The allegations come as Steve Fulop is the heavy favorite to win reelection for a second term as mayor in November. | AP Photo Top Fulop allies on tape trying to steer city bid, court depositions say

JERSEY CITY — The top aide to Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop accidentally recorded himself and another Fulop ally discussing their efforts to steer a city contract to an energy consulting company in 2014, according to depositions of two city employees.

In the depositions, taken earlier this month, both city Business Administrator Robert Kakoleski and Dominick Pandolfo, who works under Kakoleski, allege that the Fulop allies pressured city officials to circumvent the open bidding process and pick the company.


Kakoleski said in the deposition that the 2014 recording — a conversation between men who were at the time Fulop's chief of staff and the Fulop-backed chairman of the Jersey City Democratic Organization — revealed "influence, or an attempt, to influence the process” for the energy consulting bid.

The depositions were taken as part of an ongoing lawsuit against Jersey City alleging a hostile work environment in one Jersey City agency. They were included in a related lawsuit, filed Monday, asking that the city be forced to turn over the recording. The city is refusing to release the recording, according to the lawsuit.

The allegations come as Fulop is the heavy favorite to win reelection for a second term as mayor in November. Fulop, at the time of the alleged recording, harbored statewide ambitions and was laying the groundwork to run for governor.

Fulop, a Democrat, unexpectedly chose not to run for governor in late 2016. But his name still surfaces as a statewide prospect. He has gauged allies’ interest in him running for U.S. Senate if Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez is convicted in his ongoing corruption trial, according to The Jersey Journal.

According to the depositions, the city’s top lawyer and Fulop heard the recording. But no employees faced any discipline, according to the depositions. In fact, the key players remained in the highest levels of city government well after the recording allegedly surfaced.

According to the depositions, the recording was made in February 2014. At the time, the city was reviewing bids after issuing a request for proposals for a company to provide energy aggregation consulting meant to secure cheaper rates for city residents. Pandolfo was on a three-member committee charged with scoring the bids to make a recommendation for which company the city would hire. The committee would turn it over to the mayor’s office, which would present it to the city council for a final decision.

According to Pandolfo, the first sign of trouble came when Sean “Sully” Thomas visited him in his office. Thomas was, at the time, deputy director for the Jersey City Department of Housing, Economic Development & Commerce as well as the Fulop-backed chairman of the Jersey City Democratic Organization. Pandolfo had a stack of energy company proposals on his desk.

According to Pandolfo’s deposition, Thomas said he had arranged a dinner meeting the following day between Pandolfo and Tom Bertoli, Fulop’s top political operative at the time. That was to be the same day the committee was going to vote on energy consultant recommendations. Then, according to the deposition, Thomas asked Pandolfo about the selection process and singled out one of the four companies vying for the job.

“And he saw the package of — from the — the proposals from the different companies and he looked at them and he tapped the one on top and said, ‘Good Energy. This is who you want.’ Something to that effect,” Pandolfo said.

Pandolfo — who served as chief of staff to former Mayor Jerramiah Healy, whom Fulop defeated in 2013 — had been seeking another part-time job in the office of Assemblyman Raj Mukherji and had spoken with Fulop about it, according to the deposition. And Pandolfo said that Thomas had told him a month prior that he would need to speak to Bertoli about the job. So after Thomas visited Pandolfo in his office and asked him to have dinner with Bertoli while discussing the bidding process, “two and two started adding up,” Pandolfo said. Pandolfo said he was troubled by the interaction, and canceled the dinner with Bertoli.

The next day, Pandolfo said in the deposition, Thomas’ boss — Anthony Cruz, director of the Department of Housing, Economic Development & Commerce — followed him into his office. Cruz was on the three-member selection committee with Pandolfo and another city employee, John Mercer. The three had just had a meeting about the bidding process.

“Mr. Cruz was right behind me. I didn't know he was coming in my office. He came in my office. I sat down. He didn't sit down. He said, ‘I just want to give you a heads-up. The administration wants Good Energy.’ And I was like, ‘Anthony, what are you doing?’ He's like, ‘I'm just give you a heads-up.’ And I was like, ‘Anthony, respect the process. That's why we're on a committee and there's a process,’” Pandolfo said in the deposition.

Pandolfo said he stood up and “got a little loud” with Cruz, who “got the message” and quickly left the room. Pandolfo said he then left his office, went outside and called two lawyer friends to talk about the situation. He determined he “wasn’t comfortable voting” and told Mercer he wouldn’t be involved in the selection process.

Pandolfo would soon find something more alarming, when a voicemail several minutes long was left on Kakoleski's office line, according to both men's depositions. Kakoleski identified the voices as then-Fulop Chief of Staff Muhammed Akil and Thomas.

“There was a voicemail left on my phone from then-chief of staff Muhammad Akil who asked me to return his phone call. And I guess he failed to hang his phone up and the conversation was then recorded,” Kakoleski said in his deposition. “It sounded like he was having a conversation with Mr. Thomas and the discussion included Mr. Thomas telling Mr. Akil of his suggestion to Mr. Pandolfo about the energy aggregation consultant and -- and continued to talk, you know, recorded.”

