By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – The Committee to Re-Elect Ras Baraka as Mayor is in the midst of paying the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission $30,634 to conclude the latter’s investigation of the former’s 2014 campaign finances.
The ELEC, from its Trenton office, announced a consent order settlement that the commission and attorneys for Baraka and then-campaign treasurer Frederick Murphy had arrived at on Nov. 16. The agency mailed out copies for respondents Baraka and Murphy and their lawyers to sign Nov. 29.
The $30,634 is less than 10 percent of the around $200,000 in 2014 contributions that caught ELEC investigators’ attention in 2017. The commission issued a 48-page, 28-count complaint that October.
The commission cited 264 campaign violations on contribution and expense reports the last three quarters leading to the May 13, 2014 mayoral election. That year’s Baraka campaign received $385,118.38 from individual and/or corporate contributors in amounts from $126 to $11,300 as of the July 15, 2014 campaign filing to ELEC.
A majority of participating city voters May 13 elected Baraka over Shavar Jeffries, by 54 to 45 percent.
258 of the 264 reporting violations dealt with late and/or incomplete filing. One report was filed to the state commission 2,614 days late. By incomplete filing, several contributions were left off the reports.
Six violations involved Baraka and/or Murphy and or their delegated campaign workers failing to return $5,544 of contributions that exceeded legal limits.
ELEC originally fined the Baraka 2014 campaign $37,993, based on 10 percent of the total of the contributions and expenses in question.
The commission, however, reduced the fine by 20 percent and accepted the $30,634 when the Baraka campaign sent the check ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline. ELEC detectives and lawyers for Baraka and Murphy had also agreed to dismiss some of the 28 counts in exchange for repaying $30,634. All four ELEC Commissioners signed the consent order Nov. 16.
“While ELEC imposed modest fines for technical violations, all of which has since been cured by amendments to campaign reports, these fines are far less than might have been assessed,” said Baraka attorney Angelo Genova. “More importantly, this settlement acknowledges that the Mayor and his campaign committee, having denied any improper conduct on their part, were victims of the wrongful behavior of his campaign treasurer whose conduct precipitated this ELEC complaint.”
Genova was referring to Murphy pleading to a count each of wire fraud, bank fraud and tax evasion before a federal judge in Newark May 29, 2018. Murphy had confessed to cashing $233,743 worth of campaign checks for fictitious services and not reporting them on his tax returns.
Murphy faces restitution of the said $233,743 after serving his 30-month prison sentence – as well as facing his own $37,993 fine.
The Nov. 16 consent order did not include the Baraka campaign having to make an admission of guilt.
There are no ELEC complaints filed against Baraka’s 2018 re-election campaign.
