In another example of a former corruption-sullied mayor getting stopped in his tracks in his attempt to make a political comeback, Jose “Joey” Torres this evening unsuccessfully tried to submit petitions to run citywide in Paterson.

Torres envisioned another crack at mayor.

But the City Clerk’s Office refused to accept his petitions.

Torres should have seen it coming.

“Subsequent to your picking up petitions for the 2022 Mayoral Election, the Office of the Corporation Counsel provided me formal confirmation that there is a criminal bar not only against your returning to public office, but also against your submitting election petitions, and against my office accepting them,” a letter from city clerk Sonia Gordon to Torres dated December 28, 2021 read to the former mayor. “Accordingly, I must respectfully notify you that my office will not be able to accept petitions in support of your candidacy.”

Today, subsequent to his failing to submit signatures to challenge incumbent Mayor Andre Sayegh in the May 10th election, “Why is the City of Paterson doing the bidding of the Attorney General’s Office?” Torres wanted to know.

His own history might have provided the answer to that question.

In the highest profile corruption case of 2017 in New Jersey politics, Torres stole taxpayers’ money when he enlisted city Department of Public Works employees to do private work for him. The DPW workers all also copped a plea deal, prior to the mayor’s attorney John Azzarello emerging from Superior Court Judge Sheila Venable’s chamber in Jersey City, taking for Torres the government’s proffered plea deal of five years in prison without parole and forfeiture of his office.

His disappointment at the clerk’s office came a day after a similar encounter in Newark, where City Clerk Kenneth Louis informed former Newark Mayor Sharpe James that James will not appear on the May 10th ballot as an at-large candidate for the city council.

In defiance of a court order preventing him from ever again holding public elected office, James, 86, sought and received petitions to run this year in the citywide election, but Louis challenged him.