Pubdate: Thu, 13 Nov 2014
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Column: NJ Weedman's Passing the Joint
Copyright: 2014 The Trentonian
Contact:  http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Edward Forchion, NJWeedman.com For The Trentonian

THE PERJURY PLOTTERS

The next time you smoke a joint and pass it to your buddy on the 
couch, contemplate this:

Criminal actions and thefts occur daily all over New Jersey, right in 
municipal courthouses. And the thieves and hooligans aren't the ones 
being put in handcuffs or fined. They're the ones in the black robes 
who have allied themselves in a criminal conspiracy with their 
cohorts in thievery the municipal court jester (prosecutor) and 
public pretenders (defenders) to bypass state law and usurp state 
funds for themselves. Using perjured testimony.

Pass that joint back. Municipal judges, prosecutors, and public 
defenders sashay around the court looking down at lawbreakers even as 
they themselves are stealing state fines and monies through contrived 
fraudulent plea deals right in front of everyone. You ever watch a 
drunk driver get his state charges reduced to a local disorderly 
persons offense because he can pay another officer of the court 
(private defense attorney)? Then you've witnessed a judicial ethical 
violation and a crime committed by the judge and his court minions.

No matter how high I get, I can still see these plea deals are 
totally illegal, as outlined in the November 1998 memo by then 
Attorney General Peter Venerio entitled "Plea Agreements in Municipal 
Courts," which directed all prosecutors to discontinue the practice. 
"...there must be a nexus between the original charge and the new 
charge. The factual basis for the plea must establish that the 
elements of the offense have been committed by the defendant." The 
New Jersey Appeals Court weighed in on this breach of ethics and law 
in State v. Paserchia, which reinforced Peter Venerio's memo and 
produced another statewide memorandum in 2003.

Last month Jersey Shore star "The Situation" was given one of these 
fraudulent plea deals and fined $533, none of which was shared with 
the state. He was originally charged with 2C:12-1, a state simple 
assault charge, and pled guilty to a local Middletown Township noise 
ordinance charge.

Here, take this joint. Now don't get me wrong; if I were a defendant 
(and I have been), I'd take this deal, but I get no deals because I 
try to fight the original charge. But most defendants are likely to 
accept a fraudulent municipal charge presented to them by these 
thieves because a municipal ordinance violation does not usually 
appear on a criminal records check and allows them to maintain a 
first-time offender status, even if they had previously been arrested 
for the same initial charge. Defense attorneys see this as an easy slam dunk.

Between puffs: Aren't you supposed to tell the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth in court? Yet defendants are 
inspired by the thousands at the behest of the court officers to 
falsely testify to their guilt to crimes everyone in the courtroom 
knows didn't occur  a lie.

Municipal court condoned perjury is what it is. It's a mockery of 
justice and a farce to me - but what do I know, I'm "Just Another 
N..." passing a joint.

Cough, cough. Here's how this conspiracy works: Municipal prosecutors 
and judges manipulate defendants who've been charged with state 
violations under the New Jersey Title 2C Criminal Code, such as drunk 
driving, assault, and shoplifting. These robed judges with the 
collusion (criminal conspiracy) of the locally hired 
prosecutors/public pretenders just change the charges; they call this 
"downgrading the state violations to a local municipal ordinance." It 
rightfully should be called fabricating or court-sanctioned testilying.

Why wouldn't a defendant take this fraudulent deal? An ordinance 
violation isn't even counted as a conviction that would bar that 
defendant from entering a municipal court diversion program on the 
same accusation in the future, because legally he'd still be a 
first-time offender. It's great for the defendant to LIE in court, 
the judge condones it.

But these criminal entities also steal state funds by illegally 
offering these fraudulent plea deals because the local municipality 
keeps the entire fine if the final charge is a municipal violation, 
while the municipality must share a state law violation fine with the 
state. These municipal employees' goal is to steal the state's 
portion of the funds to bolster their own municipal budgets and 
create surpluses that are then miraculously used to increase their 
own employment contracts.

Talking about an ethical conflict, where is that "law and order" 
hard-charging U.S. Prosecutor Christie when you need him? Oops, the 
hypocrite became governor on his way to the presidency, but why 
doesn't his current NJ Attorney General John Jay Hoffman stop this 
thievery? Call him 609-292-4925 -and ask. I dare you.

Or yell "Stop, thief!" next time you're in a municipal court.

This thievery actually hurts victims of serious crime. When a state 
crime is "downgraded" to a municipal ordinance violation, the $50 per 
conviction mandatory payment to the Victims of Crime Compensation 
Board is not made. The VCCB monies are earmarked for crime victims to 
cover counseling, medical care, and living expenses if the crime's 
impact was life changing. The maximum aid a VCCB recipient can 
receive is $25,000, which barely makes a dent in medical bills and 
living expenses in a state with as high a cost of living as New 
Jersey. The VCCB budget is often short and deliberately preyed upon 
by prosecutors.

If these criminal plea deals were not taking place, the VCCB fund 
would be able to offer victims a lot more financial assistance. 
Instead the municipal courts' black-robed thieves and their minion 
court cohorts (the Jester and the Pretender) position themselves for 
this money. There's no shame or ethical dilemma because they all do 
it, throughout the 500 municipalities in the state's 21 counties.

The exception is Somerset County. In 2010 the Somerset County 
Prosecutor's Office re-enforced the NJ Attorney General memo of 1998 
& 2003 with its own memo to all the county's municipal prosecutors 
ordering them to stop the practice. To add teeth to it the Somerset 
Prosecutor's Office threatened the Manville Township Prosecutor with 
ethics charges when he'd failed to comply. The other counties have 
ignored the issue and have become complicit.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom