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225 Grand Street Jersey City fire
Aaron Morrill

Electrical Fire Forces Evacuation of Downtown Luxury High-Rise

January 30, 2022/in Downtown, header, Latest News, News /by Aaron Morrill

At 9:30 this morning, residents of a Downtown luxury high-rise were forced to evacuate when an electrical fire broke out sending smoke billowing throughout the building.

According to a tenant, “thick, foul-smelling smoke filled the hallways” sending residents out onto the street and into nearby businesses on a frigid winter morning.

The building’s owner, KRE, describes the building — 225 Grand Street — as having “exquisite apartments with first class amenities to match.”

In an email this morning, management initially told residents to remain in their apartments. “We are in the process of finding where the issue lies. The Fire Department is on the way, and they may have to temporarily shut the electricity off. Please remain in your unit unless instructed otherwise b (sic) the Fire Department. We WI (sic) be sure to reach back out with further undates (sic). We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience in the matter. Best Regards, 225 Grand Management”

Despite the inconvenience, one resident reports a “festive” atmosphere with “dogs and donuts.” No injuries were reported.

 

 

 

Crime Scene Tape
Aaron Morrill

Perpetrator Identified in Light Rail Killing

January 29, 2022/in Greenville, header, News /by Aaron Morrill

The 37 year-old man arrested in the fatal stabbing of a 49 year-old man last night at a Jersey City light rail station has been identified.

Anthony Bell, 37, of Jersey City, is charged with Murder, Unlawful Possession of a Weapon, and Possession of Weapon for an Unlawful Purpose. He was arrested at the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in Jersey City at approximately 1:50 p.m. today, and was remanded to the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance.

Jersey City Police were called to the Danforth Ave. light rail station at approximately 11:47 p.m. yesterday on a report that an injured person was lying on the platform. There, they found a man, later identified as Kenneth Brown, with a stab wound to the upper body.

Brown was taken to Jersey City Medical center where he was pronounced dead at approximately 12:34 a.m.  The manner and cause of death are under investigation by the Regional Medical Examiner’s office.

Brown’s death is Jersey City’s second homicide of the year.

The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit and the NJ Transit Police Department are actively investigating this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Office of the Hudson County Prosecutor at 201-915-1345 or to leave an anonymous tip here. All information will be kept confidential.

 

Crime Scene Tape
Aaron Morrill

Arrest Made in Light Rail Killing

January 29, 2022/in Greenville /by Aaron Morrill

A 37 year-old man has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a 49 year-old man last night at a Jersey City light rail station. No further details have been released.

According to Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez, Jersey City Police were called to the Danforth Ave. light rail station at approximately 11:47 p.m. yesterday on a report that an injured person was lying on the platform. There, they found a man, later identified as Kenneth Brown, with a stab wound to the upper body.

Brown was taken to Jersey City Medical center where he was pronounced dead at approximately 12:34 a.m.  The manner and cause of death are under investigation by the Regional Medical Examiner’s office.

Brown’s death is Jersey City’s second homicide of the year.

The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit and the NJ Transit Police Department are actively investigating this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Office of the Hudson County Prosecutor at 201-915-1345 or to leave an anonymous tip here. All information will be kept confidential.

 

Dickinson High School Jersey City 16x9
Andrea Crowley-Hughes

With Cases Down, Some Parents Push for Short-Term Remote Learning

January 29, 2022/in Education, header, Narrate, News /by Andrea Crowley-Hughes

At Thursday’s Board of Education meeting, Interim Jersey City Schools Superintendent Norma Fernandez reported that that only 98 out of the city’s roughly 28,000 public school students had tested positive for Covid-19 this week, a number she called “extremely encouraging.” However, a group of parents of students with medical vulnerabilities is asking for another option: short-term remote learning.

According to Fernandez, the district recently began offering students free, in-school saliva tests for Covid-19 if their parents opt in. Families can start participating in the program by registering with vendor Concentric.

