More criminal charges have been filed against Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez in connection with an alleged voter fraud scheme dating the May 2020 election.
Mendez and his wife face new charges in the 20-count superseding indictment including attempts to tamper with a witness to the alleged ballot stuffing scheme.
Mendez has served on the council for nearly five years – including being re-elected in 2024 – since he was accused of stealing mail-in ballots with numerous co-conspirators in the run-up to the 2020 election. The New Jersey State Attorney General’s office alleged Mendez and several co-conspirators stole mail-in ballots, falsified them, and then stuffed hundreds of them in a mailbox in Haledon to try to win the election.
In some cases, prosecutors said ballots collected by Mendez’s campaign aides were opened, and if the votes were not for him, they were destroyed and the vote was changed using blank mail-in ballots stolen from neighborhood mailboxes.
Mendez and his wife Yohanny Munoz-Mendez have denied wrongdoing and previously pleaded not guilty.
The 2020 election in New Jersey’s third-largest city was conducted via mail-in ballot due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The people’s right to vote and to have their voices heard was subverted by what we allege to be an unlawful conspiracy … It was, as the grand jury alleged, fraud and theft,” said Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
Neither Mendez’s defense attorney Paul Brickfield, nor Munoz-Mendez’s attorney Genesis Peduto, returned requests for comment.
In all, five people have been charged in the alleged voter fraud scheme. The charges include election fraud, tampering with public records, forgery and the new charge of witness tampering. If convicted, the top count carries a sentence of up to 5-10 years in prison.
William McCoy, who lost the 2020 election to Mendez by just 9 votes amid the voter fraud controversy, voiced concern over it taking about four years for the criminal case to move forward before Judge Sohail Mohammed.
“This criminal enterprise has been allowed to defraud the residents of the City of Paterson for far too long,” McCoy said. McCoy again called on Mendez to resign and for prosecutors to move the case forward.
“The democratic process and our rights must be protected and those who would subvert the will of the voters must be held accountable. Justice although delayed must not be denied,” McCoy said.
A second Paterson councilman, Michael Jackson, was also charged in a separate voter-fraud related case in Paterson’s 2020 election. Jackson has also pleaded not guilty.
Jackson’s case too has dragged on for years before Judge Mohammed.
A court spokesperson for New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mohammed declined to comment on the reasons for the multi-year delays in both voter-fraud related cases.
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