Alex Mendez (D), president of the Paterson City Council, is facing additional criminal charges related to a plot involving suspected voting fraud in the New Jersey city that began with the May 2020 election.

The 20-count superseding indictment adds additional allegations against Mendez and his wife, including efforts to influence a witness over the purported vote-rigging plot, as NBC News reported.

After facing accusations of mail-in ballot theft in the months leading up to the 2020 election, Mendez served for nearly five years on the council, being re-elected in 2024.

According to the New Jersey State Attorney General's office, Mendez and multiple accomplices attempted to rig the election by stealing and forging mail-in ballots before stuffing hundreds of them into a Haledon mailbox.

Case details

According to prosecutors, some of Mendez's campaign aides would review ballots they had gathered, and if the results were against him, the ballots would be destroyed and replaced with blank mail-in ballots that had been taken from mailboxes in the neighborhood.

In past pleas, both Mendez and his wife, Yohanny Munoz-Mendez, maintained their innocence and denied any misconduct.

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, the third-largest city in New Jersey held its 2020 election via mail-in ballot.

“The people’s right to vote and to have their voices heard was subverted by what we allege to be an unlawful conspiracy … It was, as the grand jury alleged, fraud and theft,” said Attorney General Matthew Platkin.

Getting to office

William McCoy, who was narrowly defeated by Mendez in the 2020 election due to the voter fraud controversy, was not shy about expressing his frustration about the approximately four-year delay in the criminal case's progression before Judge Sohail Mohammed.

“This criminal enterprise has been allowed to defraud the residents of the City of Paterson for far too long,” McCoy said. McCoy again called on Mendez to resign and for prosecutors to move the case forward.

“The democratic process and our rights must be protected, and those who would subvert the will of the voters must be held accountable. Justice, although delayed, must not be denied,” McCoy said.

Another case of fraud

In the 2020 Paterson election, Michael Jackson, another councilman from the city, was also implicated in a separate case involving allegations of voter fraud. Jackson has also pleaded not guilty.

Like many others, Jackson's case has taken years to reach Judge Mohammed.

The reasons for the multi-year delays in both cases involving voter fraud remain unknown, according to a court representative for New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mohammed.