THE UNETHICAL ETHICS INVESTIGATOR

OPEN LETTER TO THE NEW JERSEY STATE ETHICS COMMISSION

June 21, 2009

Kathleen C. Wiechnik
Executive Director
State of New Jersey
State Ethics Commission
PO Box 082
Trenton, New Jersey 07102

Re: Investigation of Edward Werner
NJ Victims of Crime Compensation Board
Commission Case #41-07

Dear Ms. Wiechnik:

Please accept this as the response to your April 25, 2009 correspondence and a request for an investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Stooleman.

As you are aware, I was the Director of the Crime Victims Compensation Agency, in its various incarnations, from December, 2005 until July, 2008. Mr. Stooleman, Investigator for the State Ethics Commission, began investigating me almost immediately upon my arrival as if he had an agenda. Mr. Stooleman was not content to interrogate me repeatedly, he went out of his way to solicit complaints to be used against me.

There are many examples of Mr. Stooleman’s abuse of his authority. He has squandered thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars to concoct a case against me. He continued to harass me even after it would have been obvious to anyone that there was no case to be made. The record proves I was at all times ethical and honest.

Below are just two examples of Mr. Stooleman's abuses:

1. Mr. Stooleman used a forgery in an attempt to solicit a complaint against me. One of the VCCA’s Supervisors of Investigators was ordered by Mr. Stooleman to report to Trenton for interrogation at Mr. Stooleman’s office. The Supervisor was given no reason. When he arrived, Mr. Stooleman advised him he would be under oath. He then said “You were asked to come here to answer questions about your letter.” When the Supervisor responded that he did not know to what letter Stooleman was referring, Stooleman showed him a letter listing a series of complaints against me. The Supervisor immediately disavowed the letter, said his signature was a forgery, and that he had never seen it before. He said he had no intention of making a complaint against me. Mr. Stooleman completely disregarded this comment and proceeded to grill him anyway. Mr. Stooleman went down the list of complaints to try to get the Supervisor to parrot the words. The Supervisor, much to his credit, was able to withstand this intimidation.

This conduct is troubling for many reasons. First, any Investigator who calls a witness to discuss a letter should cease the interrogation immediately upon learning it is a forgery. The next course of action should be to try to determine the source of the forgery. After all, any Investigator deceived this way has an obligation to try to discover who abused his office by sending in a forged letter. Instead, Mr. Stooleman chose to use the forged letter as a tool to solicit complaints against me.

I was taken aback by your response at the April hearing when I brought this up. You may remember you interjected that you found this practice acceptable because your Ethics Commission accepts anonymous complaints. You said Mr. Stooleman was justified in his method because once he was informed the letter was a forgery he used it as though it was an anonymous letter. I find it incredible that the State Ethics Commission does not distinguish between anonymous complaints and blatant forgeries. Is not forgery, a crime in every state in the union, considered unethical by the Ethics Commitee?

Your position on this issue is, to say the least, disconcerting. To say the most, it is criminal. Under NJSA 2C:30-2, it is a crime for a public servant to attempt to injure another by knowingly abusing his authority. Mr. Stooleman not only violated the spirit of his office – he is guilty of the crime of Official Misconduct.

2. A second example of Mr. Stooleman’s unethical conduct was his use of the Agency’s Director of Internal Controls to solicit complaints. To digress, while Director of the agency I requested an audit (the agency has never had a true audit in all of its thirty years). My chief concern was that three people - one being the Internal Controls Director - had control over one aspect of the agency. They created a system whereby they could submit a check request to the Department of Law and Public Safety for construction work allegedly done on homes of disabled crime victims. All “work” was given to construction firms on a no-bid basis. They then set up the internal case processing system to “fail to capture” any information on those cases. They then went even further. They established a policy of refusing to seek restitution from criminal defendants for these costs. This is the only type of expense for which the VCCA did not seek restitution from criminals.