“Once our students are more comfortable with the weekly testing, we will meet with our health professionals and administrators to develop a test-to-stay policy,” Fernandez added.

One such parent who spoke at the meeting is Shanna Givens, whose son suddenly developed asthma after having an asymptomatic case of Covid and now wheezes multiple times a day. Givens views Fernandez’s comments about the district’s low Covid percentages as “gaslighting” given that its Covid testing program is voluntary.

And, like other children with “Long Covid,“ Givens’ son now experiences chronic anxiety and fatigue, sometimes falling asleep in class, she said.

“I don’t think we realize how hard it is after having Covid,” Givens said.

Sabila Khan organized 20 parents with similar concerns to send a letter to the board and superintendent. She noted that all were “people of color…who are also dealing with complex physical and mental health issues.”

In 2020, Khan co-founded a Facebook group for those who have lost family and friends to Covid. Introducing herself as an “almost life-long resident of Jersey City” and mother of two P.S. 16 students, she said, “For my multi-generational household, which includes my elderly and frail mother, in-person learning is quite literally a matter of life and death.

Khan said her school sent a note to parents explaining that, while asynchronous options aren’t currently available, the board is “collecting data” from parents on the number of families interested in this option. Khan received her letter but says many other parents didn’t.

“Those who are in other schools informed me that they didn’t receive this notice,” Khan said. “If the goal of JCPS leadership was to reach the people who need this option the most, it didn’t work.”

At the meeting, Fernandez said the senior leadership team met to discuss the request of this group of parents, but that remote options are only available on an individual basis.

“Under the Road Forward health and safety guidance for the 2021-22 school year from the New Jersey Department of Education, school districts must have in-person instruction and operations,” Fernandez said.

“Remote is only an option for quarantined students for a short period of time or when student safety is not possible [in person] as we did for those two weeks in January,” she continued. “However, parents that have a concern due to medical reasons, should contact the school nurse and speak to their child’s pediatrician about requesting home instruction for the period of time that doctor recommends.”

The superintendent also addressed the district’s quarantine policy concerning unvaccinated individuals who have come into close contact with someone with Covid. Parents at the meeting pointed out that the district’s “safe return” quarantine policy of 14 days differs from the CDC’s most recent call for a five-to-10 day quarantine period.

Fernandez said the district is continuing to review the New Jersey Department of Health’s latest position and is considering shortening the K-12 quarantine period.

Under some circumstances, the district currently requires people to quarantine for as many as for 24 days. Fernandez said this affects “a limited number of students.”

“Vaccination for parents and students is a priority so that we can really move forward with putting a shorter quarantine and isolation,” the interim superintendent said.

Crime Scene Tape
Aaron Morrill

Man Killed at Light Rail Station

January 29, 2022/in Greenville, News /by Aaron Morrill

A 49 year-old man was fatally stabbed last night at a Jersey City light rail station.

According to Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez, Jersey City Police were called to the Danforth Ave. light rail station at approximately 11:47 p.m. yesterday on a report that an injured person was lying on the platform. There, they found a man, later identified as Kenneth Brown, with a stab wound to the upper body.

Brown was taken to Jersey City Medical center where he was pronounced dead at approximately 12:34 a.m.  The manner and cause of death are under investigation by the Regional Medical Examiner’s office.

Brown’s death is Jersey City’s second homicide of the year.

The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit and the NJ Transit Police Department are actively investigating this case. No arrests have been made at this time. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Office of the Hudson County Prosecutor at 201-915-1345 or to leave an anonymous tip here. All information will be kept confidential.

 

"Silver Glow" by Raisa Nosova
Tris McCall

Raisa Nosova shines in “Stripped” at PRIME Gallery

January 28, 2022/in Columns, Eye Level, header, Narrate /by Tris McCall

Raisa Nosova makes glass look tough. Not invulnerable, not shatter-proof, but nevertheless load-bearing and substantial, hefty, sturdy as marble, with its claim to permanence made apparent.  Nosova does this without stripping her favored material of its essential glass-ness — transparent, cool, smooth, and a little dangerous. A peg could slip. A glass sculpture might fall and break into fragments that you might step on. Glass challenges you to think about your responsibility to it. It asks you to consider the potential consequences of careless behavior.

