‘Several current and former educators and political insiders in Hudson County claim teachers are pressured to make political donations to a campaign fund linked to North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco. Some said their jobs and promotions can be affected by whether and how much they give’, according to NBC4’s I-Team, led by investigative journalists Jonathan Dienst and David Paredes.  The current dispatch from the I-Team follows a previous report from November focusing on Sacco’s family employment in North Bergen.

The report also includes an audio clip sent to them in which Mayor Sacco allegedly speaks about the I-Team investigation, saying of NBC “they are liars. They are incompetent.  ‘You’re either totally incompetent or totally corrupt.’  One or the other. OK, that’s both response to them.  They are not your friends. They will twist what you say.”  Sacco allegedly also says that the NBC4 team is ‘behaving like criminals’.

According to the report, Sacco’s team contends that the I-Team is colluding with Sacco nemesis Larry Wainstein, a claim they deny.

Read the I-Team report here.