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That's a very good question! I'd love to know the answer.

This is disgusting. Healy takes taxpayer money as bribes, then when he gets caught says he'll give the money to charity, and then welshes on that phony promise.

Even if you believe their "accounting" that they only received $16,000, and if every nickel they gave to "charity" was to pay that back, they're still way short. In fact, if you look closely, I'll bet you find that most of the "donations" were actually campaign spending, tickets to banquets and ads in souvenir journals.

What a pathetic wreck.

Healy's team actually returned some of the government money back over to Jack Shaw's estate (since he passed away shortly after he was arrested) since he "donated" beyond the legal contribution limit... that means the beneficiaries of Shaw's estate actually got some of the Dwek money back. I wonder if Team Healy considers this a "charitable" donation?

T-Bird raises an interesting point: Why didn't the Feds insist on getting the public's money back after the sting was over? It doesn't seem right that Healy gets to decide what to do with it.

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No I don?t. Crime should obviously not go unpunished, but I think it?s important that crime not be deliberately orchestrated by law enforcement. The cost of living in a free country is that the policeman's job is not easy.

Or more to the point - it was the GOVERNMENT'S MONEY, not Solomon Dwek's. Why is Healy allowed to (pretend to) donate it to charity for political gain? That money belongs to the government and that is who Healy should be writing the check to, you know, when he actually gets around to returning the money.

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You don't think exposing a ring of public corruption is worth the cost? I think it was money well spent. The pols who took the money BELIEVED it was Dwek's money.

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Healy may be corrupt and I'm not about to make an argument either way, but insisting on calling it "Dwek's bribe money" is a disservice to the truth. It was the FBI's show, but somehow neither the public nor the press has expressed much criticism over giving our money to a politician during an election campaign. If we're going to care that he took it, we should care that it was given to him in the first place.

Foe challenges Jersey City mayor's assertion that all money from Dwek donated to charity

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal The Jersey Journal
on January 15, 2013 at 8:00 AM, updated January 15, 2013 at 8:10 AM Print


Where?s the money?

Four years ago, Mayor Jerramiah Healy, smarting from a federal sting that landed a number of Healy loyalists in prison on charges that they accepted corrupt campaign cash from a confidential informant, pledged to donate the dirty money to charity.


After inquiries by The Jersey Journal, the mayor said in August 2009 that his campaign determined it received $17,600 from informant Solomon Dwek and would give away that amount to charity to ?make sure there is not even a hint of uncertainty and to ensure the confidence we have in ourselves is shared with our contributors and the public at large.?


But campaign documents filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) in the months following Healy?s pledge contain no evidence that the mayor followed through with that promise, while the total number of charitable donations from the Healy campaign made between the July 23, 2009 corruption sweep and today amount to only about $16,000.


Two reports filed in October and December 2009, the only post-election reports filed that year, have zero entries for charitable donations. The four reports filed in 2010 have only about $7,000 in charitable donations, while the four 2011 reports list about $5,000, almost all donations in small amounts of a few hundred dollars each.


It?s no secret that mayoral aspirant Steve Fulop, the Downtown councilman, plans to tie Healy to Dwek, whose secretly recorded meetings with such officials as former deputy mayor Leona Beldini captivated Hudson County and helped to send Beldini, former councilman Mariano Vega and others to prison.


Dwek handed over FedEx envelopes filled with cash to the officials in exchange for promises that they would assist him for his purported real-estate ventures, and some of the cash was then funneled to Healy?s campaign.


Fulop is now hammering the mayor?s campaign over Dwek?s donations, saying in a statement that the mayor has shown ?how little he cares about the caustic effect of pay-to-play in our city.?


Healy?s camp insists it did indeed donate Dwek?s contributions it now says the total it received from Dwek was only $16,000 in small amounts over the course of several years instead of in one lump sum after Healy?s 2009 pledge.


Campaign spokesman Joshua Henne provided a list of 43 charities, including various Little Leagues and the Puerto Rican Heritage Festival & Parade, that he said received donations ranging from $50 to $1,100 each. Dates of the donations were not provided.


?Mayor Healy said he?d donate the money to charitable organizations in Jersey City, he made good on that promise, and ELEC reflects this fact,? said Henne. ?Shame on Steve Fulop for another one of his patented, desperate attacks with zero merit. Once again, Fulop confirms he?ll do or say anything to seize power at all costs.?

Fulop campaign spokesman Bruno Tedeschi responded by saying it?s ?now clear Healy never gave back the money.?

?Using Dwek?s tainted money to promote himself politically is not the same as giving back the money like he promised to do four years ago,? Tedeschi said. ?His cleansing donations were the same after he received Dwek?s bribe money as they were before. It is just one more example of a Healy lie.?


http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index ... nges_jersey_city_may.html