This tension between fragility and strength is underscored and amplified by the subject of Nosova’s glass sculptures. The artist makes breasts — human breasts, in a human female size — out of glass, adorns them with decorations, and hangs them on white walls. Nosova’s mammary sculptures are central to “Stripped,” a forceful group show that will be on view at the PRIME Gallery (351 Palisade Ave. between Franklin and Ferry) for the next three months. Tess Hansen of Curate NJ and gallery director Maria Kosdan have positioned the sculpture to catch and refract the overhead light. The thickness and unevenness of the glass, its curved surfaces that mimic the bulges and recesses of musculature, and Nosova’s general refusal to make things smooth for the viewer means that light is broken up into little pools and eddies and curlicues. Illumination passing through the glass achieves the quality of water. The glass itself, supple as it looks, also achieves a fluid quality, too. Everything about the sculptures suggest liquidity, which is appropriate, since Raisa Nosova uses actual breast milk in her art.

Raisa Nosova

Raisa Nosova

This may all sound a little on the nose to you. As statements about female resilience and the worrisome fragility of human biology go, it’s hard to get more blatant than a glass breast. Two things rescue her work from obviousness, and mark her, unquestionably, as one of the best and most fearless artists working in Hudson County. First, the objects she crafts are undeniably beautiful, and often quite clever, too. Her sense of play is apparent in all of her pieces, and her sculptures hum with organic activity: bees alighted on drops of yellow honey, globules of milk suspended beneath the glass surface, flowers painted in acrylic on the underside of the mammary curves. All of this is a little destabilizing — pretend insects on pretend skin — and that is part of the sculptor’s point. In one piece, she sticks a brass spigot where a nipple should be. She’s not afraid to take her metaphors to their logical conclusion.

Which brings us to the second reason Raisa Nosova is indispensable: her unflinching commitment to her concept. At a time when visual artists are, too often, content to be merely decorative, Nosova is motivated, and she wears that motivation proudly. She refuses to hide from any of the unsettling implications of her pieces: all the trauma, bodily harm, vulnerability, emotional peril, and life-giving fluidity of womanhood and motherhood, is right there on the (see-through) surface. Given the alacrity that radiates from her pieces, you can bet that Nosova has thought all of this through. Nothing about her pieces feels accidental. Her work is a very specific response to actual human experiences that many people have had, and it’s a joy to see an artist express herself so clearly and with such confidence.

The other three artists in “Stripped” speak in complete sentences, too. Tali Rose specializes in collage, and her superimpositions of salacious magazine models atop fields of mushrooms and beds of flowers do make their points about the popular presentation of the female form. But I’m just as impressed by her backgrounds, which are often weaved, elaborately, from strips of white and black paper, and create a gaze-warping mesh. Her two best pieces don’t even have any pretty girls in them: they’re forest images in which the trees are virtually swallowed by their pulsing surroundings. Kat Block renders more conventional forest landscapes and invites an orange-white sun to blast through her stands of rail-narrow trees. Kiki Buccini, who calls herself CutPasteFace, is the purest collage artist of the four, and her mixed media prints of a small, elegant woman, behatted and dressed in red, treading carefully on narrow paths beneath massive celestial bodies reinforce the show’s themes of female persistence and the challenges of the woman’s journey.

