Ricardo Balanzateguimaldo, one of five persons accused of helping a Morristown attorney circumvent campaign finance laws to bribe public officials, was allowed on Tuesday to enter a probationary program for a year.
The attorney’s sister and brother-in-law still face prosecution.
If Balanzateguimaldo completes Pretrial Intervention without incident, a judge will dismiss a state charge of concealing or misrepresenting contributions, a fourth-degree offense that can bring up to 18 months in imprisonment and $10,000 in fines upon conviction.
“I hope you’re not back in my courtroom,” Superior Court Judge Robert Hanna told the Bogota resident during a 20-minute virtual hearing. Balanzateguimaldo must pay $125 in fines and heed his probation officer.
State Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo endorsed the sentence. But he said plea talks bogged down with another defendant, Vanessa Brown, and he plans to present her case to a grand jury for possible indictment.
The West Caldwell resident faces the same concealment charge and will apply for admission into the PTI program, without the Attorney General’s backing, said her lawyer, Pasquale Giannetta. Judge Hanna scheduled an update for next month.
People only get one chance at PTI. If they fail to follow its requirements, they may be prosecuted for their initial charges.
Brown’s sister, Elizabeth Valandingham, was charged last year with helping secure nearly $600,000 in legal work from Bloomfield and Mt. Arlington between 2013 and 2017 for longtime law partner Matt O’Donnell‘s Morristown firm.
Valandingham dodged campaign donation limits by funneling money through friends and relatives — “straw donors”–who wrote the checks, alleges state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s office.
She has denied the accusations, and now is considering an offer of one year’s probation, with conditions not yet disclosed, in exchange for pleading guilty to a downgraded charge of tampering with public records.
Valandingham could face maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $150,000 in fines, if convicted of false representation for a government contract and misconduct by a corporate official, both second-degree crimes.
Brown, listed as an “artist” on campaign forms, allegedly wrote checks totaling $87,499. Balanzateguimaldo, an employee of Home Depot, according to campaign forms, allegedly made $34,050 in illegal contributions from 2012 to 2016. Both individuals were 40 when they were charged last summer.
The same concealment charge is pending against Brown’s husband, Christopher Brown, 37, who is brother-in-law to Valandingham.
Erin O’Reilly, aka Erin DeMauro, 41, of Lincoln Park; and Suzanne P. Gayet, 63, of Boonton, have been admitted into Pretrial Intervention.
Those accusations stem from a state probe in which four former public officials have been indicted for allegedly taking thousands in bribes in exchange for promises to steer municipal business to the firm of an unnamed “cooperating witness,” known to be O’Donnell, a former tax attorney for Morristown and former counsel for numerous other towns.
Contending the state’s sting operation with O’Donnell was improper, a lawyer for one of the men under indictment has told a judge he will seek dismissal of charges.
A fifth defendant in that pay-to-play investigation, former Morris County freeholder candidate Mary Dougherty of Morristown, is expected to get probation after pleading guilty last month to falsifying a campaign finance report.
CORRECTION: A prior version of this story incorrectly stated the case status of defendants Erin O’Reilly and Suzanne P. Gayet. Both have been admitted into Morris County’s Pretrial Intervention program. Morristown Green regrets the errors.
