The Hudson County Board of Commissioners are seeking to recoup approximately $250,000 that former Superintendent of Weights Frank Alonso’s allegedly stole from the county.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
Alonso, 58, of Union City, was charged by the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office last week with stealing over $250,000 from the county between January 2024 and January 2026, as HCV first reported.
“Everybody is aware, I know it was discussed at the public safety meeting, I give a tremendous amount of credit to our Law Department, Alberico and his deputy, being proactive in the case against the employee from weights and measures,” Hudson County Executive Craig Guy said at Thursday’s board of commissioners meeting.
“I think that’s a case of government doing what it should do, be a watchdog over the taxpayers’ money. I remember when that subject was in front of this board a year or so ago, maybe a little longer, when the department was moved from underneath the sheriff at that point to the Law Department the designs of a better oversight and some of the support that he was trying to garner for that move, all while knowing that the public trust was being violated.”
Back in January, Hudson County immediately suspended Alonso when the theft was reported and he was later terminated from his position.
At the July 16th meeting, Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2) echoed Guy about the county’s handling of the situation at the Office of Weights and Measures.
“I certainly echo the county executive’s credit to both the county counsel and county prosecutor for what they’ve done. In committee today, I raised an issue of the fact that what occurred there – and county counsel has taken significant steps from an internal control perspective to ensure something like that cannot happen in the future,” he began.
“But it raised a concern to me that there are multiple other entities within this county, many of which are constitutional offices, clerk, register, surrogate, sheriff, and other places even within, where individuals may be doing similar things such as creating funds.”
Guy agreed and was keen that the establishment of the Office of Inspector General will lead to a magnifying glass held up to those issues.
“I’m hopeful that this appointment of the inspector general and team will take a deep dive into exactly what you’re talking about to be proactive and preventive so we’re not looking down the same problems a year from now.”
O’Dea called for the inspector general to work with the county’s auditor, understanding that each of the constitutional offices at the county level have their own separate audit from the county’s.
“The role of an auditor, because of their financial background as CPAs, is to look at these things, flag these things, and from an auditing and financial perspective, put the controls on,” he explained.
“So they should be working hand-in-hand with the inspector general, but quite frankly, they should have picked some of these things up already as part of their audits.”
O’Dea then asked for copies of the most recent audits of each county department, stipulating the county should be privilege to the audit findings since they ultimately vote on their departmental budgets.
“If there are any findings within those audits, we need to know what those things are, quite frankly, before we vote the budget,” O’Dea said.
A representative from the auditor Donohue, Gironda, Doria, and Tomkins LLC, Mark Bednarz, said that they have completed audits of the County Clerk’s Office up to 2024 with 2025 underway, noting that they may have encountered instances of overpayments at the Register’s Office in prior years as they have completed audits up to 2023.
“We’ve been coordinating with the Register to get those audits up to date we’ve drafted through 2023. The Register’s Office is currently reviewing those audits and giving us feedback for a release,” Bednarz said.
At the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office, they have audited up to 2022, although they have not issued drafts for review yet.
“Historically, with the Sheriff and the Weights and Measures Department, we did not. Typically, in the past, when we’ve requested Sheriff’s information, from my understanding is that Weights and Measures was not usually provided as part of that,” Bednarz added.
“So we’ve gone back through old work as we get the audits caught up to add that. I’m not completely sure how to handle the current situation because we know that there’s currently an investigation into Weights and Measures.”
According to O’Dea, Bednarz response raised grave concerns to him since some of those offices are multiple years behind in audits.
“That’s a problem, and the fact that was never brought to our attention by you is a concern to me, or quite frankly hat no one brought that to our attention,” O’Dea said.
“We continue to vote on budgets for entities that are years behind on their audits. And in most worlds of government, if you get funded by the government and your audit’s not current, you don’t get your money.”
O’Dea further contended that funding from state governments requires that audits must be current, asked for Hudson County Administrator Abe Antun to prepare a written explanation. and for Guy to distribute it as to why these audits are behind schedule “significantly” in multiple instances – to which Antun agreed.
He also asked for the county to implement immediately, to some degree, the effective internal controls deployed by the Law Department to the Weights and Measures Department to ensure what happened there doesn’t happen elsewhere in other departments.
“Who knows if that’s the only employee, but as of now that’s all we know. I think you need to look at what controls we have with the banking institutions that we deal with because it was kind of shocking to me when you can create an LLC that has the same name as a government agency, the bank doesn’t kind of wave a red flag when something like that happens,” O’Dea continued.
“So I think maybe with the banking committee, I know we haven’t met in a while, but maybe the banking committee should meet to discuss what are we doing to make sure the banks are properly doing their job to do it.”
In the instance of Alonso, although not mentioning him by name, O’Dea wanted to know if there steps to take to go after the process checks from funds he diverted.
“I think we need to look at that and see what recourse we may have against the lending institution,” O’Dea said.
Commissioner Al Cifelli (D-9) said, that in his experience with banks and liability, that LLCs generally require an employee identification number (EIN) from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to open a bank account among other proper documentation- which argued banks can see beyond fraudulence.
“You need a resolution approved and adopted by the LLC itself. If that doesn’t look correct to the banks, then… the banks are sophisticated. They can see beyond this,” Cifelli explained.
“And if it comes back to a governmental organization, there’s got to be more diligent insight or investigation by the banking institution as to whether it’s a legitimate LLC that governmental funds can be passed through.”
O’Dea wasn’t privy to the details of the investigation into Alonso, but hoped that the prosecutor’s office and the county in general were exploring the ability to go after some of the banks to recoup some of the monies lost.
“I hate to say it, but quite often in banking institutions, people are in cahoots with individuals that are diverting funds and I think that we need to look at that aspect of it and see if there’s any way to recoup the dollars that were diverted from the account of weights and measures,” O’Dea said.
Later, O’Dea noted that Hudson County Clerk Junior Maldonado told him the 2025 audit was completed but the final report was not yet provided, with Maldonado adding: “We’re caught up in terms of all the audits that are necessary. I just wanted to clarify that.”
In the June 10th, 2025 primary, Alonso ran with Tony Hector for state Assembly in the 33rd Legislative District on then-Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop’s “Democrats for Change” gubernatorial ticket, also with the backing of North Bergen Mayor Nick Sacco.
The duo lost handily, roughly a 70-30 margin, to Assemblyman Gabriel Rodriguez and Larry Wainstein, who were backed by the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) and state Senator (D-33)/Union City Mayor Brian Stack.
Since the transition to the Law Department for better oversight of the agency, the Office of Weights and Measures has had no issues, Guy said. reiterating that situations like this show that there is a need for a county inspector general’s office.
He called for the move five days after ex-County Parks Department Director Russell Fallacara pleaded guilty to a $1.5 million vendor kickback scheme
