“I am extremely disappointed and surprised that the Attorney General has elected to pursue this case and file these charges against me today. I have been aware of the investigation for some time, and I have never wavered from the fact that I am innocent.

My surprise stems from the fact that my counsel, John Azzarello, Esq., of Whipple Azzarello LLC in Morristown and Ricardo Solano, Esq., of Friedman, Kaplan, Seiler & Adelman LLP in Newark, have been engaged in an open dialogue with the Attorney General’s Office and, as recently as February 14th, counsel met with the Deputy Attorney General handling the investigation to present my position.

We were cooperating with the Attorney General’s Office and were in the process of addressing certain issues they raised when we were notified at the last possible moment that the state would be unsealing an indictment today.

Thankfully, we still live in a country where everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty and an indictment is not proof of any wrongdoing but merely puts me on notice of what the state says the specific allegations are. I fully intend to vigorously defend myself against these allegations, and I look forward to the opportunity to present all of the facts in a court of law. I am confident that when the full story is told, I will be vindicated.

Finally, I remain committed to continuing with the work I was elected to do on behalf of the citizens of the City of Paterson. There are still many issues to address and fix, and I do not intend to let these baseless charges deter me from those important tasks and to serving my fellow citizens of the City of Paterson.”

Read InsiderNJ’s coverage of the Attorney General’s announcement here.