JACKSON, NJ – David Applefield, a candidate in this years New Jersey Congressional District 4 Democrat primary has died hours after losing his race.   Applefield finished third in the election behind winner Stephanie Schmid and Christine Conforti.

Applefield died while exercising.

“My wife Marie and I extend our sincere condolences to the family of David Applefield on his sudden passing,” said Congressman Chris Smith. “While not personally acquainted, we recognize that David brought a wealth of ideas, intellect and enthusiasm to the public discourse. May his family be comforted during this time of great sorrow.”

https://www.facebook.com/davidapplefield4congress/videos/3278374082184068/

TOMS RIVER, NJ –  Governor Phil Murphy has announced today that he will be signing an executive order to force all New Jersey residents to wear face coverings when in public and socially distancing is not possible.  Murphy said today, it’s time for New Jersey to show which side of the COVID-19 battle they are.  Those who don’t wear masks are obviously in favor of COVID-19.  Those who prefer to wear masks, are on the winning team.

“Today, I am signing an executive order requiring the wearing of face coverings by everyone when they are in outdoor public spaces and social distancing is not practicable,” the governor said. “This is absolutely vital when individuals find themselves in a crowded situation such as when walking down a packed boardwalk or in a line that is not properly spaced apart.”

https://www.facebook.com/OCPoliceBlotter/videos/269710537652343/

Murphy noted several exceptions to the rules, not including photo opportunities by government officials.

“Individuals who are clearly drinking and eating at an outdoor dining establishment, people who wearing  face mask endangers their health or safety and children younger than two years old,” he said.  The Center for Disease Control has issued a notice saying masks should not be work when wet or damp as the moisture in the mask will inhibit airflow.

Masking up outdoors now compliments Murphy’s “Mask Up” indoors policy and he touted his decision to force indoor wearing of face coverings as a life-saving measure and nationwide leader.

“Requiring masks outdoors is a step frankly, I had hoped we would not have to take and by and large, New Jerseyeans by the millions have been outstanding in their compliance when masking up to go outside as it was our strong recommendation,” Murphy said. “Unfortunately, we have been seeing a backslide in compliance as the weather has gotten warmer and not surprisingly, our rate of transmission has crept up.   This is not about politics, it’s about quite simply being sick or being healthy. It’s about life and death. It’s about showing others you care about their health.”

Remember, wearing a mask shows the world which team you are on.

“It’s about showing the community which side you’re on,” Murphy said. “This virus doesn’t care which political party you belong to or what you may or may not think about masking up.  It does care if you wear a mask. Period. Full stop.”

TRENTON, NJ – Governor Phil Murphy today hinted that November’s general election could also be a vote-by-mail election like yesterday’s primary election.

“I want to say, our early sense of the elections yesterday, a hybrid model as you all know, a big dose of vote by mail and some dose of in-person voting, and I’m not suggesting that in every single case it was perfect, but overwhelmingly, we believe early returns, anecdotally it worked very, very well,” Murphy said.

When asked when to make the decision on November’s election, Murphy said, “We’re not there yet.”

In Murphy’s reopened New Jersey, you can wait on mile-long DMV lines, wait on line at supermarkets, go to the boardwalk, protest in huge crowds, but when it comes to casting a vote in person, the COVID-19 risk is just far too high.

“Whatever decision we make on November, we’ll make it sufficiently early enough so that not only can we learn from any kinks that we may have had in the system but we can give folks as long a runway as possible,” Murphy said.

Murphy said state officials did an extraordinary job coordinating and hosting the July vote-by-mail election.

Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash

TRENTON, NJ – Governor Phil Murphy today made a plea to the New Jersey State Senate to confirm acting superintendent of state police, Col. Patrick Callahan to be the next superintendent of state police.   Callahan during the COVID-19 crisis has been Murphy’s sidekick in his daily briefings, accounting for daily COVID-19 violations against small businesses throughout.

Callahan’s profile on the state website:

On Tuesday, October 31, 2017, Colonel Patrick J. Callahan was sworn in by Governor Chris Christie as the 14th Colonel of the New Jersey State Police.

