What happens if she loses tomorrow?

The trial in the matter of Raymaker v. Lopez will take place on Monday, October 26, 9:00 a.m. the Honorable Maurice Gallipoli's courtroom, Room 908 in the administration building (i.e., new courthouse) on Newark Avenue.

Quote:

So, she was registered to vote in two states? Is there a law being broken here seeing how her NJ votes are fraudulent?

I just can't see how she will win this case?

Being on the receiving end of Diana Jeffrey's expertise on the matters of fighting corruption or fraud is not a position that Boehringer, I mean Lopez, wants to be.

Trial on Lopez residency will begin next week

[from "The Jersey Journal," Monday, October 19, 2009]

Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez will stand trial to defend her residency.

Superior Court Judge Maurice Gallipoli declined on Friday to dismiss the civil case against Lopez, who is accused of having a primary residence in Florida, thus invalidating her election to serve on Municipal Council. The trial will begin next Monday, October 26th.

Lopez' attorney William Northgrave did not return a call seeking comment.

Jimmy King, who lost the May 2009 election to Lopez, filed the lawsuit this summer arguing Lopez should not be able to serve. King later dropped the suit after pleading guilty to corruption charges, but another runner-up, Norrice Raymaker, had filed to join the case.

Lopez attempted to have the case dismissed, saying it was filed after the 30-day deadline to contest the ballot and that Raymaker could not take over the case for King.

Diana Jeffrey, the attorney representing Raymaker, said both of Lopez' claims were dismissed. The judge ruled that the 30-day limit could be waived because Lopez uses the name Nidia Boehringer in Florida and King could not have known that before the election. Jeffrey said the judge also ruled that Raymaker could intervene because she was also a candidate and joined the suit before King withdrew.

The suit alleges that Lopez was registered to vote in Florida, has a Florida driver's license, and has claimed her Orlando home as her permanent residence on tax forms since 2000 in order to get a tax break.

According to statute, Lopez had to have her primary residence in Jersey City for at least a year before the May 12 election to serve on the Council.

In court documents Northgrave has argued that Lopez has lived at 66 Corbin Ave. since "at least 2000," and that she has consistently voted in New Jersey elections since 2001.

- Melissa Hayes

"Northgrave said that Lopez never canceled her Florida voter registration because she believed that when she registered to vote in New Jersey it would void her Florida registration." She is really playing the dumb card and sadly it seem she is gonna get away with it.

If I got caught not filing for NJ taxes based on owning / claiming residency in FL and never being there (something I could easy do with family still down there) the IRS/courts would rip me a new one...

Someone should check her insurance policies. ha.

Jersey City councilwoman's lawyer asks court to dismiss challenge to client's residency

By Amy Sara Clark/The Jersey Journal
September 24, 2009, 8:47PM

Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez is fighting a lawsuit claiming she violated residency laws when she ran for office. Her lawyer filed a legal brief claiming she met all requirements.
Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez lives in Jersey City and a court challenge to her residency should be dismissed, according to brief Lopez's attorney has given the court.

William Northgrave, Lopez's attorney, argues in the brief submitted a week ago Sept. 18 that Lopez received more votes in the May 12 City Council election than the five other candidates combined, and that nobody challenged Lopez's right to run for office until after she won.

Lopez has lived at 66 Corbin Ave. since "at least 2000," and has been registered to vote there since 2001, the brief states.
Northgrave says in the brief that Lopez will pay more than $30,000 in back taxes and penalties to Florida for having filed for a homestead exemption for her property in Orlando.
Norrice Raymaker, who ran against Lopez in May, joined the lawsuit against Lopez in August. The suit was initially filed by Jimmy King, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges yesterday and came in second in the contest.

Lopez owns a home in Orlando that she has been claiming as her primary residence to get a break on Florida property taxes since 1997. She is registered to vote in both Jersey City and Orlando.

In a deposition Aug. 31, Lopez acknowledged that she hasn't paid New Jersey income tax in at least three years but filed federal taxes as a Florida resident in 2006 and 2007 and filed there for an extension for filing her 2008 federal taxes. Florida does not have a state income tax.

