WEST NEW YORK — West New York Mayor Felix Roque was arrested this morning by the FBI on charges of illegally hacking into a website associated with a recall movement, while attempting to tap into e-mails to find who might be plotting against him.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed the arrest and said Roque’s son, Joseph, was also taken into custody.

According to a criminal complaint filed under seal and released following the arrests, the two men are charged with an electronic dirty tricks campaign in an effort to disrupt and kill the recall movement, whose organizers included West New York and Hudson County employees.

Details in the complaint show the two men were playing hardball, in a place where politics is always a life and death struggle against competing Democratic factions.

Roque, who is a strong supporter of Republican Gov. Chris Christie and repeatedly suggested that he had powerful friends, but never mentioned the governor’s name.

“The elected leader of West New York and his son allegedly hacked into computers to intimidate constituents who were simply using the internet to exercise their Constitutional rights to criticize the government,” said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. “We will continue to investigate and prosecute those who illegally hack into computers and disable websites with the goal of suppressing the exercise of that right.”

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Michael Ward, who heads the FBI office in New Jersey, called the case a violation of the public trust.

“In this instance, an elected official conspired to hack into a website and email account. It's incredibly disappointing that resources have to be diverted from protecting the US against cyber intrusions targeting critical infrastructure, federally funded research and military technology, to address a public official intruding into computer systems to further a political agenda.”

The alleged hacking began in February, when Joseph Roque was able to access the e-mail account of one of the recall organizers and used that to hack into Go Daddy, the internet service provider that was hosting the website www.recallroque.com. Prosecutors say he then cancelled the account without authorization, taking it down.

The next day, the mayor is charged with making a phone call to another individual associated with the recall movement with the intent of harassing him, telling him that he was aware that he had contributed information to the website.

Much of the mayor’s efforts were aimed at identifying the organizers of the recall movement by finding out who was behind the website, which was soliciting information about alleged mismanagement in Roque’s administration. At one point, the mayor’s son set up an e-mail account with a pseudonym, e-mailing a recall organizer to tell him “I have very good leads for your group.”

He was told to send any information to an e-mail address.

The website shutdown came after Joseph Roque spent some time on the internet researching how to hack a provider password, and learned enough to get into the Go Daddy site. After requesting a password change, Joseph Roque obtained control of the recall account and shut it down, prosecutors said.

According to the criminal complain, Roque called up another recall organizer and intimated that he had the connections to take down the recall website by “highly placed government officials and that everyone would pay for getting involved against Mayor Roque.”

He wasn’t shy about boasting of those contacts, according to the complaint.

“A friend of mine. he works in the — I can’t tell you — three letters — CIA. You know. That’s how I get information. So what I’m doing is not very kosher,” the mayor was quoted as saying.

After learning that another individual contributed more damaging information to the recallroque.com website, the mayor e-mailed him and threatened to refer him to the IRS for a tax audit.

Later in the month, Roque sent a text message to his son asking him to look at the Facebook page of another individual tied to the opposition against him to “let me know what we can do."

Roque, an Army reservist and doctor, is a Democrat who led a recall petition against former Mayor Sal Vega, then beat him in the city’s nonpartisan election on May 10.

But his support for Christie has angered many in his urban Hudson County community, leading to the efforts to toss him as well.

Roque earlier this year endorsed Republican Joseph Kyrillos against incumbent U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (N-N.J.) in February, only to awkwardly take it back a month later after facing pressure from his own party.

Roque and his son are scheduled for an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk at 1 p.m. in Newark.

Related coverage:

• Source: FBI took computer belonging to West New York mayor's kin in hacking probe

• West New York Mayor Felix Roque denies reports that FBI agents searched his premises, though says he did meet with agents on unrelated matter

• West New York mayor's home and offices searched by FBI

