A group of unidentified handcuffed men are walked outside FBI offices Thursday, July 23, 2009, in Newark, N.J.. to a waiting bus for transport to court hearing as part of a major corruption and international money laundering conspiracy probe..
The mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus, a state assemblyman and dozens of others were rounded up early Thursday as the F.B.I. swept across four counties in New Jersey as part of a two-year corruption and money-laundering investigation that ranged from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn and has even reached into the State House in Trenton.
Agents raided the home of Joseph V. Doria Jr., commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, who also is the former mayor of Bayonne, an official confirmed Thursday morning.
Among the roughly 30 people arrested by mid-morning were Hoboken Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III and Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, both Democrats, and Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, a Republican from Forked River, in Ocean County. Mr. Cammarano, who turned 32 on Wednesday, was elected mayor June 9 and sworn in July 1, after serving as councilman-at-large since 2005.
Also brought to the Newark office of the F.B.I. were the president of the city council in Jersey City, Mariano Vega, and that city’s deputy mayor, Leona Beldini.
Federal prosecutors said the arrests included several rabbis from enclaves of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn and from Deal and Elberon, communities along the Jersey Shore in Ocean County.
The Asbury Park Press reported that the investigation involved the Deal Yeshiva, a religious school which teaches children in the Sephardic Jewish tradition. The United States Attorney’s office in Newark scheduled a noon news conference.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who has fought corruption in New Jersey’s largest city, told The Star-Ledger it’s "an unbelievable morning so far."
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