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Now he's in another familiar position: under indictment.
A grand jury in Trenton returned an indictment on Tuesday, Sept. 26, charging Jose "Joey" Torres, 64, with criminal contempt.
“It takes remarkable brashness to flout a state court order and then attempt to strong-arm the city clerk, via civil litigation, into allowing an impermissible campaign to proceed,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
“That is bold," the attorney general said, "and according to the grand jury, it is also indictable.”
Torres served 13 months of a five-year state prison sentence after admitting in 2017 that he had Paterson public employees work at a private liquor distribution warehouse leased by his daughter and nephew on the city taxpayers' dime.
As part of his plea deal with prosecutors, Torres signed off on a court order that he not seek any kind of public employment again once he was released. If he did, he could be charged criminally, the order stipulated.
Torres was paroled in December 2018. Time passed before word of a political comeback began circulating in 2021.
In early 2022, Torres "made a public speech stating that he [was] running for mayor of the City of Paterson...and requesting that the people in the audience vote to return him to City Hall," Platkin said.
Three weeks later, he went to the Paterson City Clerk’s Office and presented a stack of purported nominating petitions in support of his candidacy, the attorney general said.
The clerk rejected the petitions, as she was required to do under state law. Unfazed, Torres went to court, saying he'd be "irreparably harmed by being denied his right to run for office," Platkin said.
A Superior Court judge denied Torres's request.
"By holding himself out as a candidate for mayor, soliciting signatures on nominating petitions, and attempting to submit the petitions at the clerk’s office, Torres purposely and knowingly disobeyed the 2017 forfeiture order that he signed and consented to following his guilty plea," Platkin said.
Deputy Attorney General Brian Kenney secured the indictment.
Torres showed why he shouldn't hold "any public office or position of honor or public trust” by blatantly and openly disregarding what essentially is the rule of law, said Executive Director Thomas Eicher Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA), whose office investigated the case with the New Jersey State Police corruption unit.
Torres couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
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