The Atlantic City Democratic Committee remains split with the rift seeming to widen.
As the committee moves forward with criminal allegations against Mayor Frank Gilliam, the state PBA is alleging ethical violations by his former running mate, now a sitting councilman.
It all started with a $10,000 check made out to the committee and deposited into the campaign account of eventual mayoral victor Gilliam.
He and his campaign have insisted the check was an oversight and that the issue needs to be closed so that the party can come together.
But an ad-hoc committee insists it has enough evidence to pursue criminal charges against the mayor and his campaign manager.
On Friday, committee member and retired Atlantic City Police Officer John Devlin went to the department with that evidence.
He told BreakingAC that the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office had also been notified and that investigators would be able to get access to information that the ad-hoc committee could not, including bank records.
A lawyer did draft a letter to TD Bank trying to find out how a check made out to the Atlantic City Democratic Committee could have been approved for deposit into Gilliam’s account.
But the committee can’t even access its own bank account, Devlin said.
That’s because Joyce Mollineaux, the group’s undisputed head up until a week ago, has not turned over the account information, nor passwords to things like the group’s Facebook account.
A March 5 meeting of the Executive Board’s majority replaced Mollineaux, her vice chair and the treasurer. But, it seems, those leaders aren’t recognizing the vote.
Gwen Callaway Lewis, who was voted in as the new leader at that meeting, said she has sent a certified letter to Mollineaux and awaits her reply. If she doesn’t receive it, she could move to file charges herself.
Meanwhile, Councilman Jeffree Fauntleroy II is under fire by the state and local PBAs for his posts on social media, which questioned Devlin as the one tasked with filing charges against Gilliam when Devlin is one of three police officers accused of excessive force in an ongoing civil trial.
“Using your elected office and social media to comment on pending litigation to harass an officer who is doing his job is unethical and, as such, I will be reporting this (to) the Attorney General’s Office and the Local Finance Board for an ethics investigation,” state PBA President Pat Colligan
wrote in a letter to Fauntleroy. “I am shocked that you could be so blind or so political as to paint the ACPD members as ‘corrupt and rogue,’” Colligan said of Fauntleroy’s Facebook posts, saying he took that as a “personal attack on one of the best police agencies in our state.”
Fauntleroy has said he was not attacking the entire department, pointing out that his mother and father both served as officers in the city.
