Hudson County Sheriff Frank Schillari has $112,700.90 cash on hand for his planned re-election bid next year where he is seeking an unprecedented sixth term, his latest campaign finance report shows.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Schillari’s amended 2nd quarter report filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) shows he raised $107,600 and spent $74,005.92.
With over four dozen sheriff’s officers contributing, mostly in the $250 to $500 range, an exception being Undersheriff Andrew Conti donating $2,500, the report says.
Former Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto donated $1,000, the same amount contributed by the New Jersey State Policemen’s PBA Local 334, with Hudson Regional Hospital chipping in $500, as did the North Bergen Superior Officers Association PBA Local 18A.
Additionally, East Newark Mayor Dina Grilo’s team account chipped in $700.
He also compiled some labor union support: The New Jersey State Laborers PAC donated $500, the Operating Engineers Local 825 Political Education Committee gave $1,000, as did the Pipefitters Local Union 274 PAC, and the UA Plumbers Local 24 PAC wrote a check for. $1,500.
On the expenditure side, the majority of what was spent was on $48,787.20 for his annual May fundraiser at The Venetian in Garfield.
Schillari, the first Hudson County sheriff elected to five times, announced he’d be seeking another three-year term in May, as HCV first reported.
About a month later, he announced he’d be running on a slate with Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democratic candidate for governor, on June 3rd, 2025 primary ballot.
That was the beginning of a civil war breaking out between the Hudson County Democratic Organization.
State Senator (D-33)/Union City Mayor Brian Stack and Hudson County Executive Craig Guy are leading the charge backing U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5) for governor, despite the fact that he’s not a declared candidate yet.
Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis, a retired police captain who also endorsed Gottheimer, has been floated as a possibility to challenge Schillari.
However, if he were to run and win, that would cause some serious political shakeups in the Peninsula City, triggering a special election well before the regularly scheduled May 2026 non-partisan race.
Davis has not publicly taken a position on the sheriff’s race one way or the other and he could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Frank, can you spend a little of this haul on training your Gestapo that ringing all the doors in a family apartment building at dawn and then banging on their doors is NOT acceptable when you’re looking for one alleged perp on a low-level warrant may be in one of the units?
The KGB, NKVD and Gestapo all though they were “doing their job” too.
Frank’s daughter is a Hudson County Family Court Judge, Judge Tara Schillari-Rich. This becomes a major conflict of interest when Judge Schillari-Rich uses her father, Frank Schillari’s Hudson County Sheriff’s Dept. to go out and arrest fathers owing child support. Most fathers are in the low income and poor demographic, so this becomes a racial issue as well as the conflict-of-interest and violations of Fourth Amendment Rights of unlawfully arresting someone on a civil child support/alimony matter. No criminal probable cause can ever exist in civil cases. This has been resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, and numerous Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals. But Family Court Judges like Schillari-Rich continue to violate the law, thumb their noses at U.S. Supreme Court precedent (which is contempt of the U.S. Supreme Court), and then push business towards her father’s way as the county sheriffs, judiciary, and state collect Federal funding on amounts of child support awarded, enforced upon and collected (see Title 42 U.S.C. ยง658a and f).
Hudson County judiciary, tied in with the sheriff’s office, is rife with nepotism and needs to be cleaned up–once again. The Feds came in and ran the county jail for a while because of the corruption, losing of millions of dollars, and treating of prisoners badly.