PARSIPPANY — On Tuesday, March 22 Republican freeholder candidates Lou Valori, Roman Hirniak and Peter King, the Morris County United team, called on Team Mastrangelo to apologize to the Jefferson Township Police Department for wasting the department’s time and resources and to apologize to attendees of their kickoff event after learning Freeholder Mastrangelo sent his son to secretly film event attendees.
Parsippany Focus received documents from the Jefferson Township Police Department that Freeholder Thomas Mastrangelo’s son, Christopher, admitted that he was sent to secretly film the Valori, Hirniak and King event by his father.
Christopher stated to Office Brian Seeley “That his father, Thomas Mastrangelo is running for a spot as a Morris County Freeholder and one of his opponents is holding an event at the Jefferson Diner.” Christopher stated to the officer that he was asked by his dad to video the supporters that attended the event.
The officer, Brian Seeley, then advised Christopher that he had to leave the area because he was on private property and he was making the employee?s of the Chase Bank very nervous. Christopher stated he was sorry and left the area. Click here to view police report. (Editors Note: Parts of the report were redacted to exclude telephone numbers and addresses.)
To make matters worse, according to the published report, Freeholder Mastrangelo, when asked about the incident by a reporter, claimed he knew nothing about it.
Another member of Team Mastrangelo, Freeholder Doug Cabana, fed into the lie by claiming the call from Valori, Hirniak and King for Team Mastrangelo to stop engaging in these tactics was “not worthy of comment” and questioned the type of campaign Morris County United would run.
Morris County United campaign manager Steve Kush said, “In light of this published report, I sincerely hope Team Mastrangelo immediately apologizes to the police for wasting their time, the bank employees for scaring them and the supporters of Lou Valori, Roman Hirniak and Peter King for secretly filming them.”
“I don’t know what would make Mr. Mastrangelo lie when asked directly about the incident but it certainly makes one wonder whether he lies to the residents of Morris County as easily,” Kush added. “Team Mastrangelo should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen.”
“And for Mr. Cabana to question the kind of campaign we will run is ridiculous,” Kush continued. “It was his team caught secretly filming people, not the other way around. I guess Mastrangelo pulled his string and those were the words that came out. He owes our campaign an apology too, because the people of Morris County deserve better than sleazy in-the-gutter politics, elected officials who willingly lie to the press and by extension the people and a campaign team that, given Cabana’s willingness to feed into Mastrangelo’s lie, has a puppet master in charge of the ticket.”
Kush said “It’s time for positive change and Lou Valori, Roman Hirniak and Peter King will be that positive change to the freeholder board. They will continue to run a positive, issues-based campaign.”
