Records: Clerk contacted FBI, police seeking retribution
TRENTON >> He wrote more records than a rock star.
Trenton’s municipal clerk Matthew Conlon longed to testify against a reporter as a star witness in a would-be criminal proceeding.
He worked late nights, on city time, culling documents, researching state and federal laws and writing long, tough-sounding criminal and ethics complaints that read like legal briefs.
He did this all with the knowledge and approval of members of the governing body who have been at odds with Mayor Reed Gusciora, according to emails obtained by The Trentonian through a public records request.
“Mr. Conlon, well done. You have methodically accounted for many of the events and malfeasance our city has endured without ethical legal representation under the leadership of John Morelli. Appreciate your efforts,” Councilwoman Robin Vaughn wrote Oct. 7, responding to a draft bar complaint that Conlon filed with state attorney ethics officials against former city law director John Morelli.
Conlon didn’t stop there; he forwarded a copy of intake documents he sent to the feds to the city’s monitor, Tina Vignali, according to emails.
The records show the retaliatory efforts the clerk — who has channeled the idea that he’s a neutral party by calling himself “Switzerland” — has taken to cast a shadow of suspicion over the city government and ruin the lives of people who questioned his authority and professional qualifications. That includes members of the news media, who he has repeatedly accused of committing crimes in search of truth.
“That’s just bizarre behavior,” Gusciora told The Trentonian, referring to Conlon’s actions. “The fact is the First Amendment right was put in the Bill of Rights for a reason. And it should be as celebrated as some people celebrate the Second Amendment.”
Over two months last fall, Conlon contacted at least five law enforcement agencies in two states, asking them to open criminal investigations into city officials and this newspaper over allegations that ranged from wiretapping to computer crimes.
He wrote to the FBI, New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, Trenton Police and the Virginia State Police with allegations about a “RICO” conspiracy, alleging he was the victim of a tech crime perpetrated by city officials and The Trentonian, his emails show.
He made similar allegations in a $3 million tort claim notice that he filed Jan. 19, alleging he was retaliated against for being a whistleblower.
Three of the law enforcement agencies said this week that they declined to pursue criminal cases after speaking to Conlon and reviewing his allegations.
The FBI and AG’s Office wouldn’t confirm or deny whether they had launched probes, but city spokesman William Skaggs said the city hadn’t received subpoenas from either agency that would signal they were exploring Conlon’s claims.
No one from The Trentonian has been contacted by investigators from any law enforcement agency in the months since Conlon lodged complaints.
The clerk wrote lengthy complaints and emailed them to the cops after becoming the subject of investigative newspaper stories that delved into his troubled past, which includes a prior arrest in Florida and skirmishes with almost every employer he’s worked for in New Jersey.
Among his claims, the clerk has alleged that people, including reporters, who attempted to verify his educational credentials through the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that provides degree verification and research services, had pulled “illegal background credit checks” on him.
As Trenton’s municipal clerk and custodian of records, Conlon drafted and sent numerous emails to law enforcement officials and other public officials with this disclaimer: “This email may contain material that is confidential or which is subject to the Open Public Records Act.”
By writing emails to the police, Conlon was creating public records in which he openly documented his disdain for The Trentonian’s critical news coverage.
Conlon’s actions have attracted attention from transparency and journalism advocates, who say he doesn’t seem to understand the role of reporters covering municipal government and public officials in New Jersey’s capital.
“The activities that you described of The Trentonian are the activities of a newspaper that takes its watchdog role seriously. Period,” said Pamela Walck, an assistant journalism professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh who spent 16 years as a newspaper reporter covering county and municipal government and the U.S. military.
“I think that whenever the qualifications of a public official, whether they are appointed or elected, are questioned, that is the newspaper’s job to raise those questions and to put that forth in the community and let the voters decide whether that person deserves the post. … There needs to be this accountability between the electorate and the officialdom.”
Conlon began complaining to law enforcement after The Trentonian obtained a leaked recording of council’s Sept. 3 executive session, which drew ire from members of the local arts community after it was revealed that council mem
bers illegally met with a redeveloper in closed session to entertain a proposal to buy the historic Roebling Wire Works building.
Conlon filed a police report with Trenton Police on Nov. 13 accusing Trentonian reporter Isaac Avilucea of harassment for attempting to reach him on his cellphone for comment on a story.
