Asbury Park Attorney Indicted For Theft Of Over $70K

William Gallagher, 70, of Memorial Drive in Asbury Park, was indicted by a Monmouth County Grand Jury for Theft of second degree Failure to Make Require Disposition and third degree Misapplication of Entrusted Funds, according to an announcement by Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni.

Gallagher, an attorney since 1968, was the long term Borough Attorney of Lake Como until he was was suspended from practicing law in New Jersey in January of 2015. His indictment follows a 19 month investigation that found he stole from three clients in 2013 and 2014 by transferring the proceeds of civil settlements into his own account and not paying his clients the settlements they were due.  He is charged with stealing $71,615.69.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint from a victim who did not receive $23,037.35 she was owed from a civil settlement related to a premises liability action.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Bennett’s Baggage: The Monmouth GOP Chair’s Race, Part 2

Ultimately the job of a county chairman is to win elections.

Unfortunately, one of the candidates for Monmouth County GOP Chair is blinded to the fact that that his record will become a major issue in the next two general elections, should his revisionist history campaign successfully result in his chairmanship.

If John Bennett and his supporters think The Asbury Park Press and the new Monmouth County Democratic Chairman, whoever that ends up being, are not rooting for Bennett to be the next Monmouth GOP Chair, they truly have their heads in the sand.

Bennett has been promoting his early legislative career and electoral successes as a reason to elect him chairman as if the unceremonious and embarrassing end to his legislative career didn’t happen.  He even implored MMM not to write about the damage he has done, not just to Monmouth County, the Monmouth GOP, but to the entire State of New Jersey and the New Jersey GOP.  “Don’t write bad things about me!” Bennett exclaimed when we met for almost three hours early last month.  We hoped he would realize the obvious himself and that we wouldn’t have to write the truth about him.   Unfortunately that has turned out not to be the case. 

Just as he did in 2003 when he ignored then County Chairman Bill Dowd’s call to abandon his unwinnable reelection bid, Bennett has his head in the sand now.  Just as he didn’t see that his continued candidacy in 2003 would not only cost Republicans the 12^th legislative district but control of the State Senate where he was Co-President, Bennett doesn’t see now that his being Chairman could very well cost the Monmouth GOP control of the county government which we have worked so hard to win back over the last four years.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Escort procedures are secret

Bob Ingle writes this morning that the government is protecting its butt by keeping documentation of escorts classified.

Bob is writing of the New Jersey State Police luxury sport car escorts that have been in the news recently.  Not the Secret Service’s recreational activities.

Ingle is the co-author with Sandy McClure of The Soprano State, the New York Times bestseller about New Jersey’s culture or corruption.  His new book, written with fellow Gannett reporter Michael Symons, Chris Chrisite: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power, arrives in book stores on May 22.  Pre-orders are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million.

• Tweet

Ingle on O’Reilly

Gannet columnist and bestselling author of The Soprano State, Bob Ingle will be a guest on the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News at 8 PM and repeated at 11PM.

• Tweet

Material For Soprano State Two

The way things are going, The Soprano State will have more sequels than Sly Stillone’s Rocky movies.

Just in the last month we had Toms River Regional School District Superintendent Michael Ritacco’s indictment for taking millions in kick backs.  We’ve seen Frank Pallone, Steve Rothman, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg put Americans’ health at risk in exchange for campaign contributions.  We’ve seen Rush Holt exposed promulgating phony science to bamboozle Congress out of out of millions of dollars for his employer, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

There’s more material to come, perhaps as early as this afternoon.  MMM is fact checking a tip on a pay to play scheme by a Monmouth County elected official who has a stack a soap boxes he’s broken while preaching against such behavior.  We’re told the APP has had the same tip for a few days.  We got it last night.  Maybe they’re still fact checking too.    Stay tuned.

• Tweet

The Soprano State: Don’t Even Think About It. Just Go See It!

Narrated from a smoked filled room by Tony Darrow, The Soprano State, New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption, The Documentarty Part One, goes beyond the New York Times Bestseller by Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure.

The book chronicled corruption in New Jersey from the days of the Byrne administration through its publication in 2008 during the Corzine years. The movie traces New Jersey’s culture of corruption all the way back to the delegates of the Continental Congress who were absent from Philadelphia because they were collecting tolls from travelers trekking from New York to the City of Brotherly Love, and to Richard Stockton who was the only man to sign both the Declaration of Independence and a loyalty oath to the British Crown.

Darrow noted that we’re still collecting those tolls along the NJ Turnpike.  He didn’t mention that we named a college after Stockton.   But that point was made by Sharpe James’ hero’s welcome back to Newark after being released from prison.

Both funny and exasperating, the movie is extremely entertaining.  Not “especially for a documentary.”  Audiences elsewhere in the country might nominate it for Best Comedy, but for this Jersey Guy, it is a tragedy.  New Jersey audiences are likely have their laughter tempered by anger, frustration and shock.  That was my experience and my sense of the Jersey dominated crowd at the Ziegfield last evening.  Like the book, the movie is very funny, except that it is about us. It is filled with unbelievable tales of schemes that actually happened, and that we are still paying for.

Ingle, McClure and Politifax’s Nick Acocella are featured prominently, as is Governor Chris Chrisite.  Carla Katz has a couple of cameos in camisoles. 

Tony Darrow and Carla Cefalo

There’s lots of footage of familiar faces. From Monmouth County, there’s Terrence Weldon, John Merla and Solomon Dwek.   Former Senate President John Lynch, George “The King of South Jersey” Norcross, Jim McGreevey, Charles Kushner, and the 44 politicians and rabbis arrested in the summer of 2009 are all featured.

Towards the end of the film, Governor Chris Christie is asked, “How do you change New Jersey’s image?”   “You change New Jersey’s image by changing New Jersey,” was his answer, “change the culture and the image will follow.”

Everybody who lives in New Jersey should see this movie.  Especially U. S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

The Soprano State opens Friday, October 22 at Clearview Cinemas in Red Bank, Aberdeen, Hoboken, Montclair, Morristown, Ocean Township and Tenafly.   There will be a New Jersey 101.5 Exclusive Screening and live broadcast with The Jersey Guys and Bob Ingle on Wednesday, October 20 at 7pm at the Clearview Middlebrook Galleria Cinema 10 on Route 35 south in Ocean Township.

Don’t miss it.  See it before you vote.

• Tweet