Northgrave said that Lopez never canceled her Florida voter registration because she believed that when she registered to vote in New Jersey it would void her Florida registration.

+1 Muffintops

After 10 years in Miami Beach I returned to NJ and suffered the major increase in taxes but that's part of the price you pay to live in the wonderful Garden State. I'm no CPA but this is the one HUGE issue that ANYONE who becomes an ex-resident of Florida quickly becomes aware of (I think my dog was even aware of it).
I know LOTS of people try to evade their NJ/NY/wherever taxes after enjoying those FL perks, but that doesn't make it right. Lopez got caught and should be in jail, not trying to have this dismissed by the court. But, as someone wrote earlier, it sounds like her lawyer is just buying time...

muffintops wrote:
....the letter informing Lopez of her mistake ?recognizes that taxpayers are often not aware of the legal requirements for the exemption,? Northgrave wrote....

Even me, a joe-ette schmoe regular working person who's from Florida (who moved to NJ about 5 years ago) knows that you can't use FL to get out of paying your NJ state income taxes and milk those lovely FL resident perks (there are quite a few). I knew it from day one. She committed tax fraud - why isn't she in prison?

....the letter informing Lopez of her mistake ?recognizes that taxpayers are often not aware of the legal requirements for the exemption,? Northgrave wrote....

Even me, a joe-ette schmoe regular working person who's from Florida (who moved to NJ about 5 years ago) knows that you can't use FL to get out of paying your NJ state income taxes and milk those lovely FL resident perks (there are quite a few). I knew it from day one. She committed tax fraud - why isn't she in prison?

Quote:

That explanation should run neck and neck with the explanation of voting in both places.

I'd be curious to know if any of the elections she voted twice in were national ballots....

RECALL... This has gone on long enough. Friggin embarrassing.

Quote:

It's always the taxes that do you in. Remember Al Capone.
U.S. Attorney Marra and FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Dun must be following this with great interest. Ms. Lopez is married to a high ranking County Official who may be able to shed some insight on his wife's negligence. This gets hotter day by day.

Quote:

He's praying for a dismissal based solely on expired statute of limitation. In that case he won't have to explain the income taxes. If this goes to trial, noway to explain the Florida income taxes and she could kiss her seat goodbye.

Really, how can you know the pain of your constituents regarding the state's high cost of living if you don't pay NJ car insurance nor income taxes. Who'd think calling her a carpet-bagger, although a lie, would be a huge compliment.

Also, since she has been a NJ resident for so long, NJ should collect back taxes.

I'm looking forward to Mr. Northgrave's explanation on Mrs. Lopez's decision to claim Florida residency for income tax purposes. That should be enlightening. It will be interesting to hear how a woman could accidentally file income tax returns in the same wrong state nine years in a row.

Lopez's attorney again seeks residency suit's dismissal

[from PolitickerNJ.com, September 21, 2009, 1:13 p.m.]

Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez will pay thousands of dollars the State of Florida claims she owes because she is, in fact, a Jersey City resident, her attorney argued in a brief submitted Friday.

The attorney, William Northgrave, says that Lopez mistakenly continued to claim a homestead exemption on her Orlando, Fla. house that was intended only for permanent Florida residents after she moved to Jersey City in 2000. She has ?taken steps to correct that error? and will pay more than $30,000 the state says she owes in back taxes and penalties. Even the letter informing Lopez of her mistake ?recognizes that taxpayers are often not aware of the legal requirements for the exemption,? Northgrave wrote.

Lopez, who overwhelmingly won the May election to represent Ward C on the Jersey City Council ? becoming the city?s first Latina councilwoman ? is fighting to hold on to her council seat over allegations that she is technically a Florida resident. In the brief, Northgrave seeks dismissal of the lawsuit on the grounds that Lopez has been a Jersey City resident since ?at least? 2000 and that it was filed well past the 30 days statute of limitations for challenging election results.

The case is set to go to trial in Hudson County Superior Court on October 26.

