By Walter Elliott
ORANGE – This “Local Talk” series has largely focused on the six-year-old federal probe that has yielded at least 31 counts of indictments, four guilty pleas, one not guilty plea and a to-be-announced plea from the “high Orange official” at the center of the investigation.
Some observers, however, may conclude that July 1, 2012 was when the man in the center of the storm was hired. His hiring and subsequent changes of job titles, while officiated on the state level, was what first generated controversy.
July 1, 2012 was when incoming Mayor Dwayne Warren was sworn into his first of now three-terms in office. Warren had selected several people since his May election to form his administration – including Willis Edwards III.
Edwards, who had been Warren’s campaign manager, had been a one-term New Jersey State General Assemblyman. The then-East Orange resident had also been on the East Orange General Hospital Board of Directors, the East Orange Housing Authority Commission and had several businesses vending to local government.
The City Council, however, voted not to confirm Edwards as Warren’s choice as City Business Administrator later that year.
Warren countered by naming Edwards as “Deputy BA” and paying him an administrator’s salary. The problem was that there was no Deputy Business Administrator title in the City of Orange’s codebook organizational chart.
The Council hired its own attorney and sued the Warren Administration for this end-run around their denial vote. This suit ended with a State Superior Court ruling for then council in 2014.
Warren, by then, made Edwards his chief of staff – which triggered a second lawsuit by the council.
That second suit resulted in another Superior Court judge ruling that Edwards must leave Orange City Hall o0n or before Dec. 31, 2015. Edwards, indeed, left office to reside in Lithonia, Ga.
That second judge also ordered Edwards to pay $268,705 in back wages while he was “Deputy BA.” Edwards, however, had declared personal bankruptcy.
It was during those 41 months while Edwards was in City Hall where federal prosecutors had accused him of writing false invoices for work that was not done, bribery and kickbacks, among other alleged schemes that defrauded the city, Essex County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It was the use of HUD grant money that caught the feds’ attention.
Those allegations included a phony literacy program and a never received HVAC chiller unit for the Orange Public Library. A planning consultant was asked to hire an Edwards colleague on the guise of joining the YWCA/Orange Recreation, Education and Cultural Center study team.
The U.S. Department of Justice indictments included Edwards getting a Mayor’s Office official to backdate a tuition reimbursement invoice for autumn 2015 college classes – in February 2016.
DOJ attorneys have said that their investigation is continuing.
Please note that Edwards has not submitted a plea to the two bills of the indictment as of press time. Also, note that those named in this article are considered innocent until if or when they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
