The shady side of Newark’s urban renewal

From cigar bars, public restrooms and pawn shops, would-be developers allegedly bought City Hall favors for redevelopment projects with Rolexes, jewelry and cash.

In the 1990s, Al-Tarik Onque was a gang member who peddled cocaine in the Baxter Terrace projects of Newark’s Central Ward. He did five years in state prison after shooting a man in each leg over an unpaid loan. His time in lockup and an acquittal on murder charges led to an epiphany. In 2007, Onque gave up his criminal ways and started an anti-violence group called Stop Shootin.

Cory Booker, now a U.S. senator, discovered Onque, mentored him, and hired him in 2007 as an aide when he was the mayor of Newark, a city ravaged by poverty and crime. Onque’s transformation became a celebrated example of the grace and power of a second chance.

But Onque’s job and the feel-good narrative ended abruptly at 9 a.m. Dec. 12, 2022, when a Newark detective arrived at his City Hall office and arrested him for allegedly selling forged permits to city developers along with two co-defendants. Onque was fired immediately.

The case languished in the Essex County Superior Court system for two years until January, when it was quietly dismissed. Federal prosecutors had bigger priorities.

On March 25, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that one of Onque’s co-defendants in the Essex case, a Newark real estate expediter named Lamont Baxter, pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of falsifying official Newark real estate documents, including “cut cards” to activate electric service, certificates of completion and compliance, certificates of continued occupancy and other documents.

More importantly, Baxter also admitted to delivering bribes to former City Councilman Joseph McCallum on behalf of a developer seeking an inside track for city assistance in a real estate deal. McCallum pleaded guilty in federal court in 2022 to accepting bribes and kickbacks in exchange for his influence in pushing various real estate deals through to fruition.

Baxter’s plea deal is the latest development in an ongoing corruption probe into Newark City Hall by the FBI and the Special Prosecutions Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Since 2017, the investigation has led to charges and criminal convictions for several people with close ties to Baraka, including McCallum, former Deputy Mayor Carmelo Garcia, and campaign treasurer and city employee Frederic Murphy Jr. The mayor’s future wife, Linda Jumah was also convicted of tax fraud, as was one of his closest friends, Kiburi Tucker, who was also convicted of wire fraud. (See timeline here.)

“Newark has a long and remarkably consistent history of successive generations of corrupt politicians. There have been many investigations and prosecutions over the years to remove corrupt politicians from power,” says Ed Stier, a former state and federal prosecutor in New Jersey.

“But regardless of those changes, a variety of corrupt influences have remained resistant to change and have been passed on seamlessly from one generation to the next,” Stier said. “It is an equal-opportunity source of corruption that disregards ethnicity and imposes its values and norms on whoever takes over City Hall.”

Former mayors Sharpe James, Ken Gibson and Hugh Addonizio ended up in prison. More recently, Cory Booker’s deputy mayor, Ronald Salahuddin, was convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion, and Linda Watkins-Brashear, the former director of the now-defunct Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corp., was convicted of soliciting $1 million in bribes in exchange for no-work contracts.

But not since the 1970 conviction of former Mayor Addonizio and several of his co-defendants have there been so many people in the orbit of one Newark mayor convicted of federal crimes as in the Baraka administration.

Baraka, a third-term mayor who is seeking the Democratic nomination for New Jersey governor, declined a request for an interview but said this in a written statement:

“Let me be clear, there is no ongoing investigation into the city of Newark or my administration. We have never been subpoenaed, received a letter or been questioned about this investigation,” Baraka said. “It’s unfair to describe some of these people as being in my inner circle. It’s a false context. Linda is my wife, and Kiburi is a childhood friend, but to describe the rest as part of my inner circle creates a suggestion that there is corruption in my administration, which is simply not true. … Any issue involving a council member or employee has always been addressed immediately, because we always take matters of misconduct seriously.” (Read Baraka’s full statement here.)

The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not respond to two requests asking if Baraka’s assertion is correct.

But according to three sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, the federal probe is still active and also involves the Newark Housing Authority and other city agencies.

A betrayal of the public trust

McCallum won his West Ward Council seat in 2014, running on the same slate as Baraka. During the campaign, he promised to revitalize a district that had become crippled by poverty, vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Soon, he began championing a massive redevelopment plan along a stretch of South Orange Avenue. At the same time, he was allegedly taking cash bribes from some developers and allegedly negotiating bribe amounts with others, according to court records.

By 2016, new development was on the rise in Newark, though mostly in the downtown commercial arena. But a serious housing shortage was attracting the attention of developers in the surrounding wards as well — even in the hardscrabble West Ward.

In April 2017, McCallum allegedly “accepted a check for approximately $16,000,” according to court records, in exchange for “defendant McCallum’s official assistance and favors as specific opportunities arose related to City of Newark and NCEDC approvals regarding construction projects in Newark.”

In 2018, McCallum showed up at a zoning board meeting where a developer was proposing to build four luxury towers in the area. He told TAPinto Newark at the time that he had been working with the developer for years.