Nosova has other work in “Stripped,” too: portraits of young women that straddle the line between sexy and utterly shattered. In “Silver Glow,” the most arresting piece in a very outspoken and attention-grabbing show, the subject of the portrait is beautiful, but the colors are all wrong: her skin is pale blue, her lips are canary yellow, and her eyes are flame red. Is she at a club, lit by stage gels, leading a suitor to the dance floor with one provocatively-raised eyebrow?  Or is it that this woman is malnourished and mangled by modern life, defiant, unbroken, daring the viewer to understand her?  “Silver Clown” provides a clue. Here, the energetically applied slashes of paint and the distant, dislocated look on the face of the woman depicted are less ambiguous and more obviously pained. Her arm is swung, defensively, in front of her, but her hand is cupped. Best of all is a modest gouache called “Yuki,” with a woman looking down, eyes closed, the red of her hair giving way to the dark blue of her garment. It’s a study in quiet dislocation, and it’s undeniably gorgeous.

These paintings are strongly reminiscent of other excellent portraits that hung in the PRIME Gallery last year. Mr Mustart and Clarence Rich are best known as muralists and outdoor artists, but “Polarity” showed that they could capture minute expressions, quite brilliantly, on canvas, too. Mustart and Rich show us faces and bodies that have come in contact with the challenges of life in the city; Raisa Nosova’s does something similar, but from a distinctly female perspective. In its acknowledgement of struggle, it’s realistic, in its depiction of the ennobling qualities of existence, it’s fundamentally heroic. Nosova knows: we’re going to get bruised out there.  What matters is standing as tough as you can, and as proud as you can, for as long as you can.

trismccall@gmail.com

 

Steel Tech Jersey City
Ron Leir

Council Sets Hearing on Controversial Development in Bergen-Lafayette

January 27, 2022/in Bergen Lafayette, header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Ron Leir

Also Creates City’s First “Women’s Advisory Board”

 

As expected, the City Council of Jersey City has cleared the way for a Feb. 9 public hearing on controversial changes to the Morris Canal Redevelopment Plan in Bergen-Lafayette.

On Jan. 26 the council approved a first reading of an ordinance adopting amendments to the plan. Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore and Ward E Councilman James Solomon were the lone dissenters.

If passed, the ordinance will allow Skyline Development Group and its principal, Louis Mont, to redevelop the industrial site known as “Steel Tech” at 417 Communipaw Ave.

Gilmore said he wanted “more discussion with the developer to get more clarity” about the project, particularly details related to a community center that would be part of the development.

In an email to the council, June Jones, a leader of community opposition to the project, urged the city’s lawmakers to table the vote given the city’s new ward map that removed the site from Ward F and its newly-elected representative, Gilmore.

“Be outraged” by the actions of the ward commission, Jones said, adding that it’s illustrative of the “cracking and packing” techniques used to dilute minority representation in the community.

The site now sits in Ward A, represented by Councilwoman Denise Ridley.

Plans call for a 17-story, 421-unit luxury high-rise, of which five percent would be reserved as “affordable” units; a 22,000-square-foot building housing a basketball court and spaces for other yet-to-be-determined recreational uses; and eight commercial “incubators” for minority-owned startup businesses.

But critics, including the Hudson County chapter of the Sierra Club, griped that the project’s density would overwhelm a neighborhood populated by one- and two-family homes. They also contended the project would infringe on land originally slated to extend the adjoining Berry Lane Park—an allegation denied by the city and the city Redevelopment Agency.

In December 2020 the City Council approved amendments to the Morris Canal Redevelopment Plan to accommodate the project. This prompted the Morris Canal Redevelopment Corp. to sue. In August 2021, a judge ordered the matter back to the city Planning Board to explain how the project conformed to elements of the city’s master plan. The Planning Board did so and then recommended the City Council ratify the plan.

In other business at its Jan. 26 session, the council adopted an ordinance creating a “Women’s Advisory Board” for Jersey City. The board would recommend policy and guidelines on such women’s issues as equal pay and childcare. It will have neither a budget nor any legal power. All board members must live in Jersey City; most are expected to be women.

Several public speakers commended the city for taking this step but cautioned that more forceful action was needed to achieve meaningful change.