In April 1995, Colonel Callahan enlisted in the State Police as a member of the 115th Class.  He served as Recovery Bureau Chief in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and worked with state and federal partners to develop and implement long-term recovery effort strategies.  Colonel Callahan also served as the Commanding Officer of the Emergency Management Section and Assistant State Director of the Office of Emergency Management.  He was the chairman of the Command and Control Subcommittee of the Emergency Management Section when New Jersey hosted Super Bowl XLVIII, working to develop and implement all operations undertaken by the Public Safety Compound.

Colonel Callahan most recently served as the Deputy Superintendent of Operations, supervising and directing the operational activities of the 1,800 enlisted members assigned to Field Operations as well as the operational duties and responsibilities of the Traffic and Public Safety Office, Victims Services Unit, Fatal Accident Investigation Unit, Highway Traffic Safety Unit, and the Criminal Investigations Offices within Field Operations.

Colonel Callahan earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Villanova University and a Master of Administrative Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Colonel Callahan is the son of retired State Police Major Mick Callahan, who served as Division Staff Section Commanding Officer under Colonel Clinton Pagano, the 9th Superintendent of the State Police.  Colonel Callahan resides in Warren County with his wife Linda, two sons and two daughters.

TRENTON, NJ – It’s all based on science kids, but after Governor Phil Murphy broke one of his own executive orders at a partially enclosed bar in Bayville, he’s changing the rules again…based on science.

“If you’ve got a restaurant that can open up two sides of your restaurant, you can have 50% of your wall space open,”  Murphy said.  “We’re gonna allow you to have that under that roof, which is another step hopefully to help out our restaurants.”

So, if your outdoor bar has three walls, break out the sledgehammers to make it Murphy COVID-19 compliant?

Murphy said he will explain this in detail in his daily briefing today.

It’s science, kids, Phil Murph the Science Guy.

Photo by Shawn Ang on Unsplash

FLORHAM PARK, NJ – A rumor is circulating on social media that Governor Phil Murphy, who has been known to violate a few of his own executive orders on occasion will soon be committing an executive order atrocity.    The rumor is that Murphy’s daughter will be getting married in a huge lavish wedding at the reputable Park Savoy wedding hall.   Of course, this would be in gross violation of Murphy’s Law and the Park Savoy has not yet announced their reopening date as a wedding indoors would be under the same restrictions as any other indoor entertainment.

A wedding is part dinner, part night club, part bar atmosphere, all of which are banned under the Governor’s executive orders indoors.

This week, Park Savoy addressed the rumor.

“In accordance with Governor Murphy’s executive order, the Park Savoy is closed for indoor weddings,” the business said. “The now persistent rumor circulating around social media that the governor’s daughter is getting married at our property is false and patently untrue.”

EAST ORANGE, NJ – The former acting business administrator for the Township of Orange, New Jersey, has been charged in a 28-count indictment with conspiracy, bribe-taking, money and property fraud, federal tax fraud, and making false statements in connection with a mortgage, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced today.

Willis Edwards III, 49, formerly of East Orange, New Jersey, and currently of Lithonia, Georgia, was charged with 14 counts of wire fraud, two counts of bribery in connection with the business of a federally funded local government, two counts of theft from a federally funded local government, two counts of mail fraud, two counts of false statements concerning a mortgage, one count of bribery in connection with the business of a federally funded local government and organization, one count of theft from a federally funded local government and organization, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and the IRS, and one count of filing a false tax return. A date for Edwards’ arraignment has not yet been scheduled.

According to documents filed in this case:

In January 2015, Edwards had his friend, Franklyn Ore, form Urban Partners LLC (Urban Partners), using cash provided by Edwards. During 2015, Edwards used Urban Partners to funnel to himself a stream of concealed kickbacks in exchange for Edwards’ official action as an Orange public official and assistance in the affairs of Orange and in violation of his duties in connection with:

• A Saturday literacy program for which Orange and the Orange Public Library were awarded a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and administered by Essex County, to provide tutoring services for low and moderate-income families (the Saturday Literacy Program);
• A project for which an urban planning company located in Montclair, New Jersey, had received a one-year, $150,000 contract from Orange to provide professional economic planning services to analyze the conditions within the Central Orange Redevelopment Area (the “redevelopment project”); and
• A project to acquire the Orange YWCA building and develop it into a community recreation center.

