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Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, seen here at the Medical Center Luncheonette in 2009, has ordered to the mayoral campaign of City Councilman Steve Fulop to pull all campaign ads that feature footage of Healy with disgraced developer Solomon Dwek.

(The Jersey Journal)

The re-election campaign of Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has sent a “cease and desist” letter to the campaign of his leading rival over campaign ads featuring video and photographs of Healy meeting in 2009 with disgraced developer Solomon Dwek.

The ads, produced by the mayoral campaign of Ward E City Councilman Steve Fulop, should be pulled immediately or else Healy may pursue legal action, reads the April 19 letter from Healy attorney William W. Northgrave.

The campaign material is “defamatory,” Northgrave’s letter reads.

A statement from the Fulop campaign indicates the Downtown councilman's campaign has no intention of pulling the ads. In fact, the statement ends with a link to watch the television commercial.

The ad shows Healy thanking Dwek for providing cash for the mayor's 2009 campaign, and it ends with the words "Mayor Healy got away with it" on the screen.

“Our ad speaks for itself,” said Fulop campaign spokesman Bruno Tedeschi. “Healy is at the center of the biggest political corruption scandal in New Jersey's history. From the selling of body parts of the dead in morgues to payoffs to politicians, it became a source of national embarrassment. What's stunning is how brazen Healy was then. “

The surveillance video featured in both the television ad and several campaign fliers shows Healy meeting with Dwek, former Healy campaign treasurer Leona Beldini and others at the Medical Center Luncheonette, a diner at the corner of Baldwin Avenue and Montgomery Street.

Dwek was acting as a confidential informant for the FBI, posing as a corrupt developer offering envelopes of cash in exchange for assurances that city officials would help his project along.

Beldini, at the time a deputy mayor, was found guilty of accepting $20,000 in cash and funneling it to Healy’s campaign. She is serving a three-year federal prison sentence.

Healy campaign spokesman Joshua Henne said Fulop's ads are "outright lies."

"Steve Fulop will literally do or say anything to quench his thirst for power," Henne said, adding that the councilman is "desperately slinging mud."

Healy was never charged in the corruption sweep, which netted numerous members of the administration and two Healy allies on the City Council.

Fulop has referenced the corruption sweep on the campaign trail, and first attacked Healy with it in person at a debate at the Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre. At the debate, Healy responded by urging voters to watch the entire video of his meeting with Dwek.

“I should have gotten a gold medal for effective, honest, open government" after video of the meeting surfaced, Healy said at the debate.