Serious Crimes by Mayors

Jan 17, 2026

State lawsuit claims New Jersey town's former mayor directed police to keep minorities out

CLARK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey town whose former mayor was once heard denigrating Black people on secret recordings made by a whistleblower is now facing a state lawsuit that claims he and local police officials directed officers to keep minorities out of the community.

 A New Jersey town whose former mayor was once heard denigrating Black people on secret recordings made by a whistleblower is now facing a state lawsuit that claims he and local police officials directed officers to keep minorities out of the community.

The complaint, filed by state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the office's Division on Civil Rights, names former Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, suspended town police chief Pedro Matos and the current police director Patrick Grady as defendants. It claims the town's leaders “systematically discriminated against and harassed Black and other non-white motorists.”

onaccorso, a Republican, was the town's mayor for about 25 years before he resigned in January 2025, just days after starting his seventh term in office. He had been easily reelected in November 2024 despite allegations of corruption. He left office after pleading guilty to using township resources to benefit his private landscaping business and forging signatures on permit applications for work his company performed in the area.

Bonaccorso did not respond to a voicemail message left Friday. When asked about the suit by NJ.com, he texted them back a two-word response, using an expletive to describe the suit.

In 2020, a police officer told officials he had secretly recorded Bonaccorso, Matos and another police official using racial slurs while referring to Blacks. The town agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the matter out of court, but the allegations later became public.

Clark Mayor Angel Albanese, a Republican who succeeded Bonaccorso, called the state's lawsuit “frivolous” and accused Platkin of “playing politics” as his term as attorney general comes to an end. Charles Sciarra, an attorney for Matos, voiced similar views while noting the timing of the suit.

Matos has been on paid leave since the Union County Prosecutor's Office seized control of the police department in July 2020. He has sued Clark to try to block the town from firing him, and those disciplinary proceedings remain active. The prosecutor's oversight ended last March.

The lawsuit claims the town and its police leadership instituted a variety of discriminatory policing practices at the behest of Bonaccorso. Clark is a New York suburb, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) south of Manhattan.

According to an analysis cited by the attorney general's office, Black people were stopped 3.7 times more often than white people in Clark between 2015 and 2020, and Hispanic people were stopped 2.2 times more often than white people.

While some of these racial disparities persisted to some extent even after the prosecutor's oversight began, the data from 2020 to 2024 revealed some notable changes and improvements in policing practices that coincided with the reduction of some of these racial disparities, the attorney general's office said.

 Jan 17, 2026

RIVERVIEW, Mo. (KSDK/CNN NEWSOURCE/WKRC) - The mayor of Riverview has been arrested and charged with multiple sex crimes following a monthslong investigation by St. Louis County police.

Michael Cornell Jr. is accused of sexually assaulting or harassing at least two teenagers and two adults over the past decade, authorities said. He was arrested this week and is being held on a $1 million cash-only bond.   As First Alert 4 news reported, Riverview mayor Mike Cornell Jr. has been charged with four counts of second-degree statutory sodomy, three counts of first-degree sodomy or attempted sodomy, one count of first-degree harassment, and one count of possession of child pornography. There were four victims involved in these incidents, including two minors under the age of 17. 

Lt. Col. Jerry Lohr of the St. Louis County Police Department described Cornell’s alleged conduct as “predatory,” adding that investigators believe there may be additional victims.

The investigation began in December after a victim reported the alleged crimes to another law enforcement agency, which referred the case to St. Louis County police. Court records detail allegations of sexual assault and harassment dating back to 2016, with the most recent incident reported in December 2023.

Just last month, Cornell Jr. alleged without evidence that pro-KKK and anti-Semitic graffiti had been appearing throughout Riverview.