By Stephanie Prokop, Staff Writer
NORTH HANOVER Democratic state Assembly candidate Tracey Riley said this week a letter from three area mayors did not influence her decision to leave her job at her husband’s Mount Holly law firm.
In an Aug. 2 letter addressed to Ms. Riley, North Hanover Mayor Lou DeLorenzo, Wrightstown Mayor Thomas Harper, and New Hanover Mayor Dennis Roohr had criticized her employment as a clerk at the firm, where her husband had been assigned to represent one of six men charged in connection with an alleged plan to attack Fort Dix. The letter encouraged the firm to reconsider its representation.
The three mayors are leaders of towns close to Fort Dix but only Wrightstown is located within the 8th Legislative District, where Ms. Riley is running for office.
Michael Riley was appointed to represent Shain Duka, an alleged member of the “Fort Dix Six.” Ms. Riley had said in a previous statement that her husband is a pubic defender and did not choose the case.
Ms. Riley said by phone Tuesday that she had “every intention” of leaving her position at the law firm to devote more time to her campaign, and that the letter the mayors had sent had no bearing on her decision to leave.
”I hate to disappoint them, but that is not the reason I left,” she said.
Ms. Riley added that she anticipated things would speed up with her campaign back in the summer, and had also decided to postpone her bar exam until February 2008. Ms. Riley had graduated from law school in May.
She said that she doesn’t know if she will come back to the position, and that it will depend on the outcome of the election.
Mayor DeLorenzo said this week that Ms. Riley’s decision to leave the law firm is a “step in the right direction.”
Ms. Riley is running for state Assembly in the 8th Legislative District with Chris Fifis. She is running against Republicans Dawn Addiego and Scott Rudder in the Nov. 6 election. North Hanover and New Hanover are both in the 30th Legislative District.
Mayor DeLorenzo said in a previous statement that he signed the letter because of his belief that “what you do in your private life reflects in your public life when you’re in office.”
”I think she should have thought even before (we) had written the letter ‘I’m running for Assembly and I think that there is a conflict of interest,’” he said.
”This is a very complicated issue,” he said.
New Hanover Mayor Dennis Roohr said that he felt that if Ms. Riley wanted to run for state Assembly she should have left her job at the law firm sooner, with or without the letter that the three mayors had submitted.
”I just think that it’s business as usual,” Mr. Roohr said.
