Francesco “Frank” Caramagna was a persistent candidate.

The former Democratic Elmwood Park mayor, who was charged Monday with election interference, ran for mayor or a seat on the Borough Council every chance he could.

In 1993, the native Italian and self-employed businessman launched his first unsuccessful bid for the Borough Council. In 1995, Caramagna made his first unsuccessful attempt to oust longtime incumbent Republican Mayor Richard Mola.

Many more failed runs would follow.

Five years passed before Caramagna won a seat on the council in 1998. He was on and off the dais for the next decade, sparring with Mola over everything from employee pay raises to who should take credit for grant money the town secured.

The mayoral seat, a largely ceremonial post with a limited ability to veto the council and cast tie-breaking votes, remained a prize Caramagna chased for more than 20 years.

Caramagna faced off against Mola three more times, but the mayoral seat was out of reach until Mola was no longer the mayor. In 2017, a year after Mola died in office, Caramagna won his two-year-unexpired term as the ceremonial head of Elmwood Park.

On Sunday, he gave it up.

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office accused Caramagna of filling in ballots of other registered voters between March 2017 and November 2018. Detectives allegedly matched Caramagna’s handwriting on multiple applications for vote-by-mail ballots, and on ballot certifications in the primary and general elections, according to arrest documents.

The affidavit did not specify how many mail ballots Caramagna allegedly completed.

John Bruno, Caramagna’s attorney, said Tuesday that Caramagna never knowingly broke the law. State law forbids candidates to help a voter apply for, fill out or collect a mail-in ballot.

“He claims he did not know he was doing anything wrong. He was unaware that assisting an individual in filling out an absentee ballot, but helping that person fill out the form, was a violation of the law,” Bruno said. “He looks forward to resolving this matter expeditiously so he can get his life back.”

Bruno said Caramagna’s resignation was a “sad ending to a great career.”

“His only goal was to become mayor of Elmwood Park,” Bruno said.

The 2017 election had promised to be intense, with Democrats seeking to wrest control of the borough after nearly 50 years of Republican domination.

Caramagna ran against Republican interim Mayor Robert Colletti and bested him by just 318 votes. Caramagna’s substantial plurality among the mail-in ballots — 446 for Carmagna versus 150 for Colletti — provided the margin of victory.

Two of Caramagna’s running mates, Sandra Balistrieri and Lorraine Pellegrine, also won. They also benefited from a 3-1 plurality in mail-in ballots.

Colletti said Tuesday that he had heard rumors during the campaign that Caramagna was helping voters with mail-in ballots but never filed a complaint with the Bergen County superintendent of elections because he had no proof.

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Shake-up

Caramagna shook up Borough Hall after he took office. Within months, the borough administrator, the borough clerk, the deputy clerk and the borough attorney were all replaced with Caramagna’s people, Colletti said.

Tension between the new Democratic majority and Republicans on the council came to a head last summer when Republican Councilman Anthony Chirdo resigned, saying he witnessed "questionable and borderline unethical” behavior by his colleagues, including nepotism and politically influenced personnel choices.

Chirdo alluded to ballot tampering during his final council meeting before stepping down.

"Mayor, you do do an excellent job of absentee ballots," Chirdo said at the time. "You got 446 absentee ballots last year, which is outstanding, and I’m just curious: Out of those, how many did you actually personally collect?"

Lingering accusations of a rigged election spilled over into the 2018 campaign.

In September, John J. Piserchia, a lawyer representing two Republican candidates for the Elmwood Park council, wrote a letter to Caramagna expressing serious concerns about allegations of “improper handling of Vote-by-Mail applications, voter certifications and completed ballots during the 2017 General Election.”

“I trust you concur in the belief that allegations of interfering with a voter’s rights, particularly those involving votes via mail, are very profound in nature and must not be taken lightly,” Piserchia wrote. “It is our mutual obligation to protect the integrity of the election process.”

