Former Hoboken Health and Human Services Director Leo Pellegrini is leveling some heavy allegations including quid pro quo, retaliation, and defamation in a new three-count lawsuit filed in Hudson County Superior Court on Friday.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“In January 2020, at a meeting with Mayor [Ravi] Bhalla, Vijay Chaudhuri, chief of staff, Steven Marks, then Business Administrator of the City of Hoboken, Jason Freeman, then Assistant Business Administrator and later Business Administrator of the City of Hoboken, and Plaintiff, Mayor Bhalla presented a list of the City’s employees stating that he wanted to know which employees if laid off could potentially hurt him politically,” the suit says.
“Mayor Bhalla turned to Plaintiff saying, ‘you know the bodies’ and told Plaintiff to identify which employees could hurt him politically if laid off.”
Pellegrini allegedly replied that this was not an appropriate request and therefore wouldn’t take part in it, something he says, through his attorney Giovanni De Pierro, he repeated throughout the meeting.
In April of the same year, 26 municipal employees were laid off, though many were eventually brought back.
Pellegrini resigned abruptly on May 3rd of last year after 14 years of service without any real explanation from himself or the city. He is now detailing his side of the story via the 20-page court filing.
Despite being tasked with COVID-19 testing and later vaccinations during the pandemic, as well as managing meal programs for seniors and coordinating outdoor programs when businesses weren’t permitted to open, he claims he never received a stipend or salary increase from the city.
The ex-high-ranking city official further contends that Bhalla regularly attempted to politicize the three-person cannabis review board, which Pellegrini served on.
For example, he mentions that the board expressed support for Nature’s Touch to operate as a medicinal marijuana on Washington Street, between 10th and 11th Streets, at their January 2022 meeting, as HCV first reported.
“On or about January 14, 2022, during a lunch meeting with Mayor Bhalla, Chaudhuri, Freeman, John Allen, Esq., Corporation Counsel, and Plaintiff, Mayor Bhalla said he received a telephone call from Mayor Fulop of Jersey City and that Mayor Fulop was extremely upset and very angry that the Cannabis Board awarded to Nature’s Touch said location,” the lawsuit states.
“Mayor Bhalla said he was quashing the award to Nature’s Touch because Mayor Fulop’s wife was going to get the medicinal cannabis retail location on 14th Street in Hoboken … Mayor Bhalla reiterated that he was going to quash the award to Nature’s Touch and explained that in exchange, Mayor Fulop promised he would give Mayor Bhalla’s law firm contract work.”
While Pellegrini contends he strongly advocated against this, Bhalla quashed the award to Nature’s Touch.
While Story Dispensary, where Jaclyn Fulop, the mayor’s wife, is a landlord of the property, received all local approvals, they did not apply for a medical cannabis license and their application to sell recreational marijuana is still awaiting a hearing from the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
Similarly, Pellegrini says he met with Bhalla, Chaudhuri, Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, his wife, Alixon Collazos-Gill, and Joseph Castiello on June 23rd, 2022 and was pressured to fast-track Castiello’s cannabis application in hopes of getting something from Gill in return.
Gill, who owns a political consulting firm with his wife and had donated to Bhalla’s campaign, is a friend of Castiello.
His application was indeed fast-tracked and approved, the litigation says, with Pellegrini claiming he responded by then voting no on the next three unrelated applications before the CRB.
After removing the recreation department from HHS and hiring Jessica Lezcano as the director in May 2022, Pellegrini recounts a meeting with all city directors held by Freeman, Chaudhuri, Assistant Business Administrator Caleb Stratton, and Corporation Counsel Brian Aloia on January 24th, 2023.
Pellegrini allegedly said during the meeting that it sounded like directors were essentially being asked to seek approval from Freeman and/or Chaudhuri instead of working with the mayor, to which they said Bhalla was trying to make sure they all had manageable workloads.
“Also, at said meeting, Chaudhuri and Freeman instructed the Directors that they were not to speak with Councilwoman Tiffany [sic] Fisher and Councilwoman Jen Giattino or respond to their emails,” the suit alleges.
“Plaintiff strongly questioned and opposed this imposition from Chaudhuri and Freeman because, among other things, as Director of HHS, as any director of any department of the City of Hoboken, he had to communicate and work with all Members of the City Council.”
A January 27th, 2023 email from City Engineer Olga Garcia to Fisher, in response to an inquiry, said, in part, that “if you have anything else to discuss regarding this matter, please speak directly with Jason or Vijay.”
Pellegrini also detailed the day he resigned to some extent, noting that the day prior, Freeman asked who he had been communicating with about the ongoing rodent problem, and he replied he was emailing all nine council members on the matter.
On May 3rd, 2023, Pellegrini states he arrived at the mayor’s conference room where Bhalla, Freeman, and outside counsel Mark Tabakin and was told by the mayor he could either be fired or resign by 11 a.m.
He noted that the mayor gave him a letter listing three reasons for his potential termination.
The lawsuit did not going into explicit detail of what the letter said, but indicated that Pellegrini had a stellar track record at work, negotiated contracts with vendors within the confines of city rules, and accusing him of some level of misconduct that is not revealed in the lawsuit.
The letter may have referenced an $85,000 settlement to a vendor who claimed they negotiated a two-year deal with the city through Pellegrini without approval from the administration or council.
That same day, the city council convened and held a closed session hearing to approve a $20,000 contract with the law firm of New Jersey’s first comptroller, Matthew Boxer, to investigate the circumstances of Pellegrini’s departure, as only HCV reported.
