The Jersey Journal is announcing that Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna and his wife, Anna, have been indicted on federal corruption charges:It seems Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna's wife, Anna, has gotten used to a certain lifestyle.
According to a federal indictment unsealed today that charges both of them with extortion and mail fraud charges, the first lady spent thousands in ill-gotten cash on cosmetic surgery, Atlantic City gambling trips and department store gift cards.
The indictment also says Anna Delle Donna, at 58 nine years her husband's senior, spent over $1,000 on a dog and "related accessories" and that both took liquor bottles from the town bar owner accused of paying the kickbacks.
In exchange for the cash, the indictment charges, the mayor helped the bar owner with problems she was having with police over security issues, "the improper storage and disposal of garbage," and her efforts to get a variance for construction on a piece of residential property.
Make the jump with me. There may be something more serious than garden-variety political corruption here. Take your pepto. |
| I could care less about Anna Delle Donna - except that she may be a link in one of the most sickening stories you're likely to hear today. Before I go on, I'll stress that nothing has been proven - even the obscene amount of money to pay for dog accessories. But those who aren't used to watching Hudson County might not know the full back-story.
First, understand that Guttenberg is exceptionally small - 4 blocks by 11 blocks. In 2005, a bar in Guttenberg and two in Union City were raided by federal agents who found that they were being used as a front for what amounts to forced prostitution - with enslaved girls from Honduras. I remember it because it was particularly heinous - as if forced prostitution and slavery could be anything else.
One 21-year-old who was far along in a pregnancy was forced to take abortion-inducing drugs, and gave birth to a daughter the next day, but the baby died within hours, according to the indictment. A 14-year-old was beaten twice, once with a belt. Some of the defendants also threatened to hurt the workers' families back in Honduras if they did not pay back their smuggling debts, according to the indictment.
If that doesn't twist your guts, check your pulse. Then check your genetic material because you just might not be human if you can stomach that.
But the next bit of news was that Luisa Medrano, the ring leader, was going to a fourth bar - and that the liquor license had been approved by Mayor David Delle Donna. This happened despite the existing Guttenberg establishment being cited for "underage bartenders". Why is that significant?
Francisco Arroyo was a regular customer at El Puerto de la Union in Guttenberg. Arroyo, a truck driver, said that he would go into the place after work to have a few drinks and talk with a few friends from his native El Salvador, where owner Medrano was born.
However, Arroyo noticed a few months ago that these young girls were serving beer for $14 and then the girls would dance and grind their bodies into the customers for the increased price.
"If you wanted a beer, it was $4," Arroyo said. "If you wanted the 'special beer,' it was $14. These girls would do everything to the guys. I couldn't believe it was happening."
Another customer, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not naturalized, said that he was offered other things in the bar.
"I was told that I could have sex with any one of the girls for a price," claimed the man, also a truck driver, speaking in Spanish, with Arroyo as an interpreter. "For $25, $30, I could have sex somewhere with them if I wanted. I never saw that before. It was all a shock to me."
Of course, the Mayor had no idea such things were going on in his city.
But Medrano made herself persona grata in Union City as well - by donating to the campaign of Mayor and almost-State-Senator Brian Stack. Stack, when he was made aware of this, promptly donated the money to charity. But Delle Donna and Stack are, if you'll pardon the expression, "thick as thieves" - to the extent that Delle Donna attended a fundraiser for Stack on the day his office and home were raided:
Law enforcement sources speculated that former part-time Guttenberg construction code official Robert Rogers Jr., who was charged last year with possible bribery in Ridgefield, may have turned state's evidence in an attempt to save himself from a longer prison sentence and implicated Delle Donna by claiming that the mayor was involved with Medrano. According to law enforcement sources, Rogers may have claimed to FBI officials that he received cash donations from Medrano, and that he then presented those funds to Delle Donna.
The story notes that Anna Delle Donna was a personal friend of Medrano. But this is all circumstantial - just as the connection from Medrano to either Stack or Delle Donna is circumstantial. It is possible that Stack's explanation is 100% true. It's possible that David Delle Donna didn't give his wife's friend preferential treatment to get a liquor license. It's possible that the Delle Donna's didn't shake down the bar owner. It's possible that Anna Delle Donna's dog and accessories were paid for with legitimate income - as were the trips to Atlantic City, the shopping sprees, and the plastic surgery. It's possible that Medrano and Roberts are simply trying to save their own hides by making up lies about the Delle Donnas.
But the fact is that Guttenberg - like too much of our state - is sick from the core. If the allegations prove true - and it is much to early to say they will - then we will have had a Mayor who was part and parcel of an ongoing criminal enterprise that took advantage of young women and girls from Honduras in order to serve the basest interests of societal sickness. As the circle of implications grows, it is all too clear that this was not a "crime of opportunity", but a well thought-out and planned, not to mention well-oiled, operation.
If I'm wrong, and this is simply the garden-variety corruption of a Mayor and/or his wife using their position for personal benefit, then I'll be relieved. But even at that, it shows that there is a very real cost to allowing corruption to fester unchecked. It is possible that no one could have known what was happening at the nightclub - but it is also very possible that a mayor of such a small municipality might have walked around the corner and seen teenage girls working in a bar and have been suspicious enough to at least alert the police. That women are enslaved under our noses because politicians were busy looking elsewhere for cash is not comforting to me in the least.
It is surely no comfort to the victims who were raped and then bought and sold not ten miles from my front door. |
