governor Chris Christie said that the controversy State Senator Ray Lesniak is making over former Monmouth County Sheriff Joe Oxley’s nomination as a Superior Court Judge is “just another excuse” by Lesniak and the Democrats not to give Christie’s judicial nominations confirmation hearings.

Lesniak wants the FBI’s files from their investigation into Solomon Dwek’s allegations that Oxley, while sheriff, tipped off the real estate swindler to foreclosures in Monmouth County prior to the information becoming public.  Oxley has refused to authorize the release of the files and the Justice Department has declined Lesniak’s appeal that the public interest outweighs Oxley’s privacy.

Christie said that his successor as US Attorney, Paul Fishman, found “no factual basis” in Dwek’s claims.

Christie said he knows first-hand how the data provided by cooperating witnesses can be.

“Sometimes it can be reliable, sometimes it can be fiction,” he said.  “I think it’s unfair to put that kind of fiction on the public stream.”

Christie said that the judiciary committee should do its job and hold a confirmation hearing for Oxley.

Oxley has referred requests for comment to the governor’s office.

As a practicing attorney, Oxley could have legitimate reasons, including attorney-client privilege, for refusing to authorize the release of his recorded conversations.

• Tweet

Oxley judicial nomination on hold over FBI files

The Star Ledger is reporting that Joe Oxley’s nomination to the New Jersey Superior Court is in jeopardy because the U.S. Justice Department will not release FBI files from the investigation into the former sheriff resulting from Solomon Dwek’s allegations.

Dwek accused Oxley of sharing information about foreclosures before such information became public, thereby giving the real estate swindler a leg up to acquire those properties. No wrong doing was discovered during the FBI investigation which included recording Oxley.

State Senator Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a member of the judiciary committee that screens judicial nominations, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the Oxley files after The Star Ledger reported there existence last June.  The FBI declined the request, citing Oxley’s privacy.  Oxley did not respond to Lesniak’s request that he authorize the release of the files.  The Justice Department declined Lesniak’s appeal if the initial rejection.

State Senator Nicolas Scutari, chairman the the senate judiciary committee, was non-commital about Oxley’s nomination:

“I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely over, but I would say that’s certainly a piece of information that we’d like and it does jeopardize it to some degree,” he said. “I don’t think Senator Lesniak is wrong in requesting that information.”

Oxley declined to comment and referred questions to Governor Christie’s office.

Oxley, an attorney in private practice, could have numerous legitimate reasons, including attorney-client privilege, for declining to authorize the release of his recorded conversations.

• Tweet

Judge Escandon no longer ruling on divorces.

Multiple divorce litigants with cases before Judge Paul X. Escandon have told MMM that they have been informed by Monmouth County Court personnel that Escandon will no longer be hearing their cases.

Judge Lawrence M. Lawson, the Assignment Judge of the Monmouth County Vicinage, confirmed the change in Escandon’s assignment.

Escandon will be hearing non-matrimonial cases, those of unmarried couples with children and/or property who need the Court’s involvement to resolve their differences and post-divorce cases that he currently has, according to Lawson.  All family court judges will hear post divorce matters that are 12 months old or more.

Lawson said that the change is the result of his reassigning Judges to cope with the Court’s four vacancies and the temporary elevation of Judge Michael Guadagno to the Appeals Court.

A group of thirty women lead by former Long Branch resident Rachel Alintoff have been fighting get to Escandon recused from their cases and removed from the bench for several months due to what they say is a pattern of improper and illegal rulings regarding custody and support in favor of their wealthy estranged husbands.  There complaints have ranged from revoking custody without a hearing to emanicipating a disabled teenager in order to void child support.

Alintoff brought her plight to Governor Chris Christie’s attention at a Town Hall meeting in Garfield on May 2.   Since then the Advisory Committee on Judical Conduct has initiated an investigation into Escandon’s rulings based on Alintoff’s complaints and those of at least ten other women and one man.

• Tweet

Judge Michael Guadagno elevelated to Appellate Court

Photo credit: The Monmouth Journal

Judge Michael A. Guadagno, the presiding judge of the Monmouth County Court’s family division, has been elevated to the Appellate Division of the State Superior Court effective August 1, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner announced today.

Judge Guadangno is Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno’s husband.

