The 18 NJ public workers guilty of corruption so far in 2018

Everyone knows that in New Jersey, we have the best government that money can buy.

But even after a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically raised the bar for proving federal bribery and political corruption, New Jersey public officials still find creative ways to get caught with their hands in the till.

That has prompted the state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to form a new Office of Public Integrity and Accountability to “root out the corruption and misconduct” on the state level.

Well, good luck with that.

Here’s a look at which public servants have been found guilty so far this year of public corruption or misconduct in office.

Bloomfield councilman Elias Chalet, 56, admitted to second-degree bribery in official or political matters for accepting $15,000 in bribes from a local businessman to ensure the town bought one of the man’s commercial properties.

In July 2018, Chalet was sentenced in Superior Court in Essex County to 5 years in state prison for accepting the cash, some of which he actually tried to flush down a toilet as federal investigators raided his office, according to authorities.

Qaadir Royal, a former employee in the Code Enforcement Office of the City of Newark, pleaded guilty to  soliciting and accepting a bribe, taking a $1,000 from a man seeking to operate an after-hours social club in return for falsely altering the man’s certificate of occupancy.

Royal was sentenced in Superior Court in Essex County this past September to three years in prison, two of them without parole.

Eric Richardson was a decorated New Jersey state trooper, honored in 2016 by a national anti-bullying organization.

Last April,he was indicted on six charges including official misconduct, criminal coercion and records tampering for pulling over women and pressuring them to give him their phone numbers.

Richardson ultimately pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Mercer County in June to a single count of illegally using an FBI database to obtain personal information about a motorist for a friend looking to do a background check on an employee.

As part of a plea deal to get probation, he forfeited his position as a state trooper and barred from working for the state.

Richardson is also prohibited from ever having contact with his female victims, and will pay restitution to the them if they require counseling.

Lamont King, 41 of Trenton, pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Mercer County July to a second-degree charge of conspiracy to commit a pattern of official misconduct.

Using his position as a family services worker, he pressured two women he was responsible for supervising in court-ordered child visits into having sex with him, authorities said.

Under his plea deal, King will be barred permanently from public employment in New Jersey.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 16.