 |  |
2005 campaign mailer for Robinson-Briggs, with future bodyguards
Brown (right) and Reid (2nd from left). Click on image to enlarge.
Brown (right) and Reid (2nd from left). Click on image to enlarge.
Plainfield was abuzz Monday afternoon with news that one of Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs' hand-picked bodyguards, Det. Richard Brown, has been charged with stealing between $4,000 and $6,000 from the PBA local over the past five months. Both the Courier (here) and the Ledger (here) have the story posted already. Curiously, another incident involving missing moolah has yet to result in any charges, more than two years later.
Brown, fellow mayoral bodyguard Kenneth Reid, and PBA president Andre Crawford posed with candidate Sharon Robinson-Briggs in the 2005 primary mailer pictured above.
During the 2005 election campaign, questions raised about their accompanying the candidate at her appearances were brushed off by Robinson-Briggs with the assertion that they were volunteering and just happy to accompany her.
The arrangement seemed to continue after Robinson-Briggs was sworn in and was finally formalized in July, 2006, with the appointment of Reid and Brown as her bodyguards. Police Director Martin Hellwig admitted to the Star-Ledger this past October, however, that the bodyguards were originally assigned even though alleged threats were UNSUBSTANTIATED.
Meanwhile, back on June 9, 2006, I brought up more moolah that went missing, this from the Tax Collector's office --
...[A]t City Hall talk is going around about the $41,000 or so missing from the Tax Collector's office. What! You didn't know?! Yep. And get this -- the loss was discovered months ago. Is the administration trying to cover it up? When funds went missing in a similar situation in Highland Park, the Ledger covered the story from start to finish, including the indictment of an employee in the matter. Not only have we not heard about the matter publicly, we don't know whether Prosecutor Romankow is looking into it or whether the responsible party will face charges... Maybe those surveillance cams planned for City Hall should be put in the Tax Collector's office first.That post in Plainfield Today led to a Courier story on the missing money, which I reported the following Monday (see here) --
Dan's scoop of the week was the revelation on Friday that $41,000 or so had gone missing from the Tax Collector's office. The Courier picked the story up with a front-page piece on Saturday (June 10, 2006). Seems it happened months ago and has never been publicly discussed. Councilman Burney told the Courier that the Council had been briefed. My inquiries got the response that the administration had asked the Council to consider it a confidential presentation, that the matter was being investigated and that the administration would "get back to them" on it. When? How hard is it to track down what happened?And on June 16, 2006, it came to light that $3,000-$4,000 of the missing money was in CASH --
MISSING $$$ AT CITY HALL-- Seems the investigation proceeds. Is desultory a word? The grapevine has it that the locks have been changed. And that the $3,000 or so in cash -- which was part of the $40,000 that went missing -- is only part of the picture of missing money in the Tax Collector's office. Seems that it may have been going on for some undetermined length of time. Add to this the rumor that the employee was/is a 'special friend' of a politically well-connected person and we have the beginnings of an HBO series... Who is going to be the casting director? Meanwhile, still unknown is whether the Prosecutor's Office will get involved. That was NOT a question in Middlesex County, where a similar offender in Highland Park is going to the slammer for same...So, in 2008, two and a half years later, we still have nagging questions about the missing moolah from the Tax Collector's office --
- Why was no one ever named or charged over the missing $41,000?
- Did the Mayor keep the Prosecutor in the dark?
- Did Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs pull the plug on the investigation?
The Mayor's judgment is another matter entirely.
How shall that be resolved?
Posts
1 comments:
You mean the PBA has a checking account that requires only 1 signature??? That would be hard to believe. Any organization, union, association, etc., should have 2 signatures required.
Post a Comment