Attorney general sends accused ‘voluminous’ files of evidence in Paterson election fraud case

PATERSON — The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office this week provided lawyers for indicted Paterson Councilmen Michael Jackson and Alex Mendez with thousands of pages of alleged evidence in the state election fraud case against them.

Lawyers for the two councilmen said they will closely review the files they received from the state in the “discovery” part of the criminal case, the point when the prosecution shares with the accused whatever evidence it plans to use. They said the volume of documents should not be seen as a sign that the state has a strong case.

“The quantity doesn’t matter,” said Ted Kyles, Jackson’s lawyer. “It depends on the quality. We have to examine these files very closely to see what they have and what they don’t have.”

Jackson and Mendez had repeatedly objected to the lack of evidence provided by the Attorney General’s Office ever since the original charges were filed last June, about a month after the municipal election in question.

The fact that the accused had received the discovery evidence came to light Thursday afternoon during a Superior Court arraignment at which Mendez pleaded not guilty to the seven crimes in the state grand jury indictment against him.

Mendez and Jackson have been accused of breaking state laws regarding the handling of vote-by-mail ballots. Jackson pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on March 11.

Both men have continued to serve on Paterson’s governing body with the charges pending against them. Preliminary court schedules indicate the cases would not go to trial until the end of this year, at the earliest. 

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Mendez’s lawyer, Paul Brickfield, said during the arraignment that he had received “voluminous” material on Tuesday as part of the discovery stage of the criminal proceeding. Mendez’s side so far has spent six to eight hours reviewing the evidence, Brickfield said during the court proceeding. “We are not through it all by any means,” Brickfield said.

In a subsequent interview, Brickfield said the state provided him with many records that seemed to have nothing to do with the 3rd Ward council election in which his client was the winning candidate. He said the electronic files included documents relating to the 1st Ward council contest involving Jackson, as well as other city elections.

Brickfield said he has gone through 400 pages of records so far and found fewer than 100 of them connected to Mendez’s candidacy. He, too, said the volume of records should not be seen as a sign of the strength of the state’s case against his client.

“You can get a lot of boxes of discovery in a case, but no matter what, it always comes down to what’s in one box,” Brickfield said.

For example, Mendez’s lawyer said, the discovery includes copies of every Paterson mail-in ballot that was found inside a mailbox in Haledon last spring, along with the flaps of the envelopes in which they were mailed.

“That alone is about 400 pages,” Brickfield said.

During Thursday’s court proceeding, Deputy Attorney General Eric Cohen said the state has offered Mendez a plea agreement, but he did not disclose the terms of that offer. He also has said the state would offer Jackson a plea deal.

Criminal lawyers not involved in the case said the substance of the discovery evidence usually shapes the plea agreement discussions. State authorities have not made public exactly what documents they provided the accused in the Paterson election case.

The original complaints filed by the attorney general charged two other people — Shelim Khalique and Abu Rayzen — campaign workers for Khalique’s brother, Councilman Shahin Khalique, in the 2nd Ward. Neither of them has been indicted, officials said.

State authorities have not revealed any information about possible grand juries for the other two defendants.

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