May be more to murder-for-hire case

New Jersey's political rumor mill in overdrive

By: Dustin Racioppi
Charles Stile
and Ashley Balcerzak
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Political operatives Sean Caddle and Michael Galdieri honed their trade on the streets of their home turf in Hudson County, a crucible for the blood sport of New Jersey politics.
..... The two friends stayed out of the spotlight. they toiled in campaign war rooms and party clubhouses, grinding away at the unglamorous gears of campaign machinery: dispatching door-knockers, organizing phone banks, tacking up candidate signs - or ripping down their opponents' when it suited them.
..... They won praise for their efficiency and intensity and scorn for their do-whatever-it-takes style.
..... Over the two men branched out, boosting the prospects of prominent Democratic officials, including U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and Newark Ras Baraka, and the campaigns of Elisabeth Mayor Christion Bollwage and Jimmy Davis, the Bayonne mayor.
..... But a big break came when Caddle became a trusted campaign lieutenant of state Senator Ray Lesniak, the powerful Union county officials,, after helping him rebound from a near-loss in 2011.
..... And Caddle was one of the first in New Jersey to exploit "dark money" fundraising vehicles after a U.S. Supreme Court decisions opened the flood-gates to loosely regulated campaign cash in 2010. Caddle appears to have shared his workload with Galdieri by hiring him at his consulting firms.
..... But beyond a small fraternity of political professionals, the two men were largely invisible to the public.
..... Until now.
..... Late last month, [01/2022] Caddle, 44, pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire. He confessed to hiring a Connecticut man to kill Galdieri, federal authorities say, in April 2014. That man - who served prison time for masterminding a string of jewelry thefts in North Jersey - recruited an associated from Philadelphia, and the two of them traveled to Jersey City before setting it ablaze on May 22, 2014, the U.S. attorney's Office said.
..... The next day, Caddle met with George Bratsenis in the parking lot of an Elizabeth diner and paid him "thousand of dollars" for the job, which federal prosecutors say was carried out with Bomani Africa, a former fellow inmate of Bratsenis and an accomplice in other crimes.
..... Caddle's admission - made in open federal court on January 24 [2021] - read like a sordid plot line in an episode of "The Sopranos." It raises more questions than it answers:
..... What motivated Caddle to have his longtime friend and business associated killed?
..... Why have prosecutors allowed Caddle out on bail?
..... And is Galdieri's killing connected to a similar, unsolved killing that same year of a politically prominent figure, John Sheridan, and his wife?
..... But the unearthing of this eight-year-old cold case could be the prequel to a more explosive saga, one wrapped up in Caddle's deep connections to politics and the massive amount of money that flows through New Jersey campaigns.
..... Caddle's attorney, Edwin Jacobs, confirmed in the court hearing that his client - home until his sentencing in June [2022] - is "working, collaborating with the FBI in developing an important investigation."
..... Some former prosecutors and defense attorneys have suggested that Caddle must be sharing significant information. People who plead guilty to federal conspiracy to murder charges rarely get the luxury of home confinement with an ankle monitor while awaiting sentencing.
..... "It absolutely points to the possibility that this is just the beginning of the story and there's going to be more indictments to follow as a result of cooperation," said Robert Mintz, a criminal defense attorney who prosecuted organized crime cases for the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey in the 1990s.
..... "It's such an unusual path for the government to take," Mintz added. "You'd have to think that there's something quite significant at the end of the trial here that resulted in them taking what appears to be a relatively lenient position, at least on the issue of bail."
..... The answers to what happens and what comes next have sent New Jersey's political rumor mill overdrive, with no obvious explanation about how two quite figures connect to a potentially larger criminal case.
..... Wat's clear in interviews with about a dozen people who knew and worked with Caddle and Galdieri, though, is that the pair seemed to have lived double lives. Friends and associates described them as caring, hardworking political hands. But they also struggled with drug use and, in the case of Caddle, mental health and financial problems as well, according to court documents.
..... Lesniak, who brought Caddle into Union County politics a decade ago, said Caddle was "always the gentleman, always courteous."
..... He seemed to spend a lot of time caring for his son and his wife when she was dealing with medical issues, Lesnisk said.
..... "That's why this is so bizarre," Lesniak said. "It's just so hard to believe."
..... Caddle's admission in court shocked people who knew Galdieri, too.
..... "I try to figure out why. It's a big question mark," Gary DeFilippo, owner of the longtime Jersey City political haunt Gary's Sweet Shoppe, who said he had known Galdieri since he was a child. "If you're going to kill somebody, it's got to be something serious."

