Disgraced Engineering Firm Secretly Funneled Money to Hoboken Pols, Report Finds

Hoboken politicians, past and present, were among the recipients of secret campaign contributions from disgraced engineering firm Birdsall Services Group, which pleaded guilty this month to illegally funneling money through its employees into the coffers of elected officials, according to a Star-Ledger report.

For years Birdsall showered political candidates across the state with a combination of legal corporate contributions and secret donations illegally funneled through employees and not reported on state disclosure forms.

While the engineering firm did report its contributions to a number of Hudson County pols, all of its $3,225 in campaign contributions to Hoboken-based candidates were made secretly, according to a Patch analysis of records obtained by The Star-Ledger.

Nine of the more than 1,000 secret contributions Birdsall made to Hoboken candidates between 2008 and 2012 went to three politicians and a slate of Hoboken Board of Education hopefuls.

Former Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III, who served 17 months on corruption charges before being released from a halfway house early last year, received $1,700, or more than half of the firm's off-the-books Hoboken contributions.

Records show that Fourth Ward Councilman Tim Occhipinti received a secret $300 campaign contribution from Birdsall one month before he was elected in 2010, and Hudson County Freeholder Chairman Anthony Romano, a lifelong Hoboken resident, retired Hoboken police captain and former board of education member, received three secret contributions totaling $625 between 2010 and 2011.

School board slate United for Education, composed of Hector Irizarry, Anthony Oland and Frank Raia, received a secret $600 contribution from Birdsall just days before the 2009 Hoboken Board of Education election, according to Star-Ledger documents.

No politician who received secret contributions from Birdsall has been charged with any crime related to doing so, and pay-to-play experts cited by the Star-Ledger said proving the firm's off-the-books donations contributed to them landing contracts can be hard to do.

Birdsall, which landed more than $84 million in public state contracts between 2008 and 2012, has performed a variety of work in Hoboken in recent years, including environmental remediation at the 1600 Park and Hoboken Cove sites, land surveying and site development for the W Hotel, and asbestos management for the Hoboken Board of Education.