McGreevey dominoes

McGreevey dominoes

: Ya gotta love Jersey politics: a surprise every day. Pick up today’s Jersey Journal right here in Jersey City and see this:

I’M GAY, AND MAD

Freeholder says governor is using sexuality to deflect criticism

Hudson County Freeholder Ray Velazquez is so offended by the governor’s handling of his legal troubles and so worried that the gay community will be hurt by the scandal that he is publicly acknowledging that he, too, is a gay elected official.

Most troubling, he said, is the allegation that Gov. James E. McGreevey put his lover on the public payroll.

“It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m a gay man,’ to cover up those things,” Velazquez said this week at his Downtown law office….

A relative newcomer to county politics, Velazquez was selected by the Hudson County Democratic Organization in July 2003 to fill the seat of Nidia Davila-Colon, who resigned after being convicted a month earlier of corruption charges.

: Meanwhile, the latest on the guy who claimed he was Golan Cipel’s gay lover… in the pages of the NY Post and News. The Star-Ledger (which did not run the original story) reports today that he was arrested:

But in addition to his sex claims, police reports reviewed by The Star-Ledger yesterday show Michael David Miller has falsely told police he is a CIA operative and that the satellite dish on his house is used for CIA communication. In a series of phone calls to police and Essex County courts, the doctor has told a bizarre tale of an Iranian tenant he claimed would blow up the Essex County Courthouse in Newark.

Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said Miller “has a serious problem with reality,” and sheriff’s officers, along with officers from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, arrested the doctor last night.

Miller was taken into custody about 11:30 p.m. at his home on a warrant charging him with impersonating an FBI officer and causing false public alarm, the sheriff said.

Anybody can hold a press conference and end up in the News.

5 responses to “McGreevey dominoes”

  1. Jack Avatar

    The story gets even weirder. The Daily News reported that Miller was a “professor” at Montclair State University, but a search through MSU’s website indicates no such fruitcake (which fact the Daily News did not point out). Blogged it here: http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2004/08/mcgreevey-story-goes-completely-non.html

  2. Andy Avatar

    I suppose a charge of corruption could be brought and processed within the next two weeks to remove McGreevey. Not likely, but possible.
    Nothing makes everyone feel slimed like political corruption being rubbed in your face.

  3. HA Avatar

    Anybody can hold a press conference and end up in the News.
    Except of course the Swift Vets. They held a press conference and it was buried by the Kerry agents in the dominant illiberal media. Its a good thing the blogosphere is on the case, eh Jeff?

  4. BTD Greg Avatar

    Jack, I noticed that too when I wrote about this. The first thing I did was to go to the Montclair S.U. website and do a search for this guy. He didn’t come up, even though other people listed as “adjunct professor”s did. How hard would it have been for the Daily News to try to confirm a fact in their story before printing it? Not very. When I do a quickly dashed off blog post and I do more factchecking than a tabloid does, that’s not good.

  5. alessandra Avatar

    Cipel also made a point in complaining about how the media was labeling him a “sailor and poet”, when, with all his amorphous career moves, he certainly seemed more aptly labeled a PR/Liason person than the homo “sailor/poet” insinuation.
    Daily News et al insisted on the Millwe “prof” label for credibility, maybe he gave a talk there once. Or got arrested there once.