I was disturbed to learn that on a regular basis, perhaps a daily basis, that extended over months, this same Internal Controls Director was feeding records to Stooleman. The Internal Controls Director wanted me removed because I am honest. Mr. Stooleman sifted through these records to conjure a case aginst me, even though it should have been very clear to him that the Internal Controls Director was using the Ethics Commission for his personal motives. I raised this issue in a conference call to Mr. Stooleman. I had two people from the Department of Treasury on the conference call. My Supervisor, David Ridolfino, and the Ethics Officer, Robert Smartt were present for the conference call. Mr. Stooleman was adamant that the Internal Controls Director was “very helpful” in providing him with agency records. I made it very clear to Mr. Stooleman that it appeared an internal system at the VCCA had been created for embezzlement and the only reason the Director of Internal Controls was trying so hard to find any excuse to fire me was because I was honest. Those three people working at the VCCA needed a Director who was either corrupt or disinterested in the daily working of the agency. I told Mr. Stooleman that continuing to harass me with interrogations was nothing more than doing the bidding for these dishonest people and he was abusing his office in that he was making it more likely that funds would be embezzled. He again said he was going to continue to interrogate me on any complaint he received and he would welcome any complaint against me.

Once again, this is not just an abuse of authority, it is a violation of the crime of Official Misconduct (NJSA 2C:30-2).


Mr. Stooleman has not only violated the criminal law in his abuse of authority, he never should have accepted this assignment in the first place because of his relationship with one Mr. Jacob Toporek. Mr. Stooleman is an old friend of Mr. Jacob Toporek. Mr. Toporek was a member of the VCCA under its Board structure. Mr. Toporek had been the Chairman of the agency while the no-bid construction contract scheme was added. Mr. Stooleman should have recused himself. Mr. Stooleman has confirmed that Mr. Toporek was one of the people from whom he was accepting complaints about me. He should have recused himslf and permitted these complanits to be assigned to someone who had no conflicts. Instead, he accepted complaint after complaint and did everything possible to find any basis to attack me.

In your letter you state, “The [Ethics] Commission had received several letters indicating that Mr. Werner was providing preferential treatment to former VCCB Chair Richard Pompelio…
…the [Ethics] Commission determined… there were indications that Werner violated sections 23(e)(7) of the Conflicts Law and NJAC 19:61-7.4.” I resent this. I did nothing wrong.
Mr. Stooleman has gone out of his way to spend hours and hours of his time to dig up anything he could call a violation and this is vague accusation is all he could muster. You may be aware that in addition to the above, the Ethics Commission has subpoenaed my computer hard drive. That has everything I did on the job for two and one half years. After three years of investigations, repeated interrogations of agency personnel and myself, and an examination of my hard drive, what did the Ethics Commission uncover?

It is time for the Ethics Commission to have this abuse investigated and have Mr. Stooleman referred to the criminal authorities for indictment. If the Ethics Commission casually ignores this matter, it will be announcing to everyone that it is amenable to unethical people who use it for political vendettas. It is impossible for the Ethics Commission to perform its function if it is not above the appearance of impropriety.

It bears mentioning that the people who were directing Mr. Stooleman to try to concoct a case against me may have been responsible for embezzling substantial amounts of money that was supposed to be used to pay for medical care for mugging victims and rape victims, funeral expenses for parents of murdered children, relocation for victims of domestic violence, etc. For many years while that agency received over ten million dollars per year, the people in charge had the freedom to write checks for themselves. It is especially galling that during those years the VCCB had a reputation of unreasonably delaying and denying legitimate victims’ claims.
Mr. Stooleman not only abused his authority in his methods, he may have lent aid and comfort to those who are so morally bankrupt they would deprive innocent victims of violent crime of necessary services just to steal money for themselves. I hope you agree, this situation must be further investigated.

Finally, I deserve a true accounting. As stated above, with years of investigations, repeated interrogations, examination of my hard drive, what was uncovered? After being publicly called to the Ethics Commission’s Offices, the Ethics Commission owes me a public acknowledgement of the extent of its investigation in terms of time and dollars and a report on what was uncovered – that I served the State of New Jersey with the utmost integrity, honestly working diligently to keep that agency serving victims, but also rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. It is rare for any Director of a New Jersey State agency to speak out against corruption. I was the only Agency Director to testify for the passage of legislation that rid his or her agency of political patronage. I advocated the passage of legislation that saved over $400,000 in annual waste that had been used for patronage jobs and I requested an audit of a system that appears designed for embezzlement. If you refuse to have Mr. Stooleman investigated for his various abuses in this matter, you will be announcing that the New Jersey State Ethics Commission is available for corruption.

Please put this matter on the agenda for public discussion for your next meeting and confirm that you have done so. You may reach me at (609) 532-4589.

Respectfully submitted,


Edward G. Werner



Copyright (c) 2009, Edward Werner, all rights reserved