The Saturday Literacy Program Fraud and Kickbacks

Despite knowing that Urban Partners did not provide any services to the library in connection with the Saturday Literacy Program, Edwards caused false and fraudulent vouchers to be submitted in March 2015 and in May 2015 to Essex County seeking Saturday literacy grant funds for expenses purportedly paid to Urban Partners. In support of the fraudulent vouchers, Edwards had phony documents submitted to Essex County, including: (1) a sham contract between Urban Partners and the library, backdated to over six months before Urban Partners had been formed, (2) false statistical data about the children who supposedly attended the literacy sessions, (3) fake Urban Partners invoices, and (4) backdated library checks payable to Urban Partners that had not been negotiated when submitted to Essex County to give the false impression that the Library had paid Urban Partners, when it had not done so.

Between April 2015 and June 2015, Essex County provided the Library with $50,000 in HUD funds for the Saturday Literacy Program. Between May 2015 and August 2015, Edwards caused the library to pay Urban Partners approximately $36,000, despite knowing that Urban Partners had not provided the library with any services in connection with the Saturday Literacy Program. Edwards received kickbacks from Ore from the money paid to Urban Partners by the library. At Edwards’s direction, Ore also provided a portion of the proceeds from the library to an associate of Edwards. Ore spent the remaining proceeds for his own personal benefit.

The Redevelopment Project Fraud and Kickbacks

Edwards used his influence as an Orange public official to arrange for the planning company to hire Urban Partners after the planning company had received its contract with Orange. Ore provided services to the Planning Committee and, between August 2015 and February 2016, the planning company, which was receiving payments from Orange, paid Urban Partners $33,220. Edwards received kickbacks from Ore from the money that the planning company paid to Urban Partners.
The YWCA Project Fraud and Kickback

In December 2015, aware that his resignation as an Orange public official would become effective on Dec. 31, 2015, Edwards took further steps to use his position for corrupt and fraudulent purposes. Edwards advised Ore that Edwards had access to Orange discretionary funds and wanted to use them by the end of the year. At Edwards’s instruction, Ore generated and submitted a fraudulent invoice from Urban Partners to Orange, billing Orange $16,800 for services purportedly related to the YWCA Project. Edwards, knowing that no services has been rendered, approved the issuance of a purchase order and Orange paid Urban Partners $16,800. On Dec. 30, 2015, Edwards received a substantial amount of the $16,800 in a kickback from Ore.

The Plagiarism Scheme

From June 2015 to June 2016, Edwards duped Orange into making payments to a consultant, which were, at least in part, for academic papers that the consultant arranged to have written for Edwards. Edwards, who was enrolled in a graduate program at a university in New Jersey, plagiarized the papers that Orange paid for and passed them off as his own work. Between December 2015 and March 2016, with Edwards’s approval, the consultant submitted three fraudulent invoices to Orange calling for payments of $12,000, $16,000, and $10,000 for purported professional services. Orange paid the money to the consultant and Edwards received from the consultant academic papers that had been written for him. On June 20, 2016, Edwards submitted several papers which were virtually identical to the papers that he had received from the consultant. In emails to the professors, to which the papers were attached, Edwards asked the professors to grade the attached outstanding assignments so that he did “not receive a failing grade for all of the hard work that [he had] done.”

The Graduate School Payments Scheme

The indictment also charges Edwards with fraud in connection with funding his graduate studies. Between December 2015 and July 2016, Edwards engaged in a scheme to defraud Orange of $25,142 in payments to himself and University 1 related to Edwards’s graduate courses there and at another university in New Jersey through the use of a fraudulent approval memorandum. In February 2016, when Edwards was no longer an Orange public official, he dictated the following language to an employee in Orange’s Finance Department (Orange Employee 1) for use in a fraudulent approval memorandum addressed to Edwards: “As per the employee handbook, this memorandum serves as consent for you [Edwards] to enroll in the courses as discussed. Please forward the invoices to process for payment.” Edwards instructed Orange Employee 1 to backdate the memorandum to Aug. 17, 2015, to give the false impression that Edwards had received approval for Orange to pay for academic courses in which he had enrolled.

On Feb. 10, 2016, at Edwards’s direction, Orange Employee 1 sent an email to a senior public official in the office of the Mayor of Orange (Orange Employee 2) containing a draft of the fraudulent approval memorandum. Orange Employee 2 later provided Orange Employee 1 with a final copy of the fraudulent approval memorandum on Orange letterhead, purportedly from the Mayor of Orange, addressed to Edwards, and backdated to Aug. 17, 2015. It included the language that Edwards dictated to Orange Employee 1 and bore the stamp of the initials of the Mayor of Orange to give the false impression that the Mayor of Orange had approved Edwards’s reimbursement for the courses, when the Mayor of Orange had not done so.

