8/19/2019 Daily Record front page, Friday, March 25, 2016.

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ADVICE..........................................12A

CLASSIFIED......................................5B

COMICS .........................................10A

OBITUARIES ...................................4A

OPINION .........................................9A

SPORTS .............................................1B

TV....................................................11A

Madcap Mischievous Mayhem!Shakespeare Theatre has a theme for its upcoming season.

TGIF!

Football: Venturino moves from Hopatcong to Jefferson. In Sports

MORRISTOWN - A Morris County ju-ry Thursday acquitted Vanessa Brownof recklessly causing the death of RalphPoliti Jr. in East Hanover in 2012 by driv-ing while intoxicated, prompting the vic-tim’s widow to storm out of the court-room with a shout to the jury of “You peo-ple are all nuts.”

“Are you kidding? Unbelievable! You

people are all nuts,” widow RosemariePoliti cried out as she left the courtroom,trailed by some of dozens of relativesand friends who had gathered for theverdict that was reached by the jury of 10women and two men after one day of de-liberations.

The jury found Brown, 35, of Parsip-pany not guilty of both aggravated man-slaughter and vehicular homicide in theMay 5, 2012, death of Politi, 49, as hestood outside his pickup truck on Ridge-dale Avenue in East Hanover.

Defense lawyer Edward Bilinkas,who had heavily criticized and chal-lenged all the state’s evidence against

PHOTOS BY BOB KARP/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Vanessa Brown and defense attorney Edward Bilinkas react immediately after Brown was found not guilty in Superior Court,Morris County, of aggravated manslaughter and vehicular homicide in the death of Ralph Politi in East Hanover in 2012.

Jury finds woman not guilty in East Hanover crash

PEGGY WRIGHT  @PEGGYWRIGHTDR

Bridget Byrne reacts after her sister Vanessa Brown was found notguilty.

DRIVER CLEAREDOF MANSLAUGHTER

See CLEARED, Page 2A

JEFFERSON - The son of a Morris County free-holder admitted he was secretly filming a campaignkickoff event held by a rival to his father after em-ployees of a bank called police to report someone wastaking video in their parking lot.

At about 8:20 a.m. Tuesday, Officer Brian Seeley re-sponded to the Chase Bank on Bowling Green Park-way after police got a report about a man in a gray

Jeep taking pictures in the bank parking lot, accord-ing to a police report of the incident.

Seeley found the Jeep and spoke to the driver,Christopher Mastrangelo, 27, of Montville.

The officer asked Mastrangelo if he was taking pic-tures while sitting in the parking lot of the bank, towhich Mastrangelo said “No,” according to the report.

Seeley, noticing a video camera on the passengerseat, suggested to Mastrangelo that he should starttelling the truth, the report said.

Mastrangelo then told Seeley he was the son ofMorris County Freeholder Thomas Mastrangelo, whois up for re-election this year, and one of his opponentswas holding an event that morning at the JeffersonDiner next to the bank, the report said.

The event was a campaign kickoff for Republicanfreeholder candidates Lou Valori, Roman Hirniak and

Police say freeholder’sson filmed

rival event

See FILM, Page 4A

Mastrangelo: ‘No clue’

son was taping kickoff 

MICHAEL IZZO @MIZZODR

Morris County Freeholder Thomas

Mastrangelo, left. His son, ChristopherMastrangelo, 27, of Montville, told police hewas asked by his father to videotape thesupporters at a rival campaign event.

“There is no place for this kind of 

intimidation tactic in Morris County.”

STEVE KUSH

MORRIS COUNTY UNITED CAMPAIGN MANAGER

New Jersey’s job market last year made it back tosquare one. It recovered the 257,900 jobs that it lost inthe Great Recession. Its unemployment rate droppedto 4.3 percent, back to where it was in 2007. And Gov.Chris Christie took a bow.

So why are so many so glum?“I worked at a company for 18 years,” said Edward

Kertesz, 54, of Woodbridge, who lost his finance joblast August. “You work your (tail) off, you do a realgood job, what does the company turn around and do?They outsource our whole department to anothercompany.”

New Jersey’s job market recovered from thedepths of the Great Recession, adding both high- andlow-paying jobs in 2015, even in sectors that had strug-gled mightily to gain ground. Its struggling financialactivities industry added 8,300 jobs. Its strugglingconstruction industry added 6,300 jobs. Even itsstruggling manufacturing industry stopped a longslide and added 500 jobs.

N.J. jobless rate

falls; why are workers unhappy?

MICHAEL L. DIAMOND  @MDIAMONDAPP

See WORKERS, Page 4AMONTVILLE - A mysterious letter nearly five dec-ades old recently arrived at the high school, with itscontents posing more questions than answers.

Montville Township High School received a “thickand unexpected” letter Tuesday, addressed to the highschool at 123 Changebridge Road. That was only the ad-dress of the high school from 1968 to 1970 and is cur-rently the location of Robert R. Lazar Middle School.

The letter was sent in an official district envelope,used official district postage, and the return addresslisted was also the Changebridge Road location.

The post office had handwritten “71 cents” on the

envelope next to a 6-cent postage stamp and indicated65 additional cents were due. So after doing some de-tective work, school officials determined the lettermust have been sent at a time when postage was 6cents, which was between 1968 and 1971.

Narrowing down the timeline further was the con-tents of the letter, a November 1969 copy of the Mont-ville Twp. Monitor, the high school newspaper.

The front page headlines included “M.H.S. LikelyTo House Grades 7 to 11 Next Year,” “Trip to GermanyPlanned,” and “Council Votes To Change Dress Code,Board Must Act, Wearing of Slacks Approved.”

Mystery letter sent to high schoolMICHAEL IZZO   @MIZZODR

See LETTER, Page 7A