Did Steve Fulop Win His First Election With the Help of Voter Fraud?

When Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop won an upset election for City Council in June 2005 against the establishment-backed incumbent, Junior Maldonado, many believed the election of the 28-year-old Goldman Sachs trader and Iraq veteran represented a break from the city’s bad old days of political corruption.

Official documents obtained by the Jersey City Times through public records requests could now rewrite that narrative. Among documents produced by the Hudson County Prosecutor’s office is the transcript of an informant’s sworn statement given to it in 2008 claiming that on Election Day 2005 as many as three vanloads of people were driven to polling places where they voted for Fulop using names other than their own. 

If the allegations are true, illegally cast ballots could have affected the outcome in a race that Fulop won by 346 votes.

The alleged fraud was, he said, led by “Tommy,” an apparent reference to former Fulop campaign manager, confidant, and renowned political fixer Thomas Bertoli. According to the informant, William Cortez, the fraud appeared to have occurred with Fulop’s knowledge and approval.

Although it declined to comment, the HCPO produced copies of two draft subpoenas along with the transcript, indicating that the prosecutor’s office either impaneled or considered impaneling a grand jury to investigate and possibly file criminal charges related to the voter fraud. The outcome of the investigation and any grand jury proceeding is unknown, and the HCPO disclosed no further information.

The Jersey City Times twice asked Mayor Fulop’s spokesperson for comment and if Fulop would call for the HCPO to release the results of its investigation and any grand jury proceeding. The spokesperson did not respond. In December, The Times filed a records request with Jersey City.  Municipalities are required to respond to a records request within seven business days. Almost four months later, the city has asked for five extensions and produced no documents. Fulop, who is now running for governor, has made government transparency and support for the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) a centerpiece of his campaign.

The claim that the Fulop campaign had engaged in voter fraud arose in 2008, when Cortez was arrested for credit card fraud. He was initially interviewed by detectives with the Jersey City Police Department, who filled out a Supplementary Investigation Report containing the following passage.

“After Mr. Cortez explained his role in the making of the fraudulent credit cards he informed the u/s [undersigned] and Detective Armstrong that he had told the arresting officers that he was involved in some kind of voting fraud in Jersey city and he would also like to speak about that during the interview.”

The detectives took a statement and then took Cortez to the HCPO where two detectives questioned him under oath and on tape. The HCPO provided the Jersey City Times with a 47-page transcription, not the tape itself.

On Election Day 2005, Cortez says he went to Fulop’s campaign office at the corner of Christopher Columbus Drive and Grove Street, where Cortez and others received the list of names they would use.

Cortez said he was then driven to each of the polling locations where he voted under the names Tommy had given him. A detective asked what the plan was if he voted in someone else’s name, and that person came to vote later.

Cortez described how he and twelve other people were driven in a white van to polling places around Jersey City. There were “two or three” other vans of people doing the same thing. Each “voter” was paid $1,000.

Cortez said he met Fulop and that Fulop was aware of what he was doing. (The automated transcription transcribed Fulop as “Phillips.”)

The HCPO did not disclose or turn over documents showing how it resolved its investigation. Whether a grand jury took up the case is unclear. However, the law governing grand juries gives some indication of what may have happened.

“Grand jury procedings are by court rule and law secret,” explains criminal defense attorney Christopher Adams. Its proceeding only become public if there is a vote to indict. Thus, conceivably, this matter was refered to a grand jury, which chose not to issue an indictment or “true bill.” A prosecutor may also decline to prosecute if she feels she lacks probable cause, doubts the credibility of the witnesses or lacks the necessary corroboration.

Another possiblility, says Adams, is that the case was transferred to federal authorities. “That may be why the investigative leads tend to stop at the local level … That is one explanation but I certainly can’t say it happened here, but it’s just an explanation.”

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The campaign to unseat Maldonado featured underhanded tactics that were noteworthy even by Hudson County standards. 

In what appeared to be an effort to drive non-Hispanic voters to Fulop, a Maldonado volunteer remembers a speaker truck driving through largely white Paulus Hook, exhorting Puerto Ricans to rally around Maldonado in order to maintain their power.  “The point was to scare non-Hispanic voters into voting for Fulop,” said the volunteer. 

In a similar vein, a letter appeared in the Jersey Journal entitled “Hispanics must vote and keep two council seats.” The writer implored voters to back Maldonado. “We cannot afford to lose what is ours to a non-Hispanic,” it said.

When a flyer that read “keep the seat Puerto Rican” was mistakenly put under the door of the Maldonado campaign office in Paulus Hook, a Maldonado worker gave chase and recognized one of the men as an associate of Bertoli. The Jersey Journal reported that Maldonado’s campaign filed a police report. Fulop denied involvement.

Bertoli admitted to distributing a flyer falsely suggesting that Fulop was running with the then-popular mayor Jerramiah Healy. Bertoli denied that the intention was to mislead but admitted to being its author. “You don’t bring Dr. Phil to a knife fight,” said Bertoli. “Let’s just say it’s in the Hudson County tradition.” 

In his sworn statement, Cortez said that the Fulop campaign had hired him and others to pull down Maldonado’s campaign posters.

According to The New York Post, voter fraud has been a long-standing feature of Hudson County elections. Relying on an insider “whose identity, rap sheet and long history working as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post,” the tabloid reported that voter fraud, including voter impersonation, is a common occurrence in Hudson County. “When all else failed, the insider would send operatives to vote live in polling stations, particularly in states like New Jersey and New York that do not require voter ID.” 

Jersey City resident Yvonne Balcer wrote a letter last week saying she had witnessed voter fraud a few years before the events described by Cortez. “This happened at Ward E District 6 in downtown Jersey City, a man gave the name and address of my neighbor, whom I had known for over 20 years, at the former School 3. When I yelled out, he was not that person, he left immediately.”  Balcer told the Jersey City Times that she reported the man to the Board of Elections.

Bertoli’s work to get Fulop elected and his job as an expediter helping to speed permits through Jersey City’s building department would ultimately be the source of considerable controversy. In 2020, his failure to pay taxes for ten years on his expediting income earned him a federal indictment to which he pleaded guilty two years later.

Known as “the Janitor” owing to his ability to clean up political messes, Bertoli’s involvement in the seedy side of Hudson County politics goes back to his early days in North Bergen. Bloomberg described Bertoli as “a rough-hewn door installer and street organizer, [who] comes from a storied political family in a part of the state whose bare-knuckle style inspired the film ‘On the Waterfront.’”

Bertoli was by all reports drawn to the young and ambitious Fulop and the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship. He would help Fulop win elections, and Fulop in turn would give him free rein at the building department in his booming city along the Hudson River. Leading up to his indictment, complaints about Bertoli’s outsized influence had reached a breaking point among city employees and Jersey City residents. According to sworn testimony in a lawsuit brought against former Jersey City Housing, Economic Development and Commerce Director Anthony Cruz, Cruz ran “everything” in the department by Bertoli.

Through his attorney, Bertoli said that the accusation of voter fraud was politically motivated. “If we are digging up false accusations from 20 years ago, then I assume the establishment is scared of Steven. We live in a world where anyone can make an accusation and have it investigated. In 2005, we beat the political machine in Hudson County, and since the Hudson County machine’s reputation is always cheating, they assume that anyone who beats them cheats as well. There was never any shred of truth to their accusation, and that’s why nothing ever came of it as it was patently false. We beat them fair and square, and I’m proud of it.”

Maldonado, who later became a Fulop supporter and the Hudson County Clerk, did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Cortez was indicted on charges related to credit card fraud and received a three-year sentence after pleading guilty. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.