Federal Tax Fraud

Edwards also caused a false 2015 federal tax return to be filed with the IRS. From January 2016 to April 15, 2016, Edwards conspired with his tax return preparer, Zenobia Williams, to defraud the United States and the IRS by claiming bogus labor expenses of $27,055 for his business, Natural Care Municipal Cleaning Services LLC (Natural Care), on that tax return. In addition to falsifying business expenses, Edwards also underreported Natural Care’s income. He reported $40,000 in gross receipts, when Natural Care actually received approximately $52,000 in payments from a New Jersey law firm and approximately $32,500 in payments from a local Board of Education. Edwards also did not report the ill-gotten gains that he obtained in 2015 in connection with the Saturday Literacy Program, the Redevelopment Project, and the YWCA Project.

Making False Statements in Connection with a Mortgage

In 2014, Edwards also made false statements to obtain mortgage relief on a $248,000 30-year mortgage loan that he obtained in 2005 to purchase a residence in East Orange, New Jersey. As of Feb. 11, 2014, Edwards had fallen substantially in arrears on his mortgage payments. On April 7, 2014, Edwards submitted a completed Request for Mortgage Assistance form to the mortgage servicer. Edwards disclosed that he was employed by Orange and falsely indicated that he did not have a second employer, when, at the time, he also was employed by a New Jersey County College at an annual salary of approximately $45,000. On Oct. 8, 2014, Edwards and the mortgage servicer entered into a Home Affordable Modification Agreement. In reliance upon false representations made by Edwards, the mortgage servicer provided the following benefits, among others, to Edwards: (1) $95,590 of Edwards’s debt was forgiven between July 2015 and July 2017, and (2) the real estate property was taken out of foreclosure.

The charges carry the following maximum potential penalties:

On Jan. 13, 2020, Ore entered a guilty plea to an information charging offenses related to the Saturday Literacy Program, the Redevelopment Project, and the YWCA Project. On Feb. 13, 2020, Timur Davis, the former Executive Director of the Orange Library, entered a guilty plea to an information charging an offense related to the Saturday Literacy Program and another HUD-funded program to replace an HVAC/Chiller unit at the Library. On Dec. 30, 2019, Williams entered a guilty plea to conspiring to defraud the United States and the IRS.

U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Joe Denahan in Newark; special agents of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Christina Scaringi; and special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael Montanez with the investigation leading to the charges.

TRENTON, NJ – Take that Delaware! You’re now on Governor Phil Murphy’s 8…16…19 state hit list.  Want to come to the Garden State and experience our great beaches, boardwalks, Atlantic City and others?  Well, too bad, you need to plan a 21-day vacation now because you’re on the list.

Governor Murphy today advised individuals traveling to New Jersey from additional states with significant community spread of COVID-19 to quarantine for a 14-day period from the time of last contact within the identified state. The updated advisory includes three additional states, Delaware, Kansas, and Oklahoma, bringing the total to 19 states. The travel advisory applies to any person arriving from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.

As of Tuesday, July 7, there are currently 19 states total that meet the criteria stated above: Alabama; Arkansas; Arizona; California; Delaware, Florida; Georgia; Iowa; Idaho; Kansas; Louisiana; Oklahoma, Mississippi; North Carolina; Nevada; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; and Utah.

“Several outbreaks across New Jersey are directly tied to travel from COVID-19 hotspots nationwide,” said Governor Murphy. “In order to responsibly continue down our road back to restart and recovery, we must remain vigilant in our collective effort to beat the virus and reduce the rate of transmission. I urge those arriving from one of these nineteen states to self-quarantine and get a COVID-19 test to prevent additional flareups across the state and ensure the health and safety of their fellow New Jerseyans.”

Travelers and those residents who are returning from impacted states should self-quarantine at their home, hotel, or other temporary lodging. Individuals should leave the place of self-quarantine only to seek medical care/treatment or to obtain food and other essential items.

Travelers and residents returning from impacted states typically will not need to check-in with public health officials, unless otherwise they are involved in contract tracing efforts or required to do so by their employer or any other federal, state or local law or order. It is expected that individuals will follow the public health advisory to self-quarantine.