TOMS RIVER, NJ – In the hours before Ocean County Sherif Mastronardy’s embarrassing loss to former Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore in the 2022 OCGOP Chairman’s election, forces aligned with Mastronardy began raiding party funds.
Outgoing GOP Chairman Frank B. Holman, who has since left New Jersey for Florida authorized his henchmen and henchwomen to begin raiding the party’s coffers once it became clear that Mastronardy’s loss was imminent.
Despite having a 91-7 advantage at the hands of the Lakewood, Jackson and Toms River Orthodox Jewish bloc vote in the lection, Mastronardy, outside of that community lost the race in a landslide, if you take out the bloc vote.
A lawsuit today by the Ocean County GOP claims New Jersey Assemblyman Greg McGuckin and his law firm partner Jerry Dasti orchestrated a theft of funds in the amount of $23,109.83 from Republican party owned accounts into their own accounts.
McGuckin received a check made out to McGuckin for Assembly in the amount of $4,000. Ocean County Commissioners Virginia Haines and Jack Kelly recieved a check for $5,500. Sheriff Mastronardy was given a $5,500 check. Jackson Township GOP chairwoman Clara Glory, received $5,000. Toms River Attorney Kevin B. Riordan, who was the middle man in McGuckin’s pay-to-spy campaign against Toms River Township Councilman Justin Lamb and his wife Ashley, received $3,109.83 in the last minute wipe of the party’s bank account under the direction of McGuckin and Dasti.
Clara Glory has since repaid the $5,000 of ill-gotten funds she received during the theft of the county GOP bank account.
“These defendants in their campaign committees have improperly without authority and wrongfully converted, usurp, expanded, and reciprocated the funds of the Ocean County Republican Organization in the Ocean County Republican Finance Committee,” the lawsuit claims.
The GOP is suing McGuckin and his partner Jerry Dasti, former GOP Chairman Frank B. Holman, former GOP Executive Director Pat Lane, former GOP operative Noriko Kowalewski, Eric Arpert, and Kevin Riordan.
Arpert, who was Mastronardy’s campaign manager also served as campaign manager for Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor in 2021 who lost to Phil Murphy in November.
Arpert, an Monmouth County resident, was being groomed to be the defacto chairman of the Ocean County GOP in the event that Mastronardy won. Mastronardy routinely told skeptics to his campaign that Arpert would be running the day-to-day operations of the Ocean County GOP if he was to win the election.
This week, it was rumored that Greg McGuckin and his allies will be forming a new Republican party in Ocean County, but after speaking to multiple county elected officials, few if any outside of McGuckin’s inner circle are interested in splitting the Ocean County GOP and joining McGuckin’s quest to keep the party divided.
According to party insiders, Sheriff Mastronardy, Commissioner Haines, Commissioner Gary Quinn, Commissioner Joe Vicari and others have all pledged to keep the existing Ocean County GOP party in tact under Gilmore.
The lawsuit also seeks to have McGuckin and his co-defendants turn over all physical and digital assetts taken by the group in the hours after Mastronardy’s defeat, including emails, software licenses and documents that belong to the organization that were either removed or deleted.
After Mastronardy’s embarrassing loss to Gilmore, the defendants changed passwords, deleted email accounts and took the organization’s website offline.
The lawsuit claims former GOP executive director Pat Lane and Noriko Kowalewski acted in conjunction with the defendants and without authority to attempt to damage and destroy and tamper with GOP computer systems, website and other electronic devices.
“They wrongfully and without authority assessed the Ocean County Republican organization’s electronic devices, servers, accounts, deleted, destroyed and damaged electronic records, documents, communications, emails and other similar files and emails,” the lawsuit alleges.
According to the lawsuit, director Pat Lane told the new party officials that she would turn over emails only once she deleted emails she and her advisors did not want the new administration to see.
The lawsuit also alleges that Lane and Kowalewski violated a cease and desist order and continued deleting emails once requested by GOP lawyers to cease and desist.
Once they were done raiding the GOP coffers, the party was left with just $2,045 in its treasury, with more than $20,000 being improperly diverted to accounts of the defendants.