Eiko LaBoria and Monica Meiterman-Rodriguez, leaders of the new grassroots group Jersey City Women said the board needed power and funding.

LaBoria said that women are the ones who are “most affected by the pandemic” in Jersey City, saying that women constituted 70 percent of the city’s frontline workers. She called the board’s formation a “big step” but added, “Any board with no money or power cannot be expected to perform at its highest level.”

In an email submitted to the city clerk, Tami Weaver-Henry said that, for too long, “women in Jersey City have felt like they’ve been muted,” but with the board’s creation, there’s a real chance that they can “feel stronger and safer now than ever before.”

In another email received by the clerk’s office, Chelsea Duffy, one of the organizers of the Jersey City Women’s Historical Committee, said the advisory board has her “full support…We need more consistency to make women’s voices heard.”

Council President Joyce Watterman, who pitched the advisory board proposal, said, “I know it needs funding,” but added that it was an important first step in the process of advocating for equity for women in Jersey City.

Ward A Councilwoman Denise Ridley agreed, saying, “This should have happened a long time ago.”

Councilwoman at-large Amy DeGise thanked LaBoria for her volunteer labors on behalf of the cause.

Some other matters on the council agenda that drew some heat were:

  • a resolution awarding a $30,000 contract to Sanpro LLC, of Lakewood, NJ, to remove and dispose of medical waste from the city’s municipally operated Covid-19 vaccination sites was approved by a 5-4 vote. Dissenting was Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh, who said that Bespoke, a New York firm contracted to manage those sites, should be paying for the service. Council members Watterman, Solomon, and Gilmore also voted “no.”
  • A resolution authorizing a settlement of a sexual abuse lawsuit brought by city employee Visitacion Sardinas against both the city and former city employee Vincent Caruso for $145,000. All council members voted to approve it except Gilmore, who abstained, saying he was reluctant to vote for such settlements without knowing what, if any, safeguards city managers have put in place to protect city employees from abuse. He was assured by acting city business administrator John Metro that the city has “revamped employee policies” in that area and invited Gilmore to bring up the matter in closed session for further discussion.
  • A resolution authorizing a $300,000 payment to the State Department of Military and Veteran Affairs permitting the city to use the National Guard Armory on Montgomery Street for youth recreation programs. Ward C Councilman Richard Boggiano voted “yes” but asked city staffers to find out why St. Joseph’s School’s request to use the armory for basketball had been turned down. The authorization was approved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jersey City Council Chambers
Aaron Morrill

Bucking the Trend, Jersey City Requires Presence at Council Meetings

January 27, 2022/in header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Aaron Morrill

In another sign that the world may be slowly getting back to normal, this week after two years of meeting online, the Jersey City Municipal Council returned to City Hall. However, unlike neighbors Newark and Hoboken, Jersey City isn’t giving its residents the option of participating from home.

Marilyn Baer, communications manager for Hoboken, told the Jersey City Times yesterday that when in-person meetings resume, “[They] will have hybrid meetings, which will allow residents to attend council meetings virtually or in person.”

Mile Square City isn’t alone. Newark City Clerk Kenneth Louis told JCT that it was Brick City’s intention to offer a video simulcast of council meetings immediately upon return to their physical space and full audio-video participation as soon as they acquire the appropriate system.

Jersey City has no such plans.  When asked on Tuesday whether Jersey City would offer hybrid meetings, an aide to Council President Joyce Watterman was told to respond with an emphatic no. “Meetings will be in person” Watterman, reportedly said.

Jersey City Ward Commission Meeting

Saturday’s hybrid ward commission meeting

It’s not a position that sits well with some.

Responding to a Facebook post announcing yesterday’s meeting, Maria Ross asked, “Can meetings be hybrid? There are more JC residents now attending and participating in virtual meetings than can fit in socially distanced City Hall.”

Melissa Diller echoed Ross. “Wouldn’t the goal be to have MORE residents involved in our city? A virtual option allows anyone to be able to tune in and see what is going on.”

