Joseph DiVincenzo.
Longtime Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and his treasurer have paid New Jersey election law regulators a little more than $20,000 in penalties to resolve allegations that they failed to properly report campaign contributions and improperly spent other funds.
According to a consent order released Wednesday by the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, DiVincenzo and his treasurer, Jorge Martinez, paid ELEC $20,446.60 on Nov. 20. The next day, in a 3-0 vote, the ELEC commissioners agreed to accept that payment to resolve the claims, the order said.
The commissioners previously had determined that DiVincenzo and Martinez had violated state campaign finance laws and regulations, and ordered them to pay $25,558.25 in penalties. DiVincenzo and Martinez will not be required to pay the difference between the two amounts, the order said.
Along the way, the long-running case yielded an appeal and a published ruling on the extent of ELEC’s investigative authority while lacking a full complement of commissioners.
The original ELEC complaint alleged that DiVincenzo, a Democrat first elected in 2003, failed to properly report $72,000 in contributions, and that he improperly spent $16,000 for purchases of clothes, trips to Houston and Puerto Rico, and tickets to sporting events. He could have been fined up to $4.5 million under law, according to ELEC.
The settlement was finalized not long before DiVincenzo announced his reelection campaign.
Angelo Genova, the attorney representing DiVincenzo and Martinez, said in a statement that the settlement was fair.
“We are pleased to have mutually resolved these matters with the commission,” said Genova, of Newark’s Genova Burns. “This has been a textbook case on how the rules on permissible campaign fund expenditures for all candidates and public officials remain gray and not black-and-white.
“The county executive believes the settlement is fair under all the circumstances and avoids the expense of further litigation,” Genova said.
In September, the Appellate Division ruled that ELEC could proceed with an investigation into the alleged violations. The court’s published decision overturned a ruling by Administrative Law Judge Jeff Masin, who said an ELEC investigation could not be pursued without a bipartisan quorum of commissioners.
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