Kakoleski said in the deposition that Akil and Thomas talked about Thomas’ interaction with Pandolfo. He said Akil “expressed some concern about why I [Kakoleski] would put Dominick on the committee? What was I thinking?”

Kakoleski said “the tone of the conversation concerned me.”

“My interpretation is that, you know, there was a hope or a desire for a certain vendor to get awarded the contract. And maybe the process, the way it had been -- the committee had been set up may not go in that direction,” Kakoleski said. “ I feel that, you know, public procurement is an open and fair process. And there was -- there was an influence or an attempt to influence the process.”

Kakoleski said he played the recording for Pandolfo and forwarded him a copy by email. Pandolfo said he had trouble recalling the exact details of the conversation, which he said he has saved on a memory stick.

“Mr. Akil talked about how this is the second time Mr. Kakoleski had screwed up something similar,” Pandolfo said in the deposition.

“What did they say about you?” attorney Gregory Noble asked Pandolfo.

“It wasn’t kind … I don't remember exactly what they said. It was enough to alarm me,” Pandolfo said.

“Were they expressing any frustration over this issue of this bid that they wanted?” Noble asked.

“Yes,” Pandolfo said.

Nothing in the deposition states why city officials were allegedly pressuring the selection committee to back Good Energy.

In response to a POLITICO query, a Good Energy representative said that "Good Energy was a bidder that responded in 2014 to a public request by the City of Jersey City. It submitted a proposal, participated in the interview process, and was not awarded a contract. Good Energy never sought to improperly influence Jersey City contract decisions or the contract decisions of any potential customer. If Good Energy was in fact favored by Jersey City officials, it would be based solely on the merits of the Good Energy proposal and its reputation as a leader in the field."

Both Pandolfo and Kakoleski said in the depositions that to their knowledge no one was disciplined even though they told their stories to city officials, and even though Kakoleski said he played the voicemail for Fulop and Jersey City Corporation Counsel Jeremy Farrell.

Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill would not answer questions about the allegations, including whether the mayor was aware of the recording.

“As a city policy we don't comment on pending litigation which is the situation here, but clearly the reason for these accusations now is obviously the election season,” Morrill said in a statement. “Nevertheless, our administration has an extremely strong track record of whenever we suspect any wrong doing we submit it to the proper law enforcement agency for review with no exceptions.”

Pandolfo said in his deposition that he spoke with Fulop about the pressure he allegedly faced to approve the contract. Fulop, he said, was troubled by what he heard and assured him that the bid process would be canceled.

“I think he got annoyed when I told him I had an attorney. And then at one point he may have asked me if I was looking to go to a newspaper or something to that effect. And I assured him I wasn't,” Pandolfo said.

Kakoleski said in his deposition that he played the Akil recording for Fulop. Later, in a phone conversation, Kakoleski said Fulop asked him why he forwarded the voicemail to Pandolfo. But Kakoleski said Fulop was not upset. Pandolfo gave a different version of the conversation with Fulop in his deposition. He said Kakoleski told him about his conversation with Fulop.

“And then [Kakoleski] told me that it upset the mayor and said, ‘What are you guys going to try to do? You know, use this tape against me?’”

The energy consultant bid soon “died” after the flap, Kakoleski said in hi deposition.

Akil stepped down as chief of staff in October 2014, after a news account surfaced of him making racist and homophobic remarks nearly 20 years ago, including saying “all white people have a little Hitler in them.” But he remained employed in the city’s recreation department until June of 2015, according to The Jersey Journal, when he left to run the Newark-based pro-charter school organization PC2E. The phone number listed on PC2E’s website was out of service, and an email to the organization seeking comment form Akil was not returned.

Cruz, Thomas, Kakoleski and Pandolfo did not return calls to their offices or cell phones seeking comment.

The lawsuit seeking the recording was filed by Noble, the attorney who questioned Pandolfo and Kakoleski in their depositions. Noble is the attorney for Daniel Wrieden, a historic preservation officer who is suing the city and Cruz. Wrieden alleges Cruz created a hostile work environment after he spoke out against preferential treatment for some developers and repeatedly used gay slurs to refer to Wrieden.

According to the lawsuit Noble filed to get a copy of the alleged recording, “the voicemail is critical evidence that relates to the claims raised by the Plaintiff in the Wrieden matter,” which it says Pandolfo, who remains a city employee, possesses. According to Noble’s lawsuit, the city denied his public records request for the voicemail on September 22.

Noble did not respond to a call seeking comment. But the lawyer representing him in the public records lawsuit said it’s in the public interest for the recording to be made public.

“Especially in light of the upcoming election, I think there’s a very strong public interest in the public having this type of information and this type of recording so they can make their own decisions about the upcoming election,” he said.

