March 18, 2015 • www.theobserver.com • Vol CXXVII, No. 43 Visit our
BUSINESS DIRECT on
COVERING: BELLEVILLE • BLOOMFIELD
Former official guilty
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• EAST NEWARK • HARRISON • KEARNY • LYNDHURST • NORTH ARLINGTON • NUTLEY
Paddy’s Day paraders
By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent KEARNY – Last Monday, March 9, at his second day on trial in Camden Federal Court for his alleged participation in a $13 million mortgage fraud scheme that, according to the government, used fake documents and “straw buyers” to make illegal profits on overbuilt condos at the Jersey Shore, former Kearny lawmaker/school trustee John Leadbeater, 58, pled guilty to a single count of wire fraud. In return for his plea, the government dropped a second charge of money laundering for which he had been indicted (along with wire fraud) nearly two years ago. Leadbeater, a former Kearny Board of Education vice president and a former member of the Kearny Town Council who made an unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2009, will be sentenced June 26 by U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Simandle in Camden. Under federal sentencing guidelines, as a first offender, Leadbeater could face a minimum of 46 to 57 months to a maximum of 30 years in prison, depending on other factors, plus a fine of up to $1 million. He will also be expected to make restitution for see PLEA page
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Photo by Karen Zautyk
Target parking lot for new school By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent
HARRISON – If no significant environmental issues arise, the municipal parking lot across the street from Washington Middle School will become the site for a new school for kindergarten and pre-K
students in Harrison to help relieve overcrowding at Lincoln and Hamilton elementary schools. And the $33 million project will cost taxpayers not one dime to build, school officials insist, because the Board of Education owns the property and because the state has committed to picking up the
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entire tab. So reported James Doran, the district’s director of personnel, and Michael Pichowicz, the board attorney, in an interview with The Observer at the BOE office last Thursday. Doran said the BOE – which has yet to vote on designating the lot as the place where
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the new facility will rise – nonetheless want to forewarn residents now because during the Easter holiday period – between April 6 and 16 – the parking lot at Washington St. and Harrison Ave. will be closed. That’s when the N.J. Schools Development Authority has see NEW SCHOOL page
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