The suit was originally filed in late June by Jimmy King, a civic activist who finished second behind in the May election. After King was arrested on corruption charges in July, good government reformer Norrice Raymaker ? who also ran in May and finished third ? picked up where he left off.

In the brief, Northgrave argues that Lopez, despite being registered to vote in both New Jersey and Florida, has not voted in Florida since 1997 ?to the best of her recollection.?

?She believed, mistakenly, tahat her registration in New Jersey would have voided her registration in Florida,? wrote Northgrave.

Lopez has denied casting an absentee ballot in a 2003 election for mayor of Orlando, although Florida officials told the Jersey Journal that they have a record of the vote and that the ballot?s signature seems to match Lopez?s. She registered to vote in New Jersey in 2001 at the Corbin Avenue address she shares with her husband, Hudson County Director of Family Services Ben Lopez, and has voted from there 17 times.

Moreover, Northgrave argues, 24 of Lopez?s Corbin Avenue neighbors signed her nominating petitions for council.

Northgrave cited several precedents that showed candidates allowed to run despite more dramatic examples of residency issues, noting that courts generally interpret election law liberally to avoid voter disenfranchisement. In supporting that argument, he notes twice that Lopez, who ran on Mayor Jerramiah Healy's well-funded slate, got 100 votes more than her five opponents combined.

And although Raymaker knew that Lopez owned the Florida home as early as January, she did not challenge her until King was arrested, Northgrave argues.

Northgrave?s brief did not reference the fact that Lopez filed her income taxes in Florida ? where there is no state income tax ? despite testifying at a deposition that her business, Nidia Boehringer Consulting, operates exclusively in New Jersey.

?The discovery process has only raised more questions about Mrs. Lopez?s residency. It doesn?t answer them, and we believe the voters deserve a trial,? said Diana Jeffrey, who represents Raymaker.

Jeffrey, noted that Northgrave has used the statute of limitations argument before, when he tried to keep Raymaker from taking over the suit. Without any new information, she said, it would likely be rejected for a second time.

?It sounds to me like Northgrave is really just laying the foundation for an appeal,? she said. ?The issue of whether or not we have the right to intervene has already been decided by the court.?

-- Matt Friedman

I wonder if I would be arrested for throwing french fries at Nidia Lopez during tonight's Council meeting to protest her illegitimate presence on the City Council. Maybe I should throw my NJ tax files instead...
[quote]

[quote]Lopez: Yes. I once fell on a French fry in Orlando, Florida in the House of Pancakes.

And how smart can Healy be for making her part of his Team...just shows the poor quality of our elected officials. Team Healy certainly not the sharpest tools in the shed. We can only hope Jersey City residents wake the hell up and stop voting these clowns into office.

Crazy_Chester wrote:
Quote:

Quote:


This woman is beyond stupid.

Quote:

Are you sure you didn't fall on a whole bunch of french fries?

She falls down a lot...and gets paid for it.

"Myerowitz: Have you ever been involved in any lawsuits as a plaintiff?
Lopez: Does this mean I am being sued or I am suing? "

Doesn't know what a "plaintiff" is?
Go back to Disneyworld you moron and stay there!

She musta killed that french fry dead for sure.

Lopez once fell on a french fry

[from PolitickerNJ.com, September 4, 2009, 10:20 a.m.]

From the transcript of Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez's deposition with attorney Howard Myerowitz, who is representing her former opponent, Norrice Raymaker, in a lawsuit that charges that Lopez is technically a Florida resident:

Myerowitz: Have you ever been involved in any lawsuits as a plaintiff?

Lopez: Does this mean I am being sued or I am suing?

Myerowitz: That means you are suing somebody else.

Lopez: Yes. I once fell on a French fry in Orlando, Florida in the House of Pancakes.

Myerowitz: When was that?

Lopez: 1990-something, maybe 1995, I don't know, in the nineties. Another lawsuit was in New Jersey with Evelyn Padin with a pair of shoes that I fell.

-- Wally Edge

The clock is ticking big time on Healy hence the nervous condition and facial outbreaks.