'In Hudson county, politics is like a sport'

..... Politics was in Galdieri's blood. His father, James Galdieri, represented parts of Hudson County in the state Senate for one year, and later served on the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission. His great-grandfather, also named James, spent a year in the state Assembly.
..... Michael Galdieri sought elected office, too, running in 2005 for the Jersey city Council on an anti-crime platform. but he was arrested on drug charges the day before the election, found with enough drugs to be consistent with :intent to distribute as opposed to personal consumptions," police said at the time.
..... Galdieri admitted in Court papers that he possessed ecstasy, "meth" and cocaine when arrested. He was sentenced to five years in prison, according to court records.
..... He was arrested again on drug possession charges in 2009, court records show.
..... Galdieri spent many years before that working on several campaigns for former Assemblyman Lou Manzo - for whom Caddle worked - and for one of Bret Schundler's mayoral campaigns in the 1990s for Jersey City mayor.
..... Schundler said he brought Galdieri on as a favor to his father.
..... "My impression was, always, that he was he was trying to help Michael get on the straight and narrow," Schundler said.
..... The younger Galdieri was assigned to posting signs and hanging door-knocker reminders - most likely out of the campaign's Ward B operations, Schundler said.
..... Bill O'Dea, the veteran Hudson County commissioner and former Jersey City councilman, said Galdieri "wrestled with" drug abuse while working in politics. The two often ran into each other at Gary's Sweet Shoppe, a neighborhood staple for coffee and lottery tickets but known to locals as a gathering spot to talk politics.
..... "He loved analyzing elections, he loved strategizing elections. In Hudson County, politics is like a sport," O'Dea said. "Mile relished all that stuff."
..... He also enjoyed the unsavory side of politics, said Gerry McCann, the former mayor of Jersey City. he described Galdieri as a "good guy" but also a "dirty tricks" guy.
..... "He was the type of person who ripped the signs down, put the sings up," McCann said, referring to campaign signs. "If you wanted somebody to do anything crazy, you'd get Galdieri."
..... DeFilippo, who counted Galdieri as a childhood friend, disputed any characterization of him as a rough street operator and said there was "not a bad bone in his body."
..... "He was just a neighborhood guy," DeFilippo said. "He was from the neighborhood, and in this neighborhood, there's always something brewing."
..... Available campaign documents do not show whether Galdieri worked with Caddle on races in Hudson County, but people who knew the men said he likely did. The U.S. Attorney's Office, without getting into specifics, said Galdieri worked for Caddle on "various political campaigns."
..... A couple of years before Galdieri was killed, he worked with Caddle in Union County., O'Dea said. Galdieeri;s LinkedIn page also lists shivving worked for two of Caddle's political firms, Arkady Innovative Solutions and Front Porch Consulting. Lesniak, who hired Caddle to run his gubernatorial campaign, among others, said he didn't know Galdieri.

'He stressed hard work'

..... Caddle, like Caldieri, is a native of Jersey City who cut his teeth in the early 2000s on local political campaigns.
..... Caddle earned more than $55,000 from the Hudson County Democratic Organization in 20021 and 2002, state finance records show.
..... He then worked on the 2003 congressional and 2005 Senate Campaigns for then-Representative Bob Menendez, earning more than $108,000 for fundraising consulting, among other payments, Federal Election Commission records show.
..... Caddle also branched out beyond New jersey, getting hired in 2010 to run Houston Votes, a Democratic group that sought to register new voters in Harris County, Texas.
..... But a top county election official, a Republican, accused the group of submitting thousands of questionable and ineligible voting applications. Caddle denied any wrongdoing, but fired some 20 or 30 workers, according to news reports.
..... Three days after the allegations were made, a fire destroyed a warehouse that stored all the county voting machines. Some 10,000 machines were damaged, according to published reports. While the timing drew speculation of a connection between the allegations and the fire, none was ever found.
..... Caddle found work in Union County beginning in 2013 after Lesniak, the longtime state senator from Elizabeth, eked out a primary victory in 2011 by fewer than 800 votes. O'Dea recommended that Lesniak hire Caddle, and it paid off in the 2013 primary. Lesniak won that contest by 4,500 votes and secured another term that November.
..... "I've described him as the best field director that I've ever known," said Lesniak, who also hired him to run his failed campaign for governor in 2017.
..... Caddle was "very meticulous" in training and supervising his staff, Lesniak added, "and he knew how ti identify voters and to get them engaged and get out to the polls."
..... Other elected officials had similar assessments of Caddle. In 2014 - the year he admitted paying to have Galdieri killed - Caddle ran the campaign for Anthony Romano, who was running for the Hudson County Board of Freeholders.
..... It was a difficult race for Romano because he ran "off the line," meaning he didn't have the preferred ballot position with other candidates endorsed by the Democratic organization.
..... "He was one of the reason I won," Roman said, noting that it was a "clean campaign" and Caddle was "always a gentleman."
..... "He stressed hard work. he stressed to make sure i got my message out trough vote mailers and door-to-door" campaigning, Romano said.
..... Caddle was in charge the next year of getting support in Elizabeth, the state's third largest city, for Jamel Holley's first Assembly election. Holley and his running mate, Annette Quijano, won.
..... "Sean had a very good knowledge of numbers as it related to how many votes you need and how many employees needed to be hired to cover most of Elizabeth," said Holley, who left the Legislation this year. [2021]

