Free Republic

A 69-year-old woman who was charged with assaulting a police officer has turned around and filed a complaint against him for the incident, which stemmed from a political sign she had put up. The incident started last Wednesday when Marion Munk, a ceramics instructor at a community college, said she noticed a handmade political sign she'd left on a street corner near her house was knocked to the ground. Munk said she stopped at the corner, where Public Service Electric & Gas Co. crews were working, to find out why her sign, which was against incumbent Democrats, was down on...

A California-based group op posed to the use of eminent do main is planning a protest over the weekend at a Piscataway farm seized by the township. The group wants to show support for the Halper family, who must be off the property by Monday afternoon. "We must draw a line in the sand and say: NO MORE!," reads a notice posted on www.freerepublic.com, a site run by Freestar Media LLC, a conservative organization that lobbies against eminent domain. "We must defend our constitutional right to own property. If this event isn't worthy of your time, then you will never...

We need YOU to drive your RV, pitch your tents, and take a stand against eminent domain abuse by camping out at the Halper Farm until the moment of eviction. We hope it will be like Valley Forge without the frostbite and Woodstock without the mud. We have received word that the government plans to send over a large number of well armed police officers to evict this family from what is rightfully theirs. We must draw a line in the sand and say: NO MORE! We must defend our constitutional right to own property. If this event isn't worthy...

With all this rain, New Jersey may have seemed like a swamp this week. But alligators? Piscataway police recovered a 3-foot long alligator in the backyard of a house on Saturday. "It's not normal to find an alligator around here," said Lt. George Maurer of the Piscataway police department. He added with a chuckle, "I know we've had a lot of rain." Maurer said a woman on the 1800 block of West 7th St. called police around 12:30 a.m. saying she had spotted an alligator in her back yard. Police arrived on the scene, determined it was indeed a gator,...

NEWARK - New Jersey political fund raiser David D'Amiano was sentenced today to 24 months in prison for soliciting and accepting $40,000 in cash and political contributions from a Piscataway farm owner to influence state and county officials to offer a favorable price to preserve the farmland, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced. U.S. District Judge William H. Walls also ordered D'Amiano, 45, of Edison, to pay a $15,000 fine to the federal government and to make $1,000 in restitution to the Democratic State Committee. D'Amiano already has paid another $20,000 to the government - money which he took from...

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - A small group of thinking men and women convened at Rutgers University last month to consider how order theory — a branch of abstract mathematics that deals with hierarchical relationships — could be applied to the war on terror. It almost seems ridiculous for people who inhabit a world of concept lattices and partially ordered sets to think they can affect a war that is being fought on the streets of Baghdad and in the remote mountains of northern Pakistan. But the war on terror is also fought in cyberspace, and in the minds of people from...

Official: Kushner To Plead Guilty Charles Kushner Is Gov. McGreevey's Top Donor Aug 17, 2004 4:14 pm US/EasternTRENTON (AP) A top gubernatorial donor who is accused of having a prostitute seduce a government witness is to plead guilty Wednesday, a federal official said. The plea by Charles Kushner is to be taken at 11 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares in Newark, an aide to the judge said Tuesday. The court calendar did not specify what charge or charges were involved, the aide said. A federal official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the hearing would be for...

TRENTON, N.J. -- A Democratic fund-raiser linked to Gov. James E. McGreevey extorted $40,000 in campaign donations by promising a farmer that public officials would help him get more money for development rights to his land, federal authorities said Tuesday. David D'Amiano is charged with extortion, mail fraud and bribery. According to an indictment released Tuesday, D'Amiano told the owner of a Piscataway farm he would not get premium value for his property unless he made donations to the Democratic Party. Middlesex County officials had offered Mark Halper $3 million for development rights to his 74-acre family farm. After D'Amiano...

Democratic fund-raiser indicted on extortion chargesBy JOHN P. McALPIN The Associated Press 7/6/2004, 6:02 p.m. ET TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A Democratic fund-raiser linked to Gov. James E. McGreevey extorted $40,000 in campaign donations by promising a farmer that public officials would help him get top dollar for his land, federal authorities said Tuesday. Carteret businessman David D'Amiano is charged with extortion, mail fraud and bribery. According to an indictment released Tuesday, D'Amiano told the owner of a Piscataway farm he would not get premium value for his property unless he made donations to the Democratic Party. Middlesex County officials...

<p>Federal investigators are examining the circumstances surrounding a $10,000 donation that members of a Middlesex County farming family made to the state Democratic Party as they fought to prevent Piscataway Township from seizing their land, sources familiar with the probe said.</p>

Piscataway gets OK to condemn farmland December 3, 2002 By Patrick Jenkins, Star-Ledger Staff pjenkins@starledger.com 732-634-3607 To submit a Letter to the Editor: eletters@starledger.com The future of the Cornell Dairy Farm was decided yesterday when a state judge granted Piscataway the power to condemn property that has been at the center of a bitter, three-year legal battle between the Halper family and township officials. Superior Court Assignment Judge Robert Longhi rejected arguments by Halper attorney John J. Reilly to dismiss the condemnation proceeding. Longhi restated his ruling from June 2000 that Piscataway had a legitimate purpose in taking the 75-acre...