She's just a token political hack. I think we're getting away from the fact that the man who runs this city fully backs her - still!!!
http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/jerse ... 52131920307160.xml&coll=3

And hey, while we're on the subject of Healy, can we talk about the fact that he was raided the day before the FBI made the 44 Solomon Dwek arrests, and somehow Healy himself avoided being picked up?
FBI DROPPED IN [on Healy]http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index ... 52131936307160.xml&coll=3

Nidia is an enigma. Will it be Jersey City or Orlando? Ward C or Ward F?

Someone saw Nidia Lopez make an appearance with a photographer at a Ward F community event last weekend? Is she taking up residency in Ward F now?

Mr. Northgrave's smug reply that he need only prove Ms. Lopez resided in Jersey City for the year prior to her election may be legally grounded but this is one mess that will only snowball it's way toward Gator Alley. Questions are beginning to surface about taxes, single or joint returns, cars registered in Florida, taking husband's name 6 weeks before election and so on & so on. I'm sure the feds have smelled this out in Newark. The clambake is on.

My doctor is in Manhattan. Doesn't make me a NY resident.

She either committed tax fraud or is wasn't a resident of NJ when she ran. Take your pick Nadia.

Yes, it stinks, bad. But Lopez is just the bad smell. The real rot is somewhere else in that building. What'cha gonna do about that?

some thoughts here: http://blogcityblog.com/

NO N.J. TAXES
Lopez's deposition: Files federal taxes from Florida
Friday, September 04, 2009
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Embattled Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez hasn't filed taxes in New Jersey for the last three years.

Instead, according to the transcript of a deposition provided to The Jersey Journal last night, Lopez filed federal taxes as a Florida resident in 2006 and 2007 and filed there for an extension for filing her 2008 federal taxes.
Advertisement

Lopez's residency is the subject of a lawsuit being pressed by Norrice Raymaker, the third-place finisher in May's Ward C council race.

Statutes require Jersey City City Council members to have been full-time residents of the city for at least a year prior to the municipal election, which this year was held May 12.

Jimmy King, who came in second in the Ward C race, filed the lawsuit against Lopez. But he has since been arrested on corruption charges and dropped the case. Raymaker and her attorney, Diana Jeffrey, have picked up the baton.

"She (Lopez) doesn't pay any New Jersey taxes at all. None. Period," Jeffrey said last night.

"It's pretty hard to claim that you live in the state of New Jersey if you don't pay taxes here."

Lopez was deposed Monday, Jeffrey said.

According to the transcript, Lopez said she didn't officially change her name to Lopez until March 31, six weeks before the City Council election in May.

She also said that the cars of both her and her husband, Hudson County Health and Human Services Director Ben Lopez, are not registered in New Jersey; and that she "just" opened up personal bank accounts in New Jersey, except for one savings account that "had no significant money in it."

She does have bank accounts in Florida, she said, adding she spends one week a month in her Florida home.

Lopez also said she's been seeing a family doctor in Secaucus since 1997.

Lopez's attorney, William Northgrave, said he only has to prove that Lopez had been a full-time resident of Jersey City for the year before her election, which he said will be no problem.

"The fact that she didn't pay taxes in (New Jersey in) 2006 and 2007 is completely irrelevant to the case. The only thing that's relevant is whether she was a resident of Jersey City, N.J., for one year prior to May 12, 2009," he said.

Lopez, 59, owns a four-bedroom house that she has been claiming as her primary residence to get a break on Florida property taxes since 1997. She is registered to vote in both Jersey City and Orlando and didn't obtain a New Jersey driver's license until June.

In July, the state of Florida slapped her with a $30,473.59 bill after deciding she wasn't entitled to certain tax breaks reserved for property owners whose primary residence is in the Sunshine State.

Lawyer says Jersey City Councilwoman maintains separate identities in N.J. and Florida

[from PolitickerNJ.com, September 3, 2009, 12:05 p.m.]

An attorney for an unsuccessful Jersey City council candidate says that the city's current Ward C Councilwoman has two identities: Nidia Lopez, the Jersey City resident and politician, and Nidia Boehringer, the Florida resident and taxpayer.

