New Jersey town faces state lawsuit over alleged racial bias by former mayor

State lawsuit alleges discriminatory policing under former mayor

A New Jersey town is facing a state lawsuit that alleges its former mayor and police officials directed officers to keep minorities out of the community, the Associated Press reported.

The complaint was filed by state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the state Division on Civil Rights and names former Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, suspended police Chief Pedro Matos and police Director Patrick Grady as defendants, according to the report.

The lawsuit says the town’s leadership “systematically discriminated against and harassed Black and other non-white motorists,” and it asserts that leaders and police carried out discriminatory policing practices at Bonaccorso’s behest.

Bonaccorso resigned after years in office

Bonaccorso, a Republican, was mayor for about 25 years before resigning in January 2025, just days after starting his seventh term, the report said.

The Associated Press said he had been easily reelected in November 2024 despite allegations of corruption and that he left office after pleading guilty to using township resources to benefit his private landscaping business and forging signatures on permit applications for work his company performed in the area.

The report said Bonaccorso did not respond to a voicemail message. When asked about the suit by NJ.com, he texted back a two-word response that included an expletive.

Prior settlement tied to secret recordings and slurs

The lawsuit comes after allegations that surfaced from secret recordings made by a whistleblower, the report said.

In 2020, the Associated Press reported, a police officer told officials he had secretly recorded Bonaccorso, Matos and another police official using racial slurs while referring to Black people. The town agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the matter out of court, and the report said the allegations later became public.

Successor denounces suit as political

Clark Mayor Angel Albanese, also a Republican, called the state’s lawsuit “frivolous” and accused Platkin of “playing politics,” the Associated Press reported.

Charles Sciarra, an attorney for Matos, voiced similar views while noting the timing of the suit, according to the report.

Police oversight and ongoing disciplinary fight

Matos has been on paid leave since the Union County Prosecutor’s Office seized control of the police department in July 2020, the report said. It added that Matos sued Clark to try to block the town from firing him, and said disciplinary proceedings remain active.

The Associated Press reported that the prosecutor’s oversight ended last March. Grady, the current police director, is named as a defendant along with Bonaccorso and Matos.

Clark, a New York suburb about 27 miles (43 kilometers) south of Manhattan, is the focus of the state complaint, according to the report.

Disparities in traffic stops cited in complaint

The report said the lawsuit cites analysis referenced by the attorney general’s office showing disparities in traffic stops in Clark between 2015 and 2020.

It reported that Black people were stopped 3.7 times more often than white people in Clark during that period and that Hispanic people were stopped 2.2 times more often than white people.

While the report said disparities persisted to some extent even after the prosecutor’s oversight began, it also quoted the attorney general’s office saying data from 2020 to 2024 showed improvements in policing practices that coincided with reductions of some of these racial disparities.