Acting Legal professional Basic Andrew J. Bruck introduced that an lawyer was sentenced right now for her purpose in a scheme involving unlawful use of straw donors to conceal campaign contributions and protected rewarding authorities contracts for her legislation company.
Elizabeth Valandingham, 49, of Morristown, N.J., was sentenced now to a few years’ probation and 324 hours of local community support by Remarkable Courtroom Choose Robert Hanna in Morris County. The point out advisable that Valandingham be sentenced to 364 times in the county jail pursuant to the plea settlement, but the courtroom did not impose that sentence. She pleaded responsible on April 13, 2021 to an accusation charging her with third-degree tampering with community records or info. Less than the plea agreement, she forfeited her legislation license and was ordered to pay a $75,000 general public corruption profiteering penalty. She also is debarred from any public contracts for a period of 10 years.
Deputy Lawyers Basic John A. Nicodemo, Eric Cohen, and Michelle McBrian represented the Attorney General’s Place of work of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) at the sentencing listening to. She was billed in an investigation by the OPIA Corruption Bureau.
In pleading guilty, Valandingham admitted that she submitted fraudulent proposals for federal government contracts for the law agency in which she worked, O’Donnell McCord, P.C., in which she failed to disclose political contributions that had been illegally made applying straw donors. She further more admitted that she submitted false studies to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) on behalf of the law firm in which she unsuccessful to report such illegal contributions. Valandingham was initially billed by grievance-summons on June 17, 2020.
“Those who interact in illegal strategies to evade our marketing campaign finance and shell out-to-participate in laws will be held accountable,” said Acting Attorney Standard Bruck. “We simply cannot tolerate any endeavor to undermine good and open up elections and community contracts in New Jersey.”
“OPIA is operating to enforce a lifestyle of integrity in point out and area federal government in New Jersey, and that features safeguarding our election method and general public contracting from legal behavior,” said OPIA Government Director Thomas Eicher. “This scenario reflects our dedication to prosecute dishonest operators who seek to profit at the expenditure of good government.”
Valandingham was billed in link with conduct that occurred between 2012 and 2017. A single of her responsibilities at the legislation business was to prepare and submit yearly proposals to municipalities for the regulation company to garner community contracts for lawful providers.
OPIA has a toll-cost-free Tipline 1-844-OPIA-TIPS for the general public to report corruption. The AG’s Place of work has an Anti-Corruption Reward Application that delivers a reward of up to $25,000 for tips primary to a conviction for a crime involving general public corruption. Data is posted at: http://nj.gov/oag/corruption/reward.html.
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