The newspaper had learned that the city was hiring an outside law firm to try to substantiate claims that Conlon made on his résumé indicating he had passed the 2012 New Jersey bar exam and possessed a juris doctorate from Widener School of Law in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
During a testy council meeting last October, the clerk threatened to sue Councilman-at-large Jerell Blakeley for asking Conlon about his legal background.
The day after the meeting, Council President Kathy McBride wrote to personnel officer Steven Ponella decrying Blakeley’s inquisition.
“I am quite dismayed at the overall nature of the inquiries made into Mr. Conlon’s personal history during a Council Meeting and seek your procedural recommendations to inquire into, investigate and address this matter,” McBride wrote.
The Trentonian attempted to verify Conlon’s degree through the National Student Clearinghouse, which school officials had referred the newspaper to when it tried verifying other public officials’ educational backgrounds.
This method of verification had never been a problem until Conlon complained to the FBI about it Nov. 25.
The clerk also contacted officials from the National Student Clearinghouse who turned over information about individuals who conducted degree verification checks on the clerk.
A spokesman from the National Student Clearinghouse said the nonprofit’s terms of service allowed it to provide the information about requestors to Conlon.
That information appeared in Conlon’s 4,600word complaint to the FBI, which he worked past 10 p.m. to complete, records show.
He provided extensive documentation of his allegations to FBI special agent Arthur Durrant about “six individuals from five entities” who conducted the degree verifications, which he equated to being “illegal background credit checks.”
Those who conducted the checks included Councilman Blakeley, whose documentation proved Conlon had a J.D.; attorneys Vaughn McKoy and Ellen O’Connell of the law firm Inglesino, Webster, Wyciskala & Taylor; and Edward Florio of the law firm Florio Kenny Raval.
Conlon claimed the requestors “committed multiple felonies” in New Jersey and Virginia by trying to verify his credentials because they didn’t have “signed authorization or authority to do so.”
“Each attested to having a legitimate purpose and authorization and attempted to or did acquire credit documents when they were not legally entitled to receive these documents,” he wrote. “Moreover none of these parties acquired the documents for the actual purpose stated in their attestation but instead for other unlawful purposes not permitted by the law and in violation of several state and federal statutes.”
The National Student Clearinghouse says employers, lenders, educational officials and organizations providing “products or services based on an individual’s status as an enrolled student” can use its platform to verify degrees, per terms and conditions.
Reporters and private investigators are directed to contact college registrars to verify degrees, a spokesman said. He didn’t address the fact that those institutions often redirect reporters to the Clearinghouse to obtain that information.
On Dec. 3, assistant city attorney Julie Murray learned that Conlon claimed he had been contacted by four law enforcement agencies.
She asked the clerk to turn over subpoenas or correspondence that he received from those agencies, but he refused, writing back to her in an email, “Please have special counsel appointed immediately.”
The unfolding drama for Trenton, under state supervision and having endured a previous visit from feds when they nabbed former Mayor Tony Mack on corruption charges, prompted Murray to email Vignali, which copied Conlon, telling the state monitor that the clerk hadn’t supplied a subpoena.
Minutes later, Conlon responded, “Ms. Vignali is well aware of what was forwarded to the FBI. She received a copy.”
This year, Trenton city government officials were one of two “dishonorable mentions” for the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2021 Black Hole Award, partly because of Conlon’s complaints against The Trentonian.
Bob Schapiro, president of the New Jersey chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which advocates for reporters, called
Conlon’s actions an “attempt to criminalize journalism.”
“The Trentonian was simply trying to verify facts presented at an open city council meeting,” he said. “Not much digging would have been needed if Trenton City Clerk Conlon had clearly answered a very simple question, essentially: You got your job as a public official with a resume stating you have a law degree. Where did you get your degree? When he would not answer that to a city councilman’s satisfaction, The Trentonian was doing its job when it sought to verify his claim with the National Student Clearinghouse.
“To then call that simple inquiry ‘fraud’ in official emails to law enforcement, and to accuse individual reporters of specific violations of the Federal Wiretapping Act,” Schapiro added, “is outrageously removed from the truth.”
Conlon, 48, was sensitive about his date of birth being out in the public domain.
He accused Blakeley of obtaining it from his personnel file. Conlon told detectives from the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office in an email that his real DOB wasn’t accessible online as he used “a false date to prevent identity theft.”
Conlon’s date of birth helped The Trentonian link him with a felony exploitation charge in Florida that was later dismissed. He tried pinning the charge on a fake “twin” cousin.
The clerk did not respond to a request for comment on this story.