New Jersey State Ethics Commission - the Ultimate Hypocrisy

On June 21, 2009 I sent a correspondence to the New Jersey State Ethics Commission. (Please see my earlier blog entry). Attached is a copy of their response.

wiechnik_letter_8_24_09.pdf

In New Jersey, we expect state government bureaucrats to cover their asses at the expense of the public, but the State Ethics Commission should have some shame.

The New Jersey State Ethics Commission is the most vivid example of hypocrisy yet. Even the name is misleading. The attached letter purports to be on behalf of the Ethics Commission, but that is not so. The Ethics Commission is nine individuals who only hear news from one source; Kathleen C. Wiechnik, Esq. Ms. Weichnik is the Executive Director of the agency. She does not actually serve on the Commission. She is in charge of the office and she prepares the agenda for the Ethics Commission’s bimonthly meetings. In short, Ms. Wiechnik decides what information is presented to the Ethics Commission.

In my June 21, 2009 letter, I described what by any reasonable standard is an abuse of office by Mr. Jeffrey Stooleman. Mr. Stooleman – you can’t make this up – is in charge of Compliance at the Ethics Commission. His abuses are explained in the June 21, 2009 blog entry, but to summarize, he had an agenda to concoct an excuse to fire me. The Ethics Commission forced my predecessor, Richard Pompelio, out of his job, and they were now trying to do the same thing to me. Stooleman tried as hard as he could to come up with some violation, no matter how trivial, and over and over again he found I was honest and ethical.

But he had to keep trying. Mr. Stooleman is the longtime friend of Mr. Jacob Toporek, who is very well connected politically. Mr. Toporek filed many complaints against me and not one led to any finding of unethical conduct. In Mr. Stooleman, Toporek had the perfect foil. There is no tactic too cheap for Mr. Stooleman. He stooped to using a forged letter to try to soolicit a complaint against me. He received regular reports from a henchman within the agency. He questioned over thirty people for over three years. He even subpoenaed my computer hard drive. What did he find? He found I ran the agency effectively with no ethical lapses. This represents an abuse of authority not just because Mr. Stooleman used his office for political assassination, but because resources that could have been used to investigate true ethics violations were wasted. New Jersey is the laughing stock of the nation because of our corrupt government, and the Ethics Commission Compliance Director wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, to investigate me for three years. According to Ms. Wiechnik, this is “established practice and sound investigative procedure”.

The State Ethics Commission is charged with “enforcing the New Jersey Conflicts of Interest Law”. www.state.nj.us/ethics/ That makes it the perfect tool for political assassination. A political hack, like Mr. Stoolemen, investigates someone until he finds some technicality to use against him. Stooleman is free to harass anyone he wants because his boss will not permit allegations of his wrongdoing to be presented to the Ethics Commission.

Ironically, Ms. Wiechnik does not seem to notice the obvious conflict of interest she had. She decided whether to present this issue to the Ethics Commission. Clearly she has an interest in her own decision because she would risk an unfavorable reflection on herself if Mr. Stooleman’s abuses were investigated by a legitimate authority. If Ms. Wiechnik wanted to legitimately withhold this issue from the Ethics Commission, the ethical thing to do would have been to refer that decision to an independent entity such as an administrative law judge. Of course, the right thing to do would have been to disclose Mr. Stooleman’s conduct to the Ethics Commission and let them investigate it.

Ms. Wiechnik ridiculed my request for an accounting. She writes, “You have indicated the Commission owes you an accounting of the resources utilized in connection with its investigation. I am unaware of any statutory or regulatory authority for your request.” Ms. Wiechnik needed to look no further than the State Ethics Commission’s website. Had she checked she would would have found under the “Procedures” section it states: “The Commission has the power to undertake investigations and hold hearings regarding alleged violations of the Conflicts Law. The Commission also issues advisory opinions concerning whether a given set of facts and circumstances would in the Commission's opinion constitute possible violations of the Conflicts Law or any code, rules or regulations promulgated pursuant thereto.”

If we were to take Ms. Wiechnik’s letter seriously, we would wonder how she could possibly be unaware her agency has the authority to determine if Mr. Stooleman wasted three years’ time and untold amounts of money to conduct a sham investigation and whether the facts of this case represent a conflict of interest. Of course, Ms. Wiechnik is not to be taken seriously. She is content to take paychecks in return for covering up corruption.

In the end, this is just one more sad example of how far corruption has gone in this state government, and one more sad example of why it will continue for a long time to come.

Copyright 2009, Edward G. Werner, all rights reserved