“Live stream interactive option is critical to all Jersey City residents!” said Mandar Mirashi.

Though there seems little interest at City Hall in hybrid meetings, the technology to have them and the skill to use it does exist. Saturday’s Ward Commission meeting which featured hundreds of comments from residents both in person and online, went off without a hitch. Indeed, some noted that the audio quality was better at home than in the council chambers.

Unsurprisingly, the two independent council members have taken a different view from Watterman, who heads up the council majority aligned with Mayor Fulop. When asked if the City Council should go hybrid, Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore responded, “I think we should make every effort to get it done.” And Ward E Councilman James Solomon agreed. “They should be hybrid. City Council can work to provide the clerk’s office with the resources they need to accomplish that soon.”

 

 

 

 

148 Mallory Ave. Jersey City
Aaron Morrill

Philadelphia Hitman Named in Murder of Jersey City Political Operative

January 26, 2022/in header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Aaron Morrill

U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger has named one of the hitmen in the 2014 killing of 52 year-old Michael Galdieri, son of former State Sen. James Galdieri (D-Jersey City).

And today, that man, Bomani Africa, a/k/a “Baxter Keys,” pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire before U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez.

Africa was, according to the announcement, recruited by a conspirator from Connecticut in April 2014.

Several news outlets have reported that the Connecticut conspirator is named George Bratsenis, a former cellmate of Africa’s.

Political consultant Sean Caddle, 44, of Hamburg, New Jersey, who pleaded guilty in connection with Galdieri’s murder yesterday, first approached the unidentified conspirator from Connecticut about committing a murder for “thousands of dollars.”

Once both hitmen had signed on to the job, Caddle identified his former associate Galdieri, as the target.

On May 22, Africa and the conspirator from Connecticut went to Galdieri’s home on Mallory Ave. in Jersey City and stabbed him to death. Afterwards, they set the apartment on fire.

The following day, when Caddle learned that Galdieri had been murdered, he met the conspirator from Connecticut in the parking lot of a diner in Elizabeth and paid him thousands of dollars. That individual, in turn, share a portion of those proceeds with Africa.

Sean Caddle

Sean Caddle

In 1986, Africa was convicted on three counts of first-degree robbery, one count of aggravated assault, and one count of drug distribution. The court sentenced him to an aggregate term of fifty years, with a twenty-five-year period of parole ineligibility.

Galdieri had worked on the campaigns of former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, Mayor Bret Schundler and Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski and for Caddle’s consulting group.

In 2005 he ran for Jersey City’s Ward B city council seat. According to a 2014 article in the Hudson Reporter, Galdieri was arrested on drug and weapon charges on the eve of the election. After taking a plea deal and then attempting back out, saying he was set up, he spent two years in prison.

At the time of the murder, County Commissioner Bill O’Dea told the Jersey Journal that Galdieri was “a friendly, regular guy.”

Caddle worked as an aide to former State Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and headed up several super PACs to funnel dark money into local races.  Caddle was executive director of the group Houston Votes which was accused of collecting fraudulent voter registration cards. According to the New York Times, he worked as a political consultant for Senator Robert Menendez when he was a congressman, from 2003 until early 2005, and billed almost $100,000.

Lesniak told the New York Times that Caddle was a “teddy bear” and had saved him from electoral defeat in 2011.

“This was a callous and violent crime, and this defendant is as responsible as the two men who wielded the knife,” U.S. Attorney Sellinger said. “There is no more serious crime than the taking of another person’s life. The defendant has admitted arranging and paying for a murder by two other people. His admission of guilt means he will now pay for his crime.”

Yesterday Caddle pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire before U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez. He faces a maximum potential penalty of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

Judge Vazquez allowed Caddle to remain out on $1 million unsecured bond, home detention with electronic monitoring and travel restrictions.

Africa faces a maximum potential penalty of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for June 7, 2022.