Piserchia noted that the penalty for tampering with mail-in ballots is three to five years in prison. He sent copies of the letter to the Bergen County superintendent of elections.

Caramagna’s attorney, Brian M. Chewcaskie, responded two weeks later and dismissed the letter as “a mythical reference of alleged improper actions.”

“Mayor Caramagna is fully familiar with the statutes and does not require you to point out the requirements of the same,” Chewcaskie wrote.

On Tuesday, Republican Councilwoman Magdalena “Maggie” Giandomenico called on four council members elected in 2017 and 2018 — Pellegrine, Balistrieri, Denise Ingui and Doris Wechtler — to resign. Giandomenico, who is battling Colletti in the Republican primary for mayor, said all were elected “under a cloud of suspicion.” She called on the state Attorney General’s Office to monitor the election this November.

“The legitimacy of each of those elections must now be called into question,” she wrote in a statement on the Elmwood Park Republicans Facebook page. “How many ballots were interfered with? How many voters were intimidated as they completed their ballots? With many unanswered questions, the results of both the General Elections in 2017 and 2018 — in which four members of the Council were elected — are now being called into question by the very voters who believed their voices were being heard and their votes properly cast.”

Daniel Golabeck, the borough’s interim mayor, described Giandomenico’s request as preposterous, in a statement on Tuesday.

“During the last three elections, voters boldly voiced their opinions of Ms. Giandomenico and her party by means of overwhelmingly opposing them at the polls,” Golabeck wrote. “Taking mail-in ballots completely out of the equation, the Elmwood Park residents made very clear, resounding choices based on the platform and stances of the candidates.”

Dirty, filthy and ugly

Caramagna’s fall from office appeared to shock residents.

Michael Orosz, 53, said he has been friends with Caramagna for more than 30 years and had not heard of any allegations of election tampering. He texted Caramagna on Tuesday morning to offer his support.

“Municipal politics is dirty, filthy and ugly,” Orosz said. “I’m so sorry that it came to this.”

Michael Moghaddasi, a local pharmacist who owns Elmwood Drugs, said Caramagna was once a frequent customer at the pharmacy and was liked by many in the borough.

"He was a nice guy who seemed to be doing well as mayor. I'm very surprised," Moghaddasi said.

Another resident, a man who declined to be named, said he believed Caramagna’s multiple failed attempts to become mayor led him to the alleged ballot tampering.

“He tried for five years and nobody wanted him,” he said. “So this is what he does.”

When reached by phone on Tuesday, Caramagna said, “I wasn’t arrested. Speak to my lawyer.” He then hung up.

Bruno emphasized that Caramagna was a man of character who immigrated from Italy without speaking a word of English and went on to teach Italian and Spanish at Elmwood Park High School and serve on the district’s Board of Education.

Caramagna has also owned several businesses through the years, including the Kamarina Agency on Market Street. The business has been described as a travel agency and an insurance company that also dealt with income taxes and immigration.

No one answered a phone call to the business Tuesday afternoon or responded to a request for comment.

Caramagna also owned Italplast, a borough-based construction firm. In his 1999 campaign for mayor, Caramagna’s experience as a stucco contractor led his Republican opponents to say he wanted the position only so he could install friendly faces on the borough’s Planning Board and steer bids to his friends and colleagues.

Caramagna maintained that the sitting Planning Board members were incompetent. He lost the race.

At his swearing-in ceremony in November 2017, Caramagna marveled at how far he had come. He had become the first Democratic mayor in Elmwood Park in almost a half-century.

“Tonight we made history, Elmwood Park,” he said. “I’m an immigrant from Sicily. ... I feel tonight that I have achieved the American dream.”

Caramagna is on the ballot in the June primary for re-election. His term expires Dec. 31. He is scheduled to appear in court on May 22.

Email: shkolnikova@northjersey.com

Staff Writers Tom Nobile and Anthony Zurita contributed to this article.