Mayor defends chief of staff following video release
TRENTON >> Chief of Staff Yoshi Manale continues to have Mayor Reed Gusciora’s official support despite the revelation of unflattering video.
On the morning of Dec. 21, 2018, Manale reported his City Hall offices were burglarized and told police he wished Isaac Avilucea of The Trentonian was responsible for the crime.
“I would love for it to be Isaac,” Manale tells a city cop, according to police body-worn camera footage obtained and published by The Trentonian. The video shows Manale laughing at his own comment during the burglary investigation, with the officer also chuckling along.
The chief of staff extended his commentary, saying it would be “the dumbest thing in this entire world” for Avilucea to ransack City Hall in pursuit of information on Carol Russell, a retired Trenton Police sergeant who briefly served as acting police director.
Police later determined no burglary occurred at City Hall last month. What happened, police said, was that a maintenance worker had inadvertently knocked over a business card holder, which caused some of Ma- nale’s paperwork to fall onto the floor from his desk.
Untroubled by the video footage, Gusciora says his chief of staff does not actually wish for Avilucea to be a criminal. The mayor defended his deputy and expressed grave concern over Manale’s “private conversation” getting “leaked” to the press.
Manale’s comment was an “offhanded remark that clearly was a joke,” Gusciora said Tuesday in an interview with The Trentonian. “I think clearly it was made in jest, and I have made jokes about Isaac. I think it was clear. I think this is no different than Donald Trump joking about a reporter that he found irritating. Not that
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