Photo courtesy of Google 

148 Mallory Ave. Jersey City
Aaron Morrill

Consultant Pleads Guilty in Murder of Jersey City Political Operative

January 25, 2022/in header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Aaron Morrill

This story has been updated here.

A well-known political consultant pleaded guilty today in connection with the murder-for-hire of a Jersey City political operative in 2014.

The consultant, Sean Caddle, 44, of Hamburg, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire before U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez.

According to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger, Caddle admitted to hiring two men to kill a longtime associate who had worked for him on various political campaigns.

While Sellinger did not disclose the name of the victim, news accounts indicate that the victim was 52 year-old Michael Galdieri, the son of former State Sen. James Galdieri (D-Jersey City), who was murdered in 2014.

Sean Caddle

Sean Caddle

According to court documents, in April, 2014 Caddle hired an unidentified conspirator from Connecticut to kill Galdieri. Caddle paid the Connecticut conspirator “several thousand dollars in cash up front.” The Connecticut conspirator, in turn, hired a second unidentified conspirator from Pennsylvania to assist in the killing.

On May 22, the two conspirators went to Galdieri’s home on Mallory Ave. in Jersey City and stabbed him to death. Afterwards, they set the apartment on fire.

The following day, when Caddle learned that the Galdieri had been murdered, he met the conspirator from Connecticut in the parking lot of a diner in Elizabeth and paid him thousands of dollars. That individual, in turn, share shared a portion of those proceeds with the conspirator from Pennsylvania.

Galdieri had worked on the campaigns of former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, Mayor Bret Schundler and Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski and for Caddle’s consulting group.

In 2005 he ran for Jersey City’s Ward B city council seat. According to a 2014 article in the Hudson Reporter, Galdieri was arrested on drug and weapon charges on the eve of the election. After taking a plea deal and then attempting back out, saying he was set up, he spent two years in prison.

At the time of the murder, County Commissioner Bill O’Dea told the Jersey Journal that Galdieri was “a friendly, regular guy.”

Caddle worked as an aide to former State Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and headed up several super PACs to funnel dark money into local races.  Caddle was executive director of the group Houston Votes which was accused of collecting fraudulent voter registration cards. According to the New York Times, he worked as a political consultant for Senator Robert Menendez when he was a congressman, from 2003 until early 2005, and billed almost $100,000.

Lesniak told the New York Times that Caddle was a “teddy bear” and had saved him from electoral defeat in 2011.

“This was a callous and violent crime, and this defendant is as responsible as the two men who wielded the knife,” U.S. Attorney Sellinger said. “There is no more serious crime than the taking of another person’s life. The defendant has admitted arranging and paying for a murder by two other people. His admission of guilt means he will now pay for his crime.”

Caddle faces a maximum potential penalty of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

Judge Vazquez allowed Caddle to remain out on $1 million unsecured bond, home detention with electronic monitoring and travel restrictions.

Photo courtesy of Google 

Page 1 of 512345

News Briefs

Art House’s INKubator program is an eight-month generative playwriting process for a select group of playwrights-in-residence in Jersey City, culminating in the annual INKubator New Play Festival in May.

Playwrights will meet as a group and in-person monthly from October 2022 to May 2023 alongside program director Alex Tobey to share new pages, receive feedback, and develop the first draft of a brand new play. At the end of the process in May, each writer will team up with a professional director and actors to present a public staged reading, part of the annual INKubator New Play Festival.  For more info, go here.

There is no fee to apply.  The deadline to submit is Thursday, September 1 at 11:59PM EST.  All applicants will be notified of their status by the end of September.

Councilmember James Solomon announced his new staff hires for the Ward E office. They will manage the day-to-day operations of the office and ensure constituent requests are fulfilled. New staff includes Kristel Mejia-Asqui, Director of Constituent Services, Brandon Syphrett, Outreach Director and Issac Smith, Legislative/Political Director.

 

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