A copy of a May 1st memo from Boxer to Freeman and Assistant Corporation Counsel Alyssa Wells exclusively obtained by this outlet on Tuesday evening says “there is reasonable cause to believe that the Director engaged in unlawful, corrupt conduct in the course of his City employment.”
“As a result, it would be appropriate for and is incumbent on the City to refer this matter to law enforcement to take any steps they deem warranted. In the interest of not interfering with law enforcement efforts, we have agreed that I will not take further investigative steps at this time.”
He continued that he would refer the matter to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity & Accountability (OPIA).
City spokeswoman Marilyn Baer doubled down that Pellegrini engaged in unlawful conduct while employed by the city and the matter has been referred to the FBI.
“The complaint is clearly written by a disgruntled former employee who resigned after being notified he was going to be terminated based upon an investigation which found reasonable cause to believe the director engaged in unlawful and corrupt conduct in the course of his city employment,” she said in an email.
“In fact, this matter was referred to and is being investigated by the FBI and we anticipate that law enforcement will be taking the appropriate action in the near future.”
FBI Public Affairs Specialist Amy Thoreson said on Wednesday morning that she could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.
Pellegrini also details an alleged exchange between Bhalla and former Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who hired Pellegrini during her tenure, over her thanking him for his service.
“Though Mayor Bhalla spoke of Mr. Boxer’s report and its recommendation to refer Plaintiff’s alleged criminal conduct to law enforcement, the City Council had not yet been presented with Mayor Bhalla’s request to hire Mr. Boxer to investigate Plaintiff’s alleged criminal conduct,” he asserts through counsel.
” … Former Mayor Zimmer responded to Mayor Bhalla that since she had no personal knowledge of these allegations, she still intended to release a public statement thanking Plaintiff for his public service during her Administration. Mayor Bhalla angrily responded yelling in colorful terms that if former Mayor Zimmer did that she would be ‘f***ing’ him ‘politically.'”
He also allegedly asked her to never contact him again after she released her statement, first published by HCV.
Specifically, Pellegrini says he was defamed by Bhalla since he “made false and defamatory statements to third parties” such as Zimmer and the council claiming that the former director “engaged in wrongful and illegal activity.”
“These statements made by Mayor Bhalla … were knowingly untrue and made negligently or with malicious intent to harm Plaintiff’s reputation. Plaintiff has suffered and will continue to suffer severe economic damages as a direct and proximate result of the false and defamatory statements made by Mayor Bhalla.”
Leaving the door open to later add other “fictitious defendants” to the case as it advances, Pellegrini is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, interests, costs of litigation, attorneys’ fees and costs, and any other relief the court deems just and equitable.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with excerpts of a memo from Matthew Boxer.
Sounds a lot like one of those hudco political bosses he whined about during the debate. If you can’t beat them…pretend to be one?
Based on the substantial listing in the story of alleged actions by Ravi and his henchmen, there’s no pretending going on here. There’s more likely criminality and all manner of shady activities going on: from issuing cannabis store approvals to discriminating against senior female council members: Council President Jen Giattino and Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, plus all manner of less than ethical activities by the Ravibot Team.
Can the publisher inform us when a mayor’s office has announced that a former city employee can expect to see federal arrest after nothing has transpired for many months since his departure? That sure sounds like major defamation not to mention some odd municipal powers to flex. Does the Menendez campaign have any comment?
I’m not at liberty to discuss knowledge of any criminality emanating out of the mayor’s office alleged in whole or in part within the civil filing here. A proffer in these matters retaining my political viability under pre-arranged assurances may be conducted through counsel. No calls or texts, Newark.
Ravi better get a good RICO attorney. Maybe JA, Jazin and Veejay can share the same attorney.
Or do they plan to wash it all away by having Leo picked up for jaywalking?
Mr. Pellegrini brings some insight into the “budget crisis” of 2019-2020 and the true need to have layoffs.
26 employees were in the final version of the 2020 Hoboken layoff action.
Of the 26, 16 employees were older, had served the City for 25 or more years and were forced to decide to retire by May 1, 2020 or face layoff on May 7, 2020. They all retired.
None of the 16 were re-hired. All were long-time City employees, well known as hard-working. They were each denied the ability to plan with their families to choose a retirement date. Their long careers with Hoboken were abruptly ended.
The other 10 employees the City decided to lay off had less years working and became unemployed. 5 of the 10 employees were re-hired. A handful, not “many”.
Four years have passed for the 26 City of Hoboken employees who were either laid off or forced to retire.
The Hoboken layoffs targeted specific individuals. They were planned pre-COVID-19 and occurred during COVID-19.
People complain about big government budgets and high property taxes, fastest way to cut taxes is to cut headcount. Long-time employees tend to have higher salaries, so getting them off the payroll helps the most in reducing the budget. No one likes to be laid off, and I’m sure some of those employees are good, well-liked people. But if you want to rein in government spending, the cuts need to come from somewhere.
Asking who on the list could be a political problem to the mayor is troubling but telling
26 Hoboken employees who were laid off and forced to retire i 2020 will most certainly be a problem politically.
Especially since they were shorted terminal and vacation pay out the door, and the City gave no retro pay for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020. That’s right, ZEROS in those years.
Despicable. Their families will follow and vote accordingly every time from now on.
Thank you Leo Pelligrini for your years of above and beyond service to the people of Hoboken.
You are a true son of Hoboken.