Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla is accused of fixing several of his parking tickets through municipal employees, according to a letter from a former assistant municipal public defender and current assistant Hudson County counsel, and he denies any wrongdoing.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
” … The mayor ‘gets tickets’ and hands them to enforcement officers saying, ‘take care of this.’ I reviewed publicly available records on NJCourts.gov, which revealed ~247 municipal court cases listing Mayor Bhalla as the defendant,” wrote attorney Georgina Giordano Pallitto, who told HCV she was not releasing her client’s name due to an ongoing investigation.
” … But troublingly, and potentially criminally, court records indicate numerous contested violations were not transferred out of Hoboken Municipal Court, as it would be required for cases involving the governing body. Instead, these cases appear to have been dismissed outright in Hoboken, in some cases months – and in one instance, two years – after the period calling for a suspension or warrant for failure to appear had lapsed.”
She continued that if a parking enforcement officer had “taken care of” any of the tickets, that would not be reflected on the court docket, explicitly referencing six tickets issued between November 12th, 2021 and October 28th, 2023 that were dismissed in Hoboken.
Her letter was sent to U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division Chief Joshua Haber, New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety Theresa Hilton, and Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez on Tuesday.
That was just two weeks before the primary election where Bhalla is running for a state Assembly seat in the 32nd Legislative District.
The HCPO declined to comment and the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not return inquiries seeking comment. A spokesman for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said they could not confirm or deny the existence of a criminal investigation.
Pallitto worked in Hoboken for six years between 2019 and 2024 and was assistant Hudson County prosecutor between September 2011 and December 2015, along with operating a private practice in Newark.
Rob Horowitz, a spokesman for Bhalla, dismissed the letter as an obvious campaign stunt meant to hurt Bhalla heading into Election Day before providing an explanation for the dismissed tickets.
“This letter, sent just 12 days before the election, is an amateurish stunt straight out of the Hudson County political machine’s playbook of dirty political tricks. It is written by a longtime lawyer at the Hudson County Law Department who refuses to disclose the identity of the person making these false claims,” he said.
“The plain facts are Ravi Bhalla never asked anyone for special treatment period end of story and was never provided any. During the COVID pandemic, an overwhelmed the Municipal Court staff routinely dismissed tickets that were pending for more than 180 days. We have sought and received confirmation from the municipal court that the mayor has engaged in zero wrongdoing.”
He did not elaborate on why five of the six tickets referenced in the letter were dismissed in January 2024.
Bhalla, who is widely viewed as the frontrunner, is running alongside Jersey City activist Katie Brennan in the June 10th primary in a six-person contest.
The Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) is backing Jennie Pu and Crystal Fonseca, while Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez and Jersey City Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh are part of Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop’s gubernatorial slate.
Ordered the parking tickets to disappear. Hoboken municipal court can’t do it. Legally can’t handle any of the Ravi scofflaw violations. Underlings handled it, as ordered.
Look where the Ravi Terror Flier has taken Hoboken.
I’m more offended by the absurd lie from Ravi’s mouthpiece than by the court records clearly showing that Ravi got hundreds of tickets and had many of them fixed. At this point anybody still buying Ravi’s fake reformer schtick has their head firmly stuck in the sand.
Ravi was always the weakest link in the former city council reform majority. As one colleague said about Ravi, “If I did half the things he’s done, I’d be in jail.”
No one in NJ would discourage let alone stop Ravi. The NJ Supreme Court almost yanked his law license permanently but stopped just short. He’s continued scamming every which way from Houston to Hoboken and all points in-between
Once a dirtbag, always a incompetent dirtbag
Why isn’t Bhalla walking. riding a bike (Zimmer did) or having his chauffeur driven taxpayer paid SUV taking him around our mile square city ?
It is also a bit ironic that the Mayor who eliminated scores of legal, public parking spaces cannot seem to find one.