Readers say Rica Settlement Raises More Questions than are Answered
Why was Rica about to get a promotion.
How do you take around 3,500 quarters a day every working day without being sent to jail?
How do you steal a half million and only have to repay it over time? How do you get your pension and accrued time off to count towards that restitution?
Something is fishy. The sheer amount of theft tells me he’s covering for others who were involved, and the fact that he’s been allowed this ridiculous plea smells
I would like to know who was asleep on this one how is this unnoticed and who’s going to be held accountable?
How do you take around 3,500 quarters a day every working day without being detected? That’s not pocket change.
the guy is allowed to count his pension and accrued time against his restitution ? What is going on here ? The Village should be going after this guy for the full $460,000, his pension and accrued time, and any wages he was paid while this theft was happening. What does this guy have on the Village and Bergen County Judge ? By the way, $69,000 + $2,000 per month for 5 years ($120,000) + his $30,000 pension (not bad for only 10 years !), plus his $8,400 accrued leave only adds up to $227,400… I guess the judge has as much contempt for Ridgewood property taxpeyers as Rica. Where is the rest of the $460,000
did this guy pay federal income tax on the $460,000 ? why isn’t the IRS going after him for tax evasion ?
Good point #2. Call the IRS and you can receive a percentage of what he owes! (im not kidding!)
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf
The IRS has an award program for whistleblowers – generally cases involving individual taxpayers with gross income of less that $200,000. The awards through this program are less, with a maximum award of 15% up to $10 million. In addition, the awards are discretionary and the informant cannot dispute the outcome of the claim in Tax Court. The rules for these cases are found at Internal Revenue Code IRC Section 7623(a) – Informant Claims Program. If you decide to submit information and seek an award for doing so, use IRS Form 211 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf).
I am applying for a job at the Village tomorrow. I need to pay off my house, college for my kids and maybe throw in a vacation home or two. From where I sit, stealing is a much better way of getting a free loan than actually working hard.
This is just another example of the demise of this town.
Love the comments. All 100% correct. If Madoff lived in Ridgewood he may be on parole now..ohhhhhhh
are you f/.,king with all of us, how can this be. he must of had dirt on a few managers & the village. TALK ABOUT A DEAL. my o my wow. so us as a tax pay’er we get screwed big time for this one two. who are the one’s who put hum and gave this power. in the real world they would be sent walking, talk about a real scam. this is it. this story in not over, and don’t tell me that none of his family or friends did not see something.
Just because he got caught and paid it back doesn’t mean the IRS will ignore him.
It could be unreported income (unless he reported it and paid taxes on it..which is doubtful)
The feds would most certainly use this as an opportunity to get other tax cheats into ‘compliance’ by putting him in jail and publicizing it.
I’d like to see this done to drug dealers with their big profits too.
Perhaps a lawyer can chime in on this… its not ‘double jeopardy’ because theft is a separate crime from tax evasion and as such he’s not being charged twice for the same crime?
The feds always seem to go after people who get off in state court with ‘civil rights violations’ so I’d venture this man is ‘fair game’ for the IRS if he didn’t report the income.
Also the feds always use ‘mail fraud’ for a larger sentence if someone sends a false tax return in.
It is called a good lawyer.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Mr. Rica is in possession of information that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office views as invaluable. Perhaps information pertaining to others who were stealing parking meter revenues, and/or information about miscellaneous shenanigans at Village Hall, and/or information about the illicit activity to which the money was being funneled (I personally don’t buy his story that the money was used to help out with family expenses) . The public outcry associated with his receipt of a light sentence will certainly make it difficult for prosecutors to ask for harsh sentences going forward unless there are special circumstances associated with Mr. Rica’s case (that is, he’s dropping the dime on a fish bigger than he is).
he got quite a good return on that “investment”.
Taxes yes and what about interest? Even at a low rate of return you can do pretty well with nearly half a million bucks over 5-7 years–we must include the time before the 5 years of restitution when the converted quarters were earning some interest on their own.
Why is this reminding me of the refusal by Stepian and Kelly to supply subpoenaed documents and communications? Who is being protected?
Unless Rica was saving the quarters for half the kids in NJ in those “state quarter” maps or doing a lot of laundry at the Wash Tub, why why why is paying it back over a long period of time sufficient for the judge?
Same Judge who said Bergen County Sheriff could agree to $10.5 million in increased salaries over four years with the officers’ union without including County Exec Donovan in the negotiations… how are taxpayers supposed to get fair representation in union labor contract negotiations if our elected officials can’t even participate ? Foxes are running the henhouse in Bergen County, what a joke.
FBI on the case
Who’s case is the FBI on ? Ricca or Bergen County Sheriff ?
C B S NEWS VAN IN RIDGEWOOD TODAY.
he should just stay out of town,