Lucrative consulting business

..... Caddle assembled an army of mysterious and powerful political groups that made waves in local races. They included super PACs, which could raise and spend unlimited sums of cash, and a network of "dark money: nonprofits that kept donors' names hidden from public view.
..... It proved to be lucrative work.
..... Caddle and his consulting firms, collected more than $2.2 million from 2001 to 2020, according to a USA TODAY Network New Jersey analysis of state and federal campaign finance filing of campaigns , super PACs, parties and unions that paid Caddle.
..... More than $1 million of that came from super PACs. Adm that's just what is publicly reported; many groups connected to Caddle have kept their finances hidden from view, or didn't turn in required forms, with few consequences.
..... Lesniak and Caddle garnered national attention for deploying a super PAC called the Committee for Economic Growth and Social Justice to flip control of the Elizabeth school board from members feuding with Lesniak in favor of allies of Elizabeth mayor Christian Bollwage in 2013 and 2014.
..... A rare sight in local elections, the super PAC poured more than $682,000 - backed by bail bonds groups, unions, law firms and more - into races for three unpaid positions overseeing Elizabeth's 25,000-student school district. Later, the super PAC spent on 2014 mayoral races in Newark and Bayonne, helping propel Ras Baraka and Jimmy Davis to victory.
..... The bulk of the reported payments more than $600,000 were routed to Caddle's firm, Arkady LLC, according to FEC filings.
..... The super PAC is just one thread of Caddle's web of political groups, dotted with at least seven "dark money: nonprofits that can legally keep their donors hidden and much of their spending obscured.

Questions raised in '14 killing, fire

..... Four months after Galdieri's killing, two well-known figures in New Jersey politics were found dead in their Somerset County home about 50 miles away.
..... The deaths of John Sheridan, a former transportation commissioner and hospital executive at Cooper University Hospital, and his wife, Joyce, drew intense intrigue at the time but no connection to the killing of Galdieri.
..... That changed after Caddle's guilty plea, Mark Sheridan, a well-known attorney in New Jersey politics, has asked state and county authorities to look into whether a kitchen knife seized from Bratenis matched the description of a knife missing form his parents' home.
..... The timing and circumstances of the dearths of his parents are eerily similar: They, like Galdieri, were stabbed to death and their home was set ablaze. the case was originally ruled a murder-homicide, but John Sheridan's death was later changed to "undetermined."
..... "Our suggestion really wasn't so crazy, and they really should look at this anew," Sheridan said last month. [01/2022]

'They got 'em, Mike'

..... In 2015. a year after Galdieri's death, residents of Little ferry in Bergen county experienced Caddle's penchant for political hardball.
..... Starting around mid-May in that year, residents in the blue-collar borough of 11,000 began receiving an almost daily onslaught of fliers from a mysterious group called "Focus on Families." Incumbent Democrat Mauro Raguseo was the main target.
..... One mailer implied that Raguseo was linked to organized crime suggested his Italian last name. another suggested he deployed henchmen to harass his opponents. Adm he was painted as a joined-at-the-hip toady of former Governor Chris Christie.
.... Ragseo and his campaign confirmed moths later that Caddle was the consultant tied to the group.
..... But it wasn't until 2016 that Caddle publicly confirmed in an interview with Politico New Jersey that Focus on Families was set up at the behest of Donald Nuckel, a major property owner in the area, and was staked by a $20,000 donation made by Nuckel Properties.
..... Raguseo, who won reelection that year, believe Focus on Families was just part of a wider, expensive effort to defeat him, which included negative "push poll" phone calls and anonymous text messages. It was an unprecedented - and outsizes - effort for Little Ferry, he said.
..... "I've been in this business for 25 years," Raguseo said. "Ive seen crazy campaigns, but that campaign in 2015 to be the mayor of Little ferry? Really?"
..... For now, many New Jersey politicos are waiting for the next development in the murder-for-hire case. Caddle's attorney said his client is "totally broke" and taking medication for opioid addiction. Caddle is facing life in prison, or possible less, depending on the extent of his cooperation.
..... For Galdieri's family, Caddle's cooperation provided some clarity and justice.
..... "I had resolved myself to the fact that who ever did this to my brother got away with murder," his brother, Richard, wrote on his Facebook page.. "T Hey got 'em Mike ... they got ;em."

Dustin Racioppi is a reporter in the New Jersey Statehouse.

charlie Stile is a veteran political columnist

Ashley Balcerzak is a reporter overnice affordable housing and its intersection with how we live in New Jersey.

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