Freeholder Candidate Asks State, Feds to Look Into Vicari Allegations

Timothy E. Ryan, who is challenging Joseph H. Vicari for the seat on the Ocean County Board of Freeholders this fall, said he has asked state and federal authorities for a criminal investigation into Vicari’s conduct while serving as a freeholder.

According to an article on APP.com, Ryan announced that request during the public comment portion of the freeholders’ meeting on Wednesday. Ryan’s request was prompted by an investigation by the newspaper that has turned up allegations that Vicari used his position as a freeholder to win a lucrative contract for a political ally who was shielded by Vicari’s power after the ally was accused of sexually harassing county employees.

Vicari, who has served on the all-Republican Board of Freeholders since 1981, currently as freeholder director, was not at Wednesday’s meeting but according to county Administrator Carl Block was out of state on a vacation with family and had told the county he would be absent well before Wednesday’s meeting.

According to an APP.com article over the weekend, William A. Santos, a lifelong Republican who used to support Vicari in his re-election bids, told the Press that he was shocked and sickened when Vicari told him in 2013 to renew a $150,000-a-year, taxpayer-funded county contract to a political ally and friend, Brick GOP leader Joseph Veni, despite the legal bidding process. Vicari has said he never pressured Santos.

Vicari and Veni are now the target of a sexual harassment and discrimination suit filed by a county employee who claims Vicari condoned or instructed Veni to “sexually assault” her and to create a hostile work environment.

Read more here.