The Appellate Division of the Superior Court is New Jersey’s intermediate appellate court. The 32 Appellate Division judges hear appeals from decisions of the trial courts, the Tax Court and state administrative agencies.  The Appellate Division decides approximately 6,500 appeals and 7,500 motions each year.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Monmouth County Courthouse to reopen Tuesday at 1:30 PM

Officials don’t know what caused illnesses that befell over 70 people

The State Department of Health and Senior Services has given the green light to reopen the Monmouth County Courthouse which was closed last week due to over 70 people falling ill.

Laura Kirkpatrick, Public Information Officer, told MMM that normal court operations will resume on Tuesday, June 26 at 1:30PM.  State and county employees should report to work as instructed by their supervisors.

The announcement from the State Department of Health said that the Courthouse  indoor air tested within normal ranges for chemical and environmental contaminants.  However the announcement did not disclose the cause of the illnesses that occurred on Friday June 15th and again on Monday June 18th. 

Donna Leusner, Director of Communications for the department said that “we don’t know the definitive cause at this time.”

• Tweet

Jersey Style Appointments and Hearings

Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter E. Warshaw, Jr was nominated by Governor Chris Christie to become a Superior Court Judge on June 14.  The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold his confirmation hearing today.  He is likely to be confirmed by the full Senate before the end of the week, ending his 18 month tenure as county prosecutor.

First Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni is expected to be nominated to replace Warshaw as the chief prosecutor in Monmouth County.  Word in the legal community is that Gramiccioni, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney under Christie, was the governor’s first choice to become Monmouth County Prosecutor in 2010 but that he was 18 months short of the residency requirements.

Former Monmouth County Sheriff Joe Oxley, also former Monmouth GOP Chairman, was nominated to the Court on May 14. Oxley’s confirmation has yet to be scheduled by the Democratically controlled Judiciary Committee, due in part to a Star Ledger report that federal informant Soloman Dwek accused Oxley, Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin of trading favors for campaign contributions.  

Dwek’s allegations were revealed in discovery documents in the civil case of former Hudson County Assemblyman Louis Manzo who unsuccessly sued the U.S. Attorney’s office to recover $100K in legal fees that resulted Manzo’s 2009 Operation Bid Rig indictments. Manzo was accused under the Hobbs Act of accepting bribes from Dwek in exchange for future help in zoning and permit applications should Manzo be elected Jersey City Mayor.  Manzo was running for Mayor for the fifth time when the alleged bribe occurred.  Federal Judge Jose Linares threw out the charges on the basis that the Hobbs Act applied only to elected officials, not candidates.  The Appellate Court affirmed Linares’ ruling.

The discovery documents in Manzo’s civil case miraculously found their way to the Star Ledger in what Kyrillos called an “oppo (opposition research) dump” by U. S. Senator Robert Menedez’s reelection campaign.  Kyrillos is the GOP nominee to unseat Menendez and a minority member of the State Senate Judiciary Committee which reviews judicial nominations.

Expect the Judiciary Committee to schedule Oxley’s confirmation hearing in September or October as the general election campaign is heating up.  Democratic Senator Ray Lesniak has called for Dwek, who is in federal prison, to testify at Oxley’s hearing.  That would put Kyrillos, as a member of the committee and also accused by Dwek of trading favors for contributions, in a hot seat at the height of the U.S. Senate campaign.

In another potential twist in this tangled web, Gramiccioni was one of the federal prosecutors working on the Bid Rig investigations, including Manzo’s, according to Bob Ingle and Michael Symons in Chris Christie: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power (page 90).  Should Gramiccioni be nominated Monmouth County Prosecutor, as expected, his nomination will also be subject to a Judiciary Committee hearing.

Gramiccioni’s wife, Deborah, is Governor Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Cabinet Liason.

• Tweet

Media Glare Shining On Monmouth County Court

Monmouth County’s Court is likely to get a great deal of media attention this week…and not because of the contaminants that forced the closure of the Courthouse.

The New York Post picked up the story of Rachel Alintoff’s complaints about the way Judge Paul Escandon is handling her divorce that MMM first reported on May 9.   Nine other women have come forward for the Post’s story, including one woman who fears losing any contact with her children after Escandon altered a custody agreement that had been in place for five years, thereby granting custodial rights to her mobster ex-husband who she fears will end up in the witness protection program or worse.

Alintoff told MMM  that national television media outlets are calling her and the other women about their stories.  She expects the women’s story to be featured on at least one network morning show this week.

• Tweet