"She's gone to great lengths to maintain these different personas and make it look like she lived in both places," said Diana Jeffrey, who represents Norrice Raymaker -- the third place Ward C Council candidate in the May municipal election -- in her lawsuit that charges Lopez is actually a Florida resident.

Jeffrey deposed Lopez on Monday, and while the transcript of the deposition will not be available until tonight, she shared some of her findings.

Among the most startling, according to Jeffrey, was Lopez's disclosure that she files her taxes in Florida, where there is no state income tax, even though she says her business -- Nidia Boehringer Consulting -- is based in New Jersey. Jeffrey said that Lopez has not paid New Jersey income taxes since at least 2006.

"She avoids paying New Jersey income tax by relying on her Florida persona," said Jeffrey. "She maintained under oath that New Jersey is her primary residence, and admitted under oath that Nidia Boehringer Consultants operates exclusively in New Jersey, that she works exclusively in New Jersey, but that she files her tax returns in Florida under the name Boehringer."

Lopez has been under scrutiny since June, when Jimmy King, the second place candidate for her council seat in the May municipal election, filed suit alleging that she was a resident of the Sunshine State. The crux of his case was that Lopez took property exemptions on her Florida home that required her to be a permanent resident of that state. Florida has since charged tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes that state authorities says Lopez owes for incorrectly taking for the exemptions.

After King was arrested on corruption charges less than a month after filing the suit, Raymaker, who ran on the reform "One Jersey City Slate,' took the case over. King technically remains a co-plaintiff, but is expected to withdraw.

Jeffrey said that Lopez refinanced her Orlando home in March, 2008 with the name Nidia Boehringer -- the last name of her ex-husband, Karl -- and claimed it as her primary residence. In a July brief on behalf of Lopez, attorney William Northgrave argued that Lopez -- whose last name comes from her current husband, former Jersey City councilman Ben Lopez -- has been a permanent resident of Jersey City since at least April,2008, and that she was until this year registered to vote there under her maiden name, Rivera.

Lopez told Jeffrey that she typically spends three weeks of every month in Jersey City and one week in Orlando. When Jeffrey asked why Lopez claimed the Orlando home as a primary residence as recently as March,2008, Lopez told her she did not read the mortgage documents.

"Which is really comforting when you think that she's a councilwoman entrusted with making decisions affecting thousands of constituents, that she signs legal documents she doesn't read," said Jeffrey.

Northgrave declined to comment on the specific points Jeffrey raised, preferring to address them in a legal brief that he will file within the next couple weeks.

"I'm outraged that this apparently has nothing to do with legality. She's calling up reporters two days after the deposition instead of trying to litigate her case in court, that's outrageous," he said. (PolitickerNJ.com initially reached out to Jeffrey). "The legal issue is that she needs to be a resident of New Jersey for one year, and there is not a scintilla of evidence that she was not a resident of New Jersey for one year prior to the election."

-- Matt Friedman

_______________________________

Claims that Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez lives in Florida grow

[from "The Jersey Journal, September 3, 2009, 1:51 p.m.]

As you know, Norrice Raymaker, who lost her bid for the Ward C City Council seat to Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Lopez is suing to remove Lopez from the council, claiming that the councilwoman actually maintains her primary residence in Florida.

Raymaker's attorney, Diana Jeffrey, argues that not only does Lopez have a home in Florida, but that she has an entire second identity there. Yesterday, Jeffrey told The Jersey Journal that Lopez pays NO income tax in New Jersey, filing instead in Florida where there is no income tax.

"She avoids paying New Jersey income tax by relying on her Florida persona," Jeffrey told PolitickerNJ.com. "She maintained under oath that New Jersey is her primary residence, and admitted under oath that Nidia Boehringer Consultants operates exclusively in New Jersey, that she works exclusively in New Jersey, but that she files her tax returns in Florida under the name Boehringer."

We are awaiting a return phone call from Lopez, or her attorney, William Northgrave, for comment.

Jimmy King, who came in second in the race, originally filed the suit, but it was taken over by Raymaker after King was arrested in the July 23 FBI corruption sweep.

-- Amy Sara Clark