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Wanda Molina admitted last week that she dismissed eight parking tickets to a household member. She said she wrote “emergency” on three of them, even though there was none.
To lock up Molina, 51, would be unfair, says her lawyer, noting that two other judges involved in the ticket-fixing scandal avoided jail for tampering with public records. Both entered pre-trial intervention programs that wipe the slate if each they keep their noses clean for a year.
But state prosecutors want Bergen County Superior Court Judge Harry Carroll to send a message on Aug. 27 with a local jail sentence of 364 days for Molina, because she was the Jersey City court’s chief judge, according to the New Jersey Law Journal.
The scandal broke in September 2007 after Hudson County Assignment Judge Maurice Gallipoli confirmed a tip that tickets were being fixed. In two cases, one judge knocked down a parking ticket for another judge, among other offenses. Molina quit that month after news broke.
To avoid a conflict, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio sent the case to state prosecutors in Trenton.
Still unresolved are official misconduct charges against 55-year-old Court Administrator Virginia Pagan, who, prosecutors said, tapped into the court’s computerized record system to wipe out a whopping 215 parking tickets issued to her and her daughter.
The case was investigated by Det. Lisa Cawley and Sgt. Lisa A. Shea of the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau. Deputy Attorney General Asha Vaghela presented the cases to the grand jury.
The scandal prompted the state Administrative Office of the Courts to issue new rules in how tickets given to court employees and relatives are handled. Municipal judges also must report when members of their family get ticketed in their jurisdiction.
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