“These people are voluntarily doing affordable housing, 20 to 25 percent. That’s part of negotiations,” McCallum told the local news outlet. “When I meet with a developer, there’s things that I ask for, whether they take city funds or state funds or not. But if you want to come to this ward and have my support, there’s certain things you have to do.”

Court documents in McCallum’s case detail a series of alleged bribes paid to the councilman by an unnamed developer from 2017 to 2019 totaling $140,000. These bribes allegedly were funneled to McCallum through a consultant named Mallik Frederick, who has also pleaded guilty in the case. In turn, McCallum allegedly supplied “a letter of support and an official resolution for the sale and redevelopment of certain city-owned properties in Newark’s West Ward.”

Court documents show McCallum allegedly conducting his illicit business out of a Newark cigar bar. In 2019, he “accepted $500 in cash … at a cigar lounge in Newark,” court records show, to help pay for “McCallum’s upcoming trip abroad.”

In February 2020, “during another meeting at a cigar lounge in Newark,” McCallum sat down with a person he was using as a go-between in the bribery conspiracy, according to court records. The developer asked for McCallum’s help in acquiring other city-owned properties, to which McCallum replied, according to court records, “I’ll go to the mayor.” McCallum then allegedly gave instructions indicating that he was trying to close on a purchase of a home in a couple of weeks.

“Let that m—–f—- know, man, I need, I need some f—— money,” McCallum said, according to the court documents. “I need somethin’.”

A second unnamed developer allegedly provided a series of monthly $5,000 bribes to McCallum for his “assistance and approvals” in “acquiring and redeveloping multiple city-owned lots in the West Ward,” according to court records. After a redevelopment resolution was passed by the Newark City Council in 2020, the developer reneged on making further payments, allegedly prompting an angry response from McCallum at a meeting in a city cigar lounge, according to court records.

“But I, I was counting the f—— money, man. I mean, you know somethin’, ya know,” McCallum allegedly said. “He better pay. … I put a lot of work into that m—–f—-, man.”

It was at this point that Lamont Baxter came into McCallum’s real estate orbit.

An expediter in a hurry

Baxter, a former aide to City Councilman Oscar James II, had been active in Newark real estate since his boss left office in 2010. A large part of his business was acting as an expediter — a person hired by development and construction companies to move projects swiftly through the maze of city rules and regulations.

According to court records, Baxter had a history of resorting to forgery and fraud. In 2017, he was indicted by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office for allegedly forging permits and documents for eight properties. In December 2019, he entered into a plea deal that allowed him to escape any prison time.

Elements from the earlier Essex County case are also contained in the federal charges to which Baxter just pleaded. But the federal investigation also uncovered bribes he allegedly delivered to McCallum on behalf of an unnamed developer. One of those, court records show, was a $5,000 cash payment Baxter allegedly delivered on behalf of an unnamed developer in February 2020.

According to a source with direct knowledge of the bribery scheme, Baxter allegedly drove to McCallum’s preferred place to do business, the Jimenez Tobacco Cigar Lounge, on at least three occasions and texted the councilman to let him know he was there. McCallum allegedly would then pop the trunk to his car with his key fob from inside the cigar bar, whereupon Baxter allegedly would place the cash bribe in the trunk, close it and be on his way.

“I do not recall any such details in this case and am not sure without reviewing my file whether or not those allegations were addressed in the case,” McCallum’s attorney Ray Hamlin responded in an email when The Jersey Vindicator reached out to him seeking comment from him and his client about the allegations. Hamlin said he was in the middle of a murder trial and could no comment beyond what he wrote and didn’t have the time to look into it more or reach out to McCallum for the story.

Baxter did not return calls seeking comment.

According to court records, Baxter allegedly would often use the term “taking care of” a Newark official to indicate to a developer when additional money needed to be added to fees charged by the city so that he could use the extra money to bribe a Newark official.

In addition to allegedly paying bribes to Newark officials on behalf of others, Baxter once allegedly fraudulently obtained a $10,000 cash payment for himself by falsely indicating to his developer client that the cash was needed to pay a bribe to a Newark official, according to court records. Baxter allegedly kept the entire payment for himself and pretended that he had given the payment to a Newark official.

Baxter also admitted to fraudulently obtaining more than $40,000 in COVID-19 PPP relief funds, according to court records.

How Baxter and Onque found each other is not detailed in court records. While Onque’s role is spelled out in the state charges that were later dismissed, he is only vaguely referred to as one of Baxter’s “co-conspirators” in the federal case. Onque was the only alleged co-conspirator inside City Hall.

Onque’s stock in City Hall had risen under Baraka as he became one of the mayor’s top aides. The mayor made him the point man for one of his high-profile mayoral initiatives called the Citywide Men’s Meeting, a program designed to give Newark men the skills to benefit from the city’s surging real estate development business.

But Onque was struggling financially. In April 2019, he and his wife, Linda, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which was approved and discharged in August. His alleged (and dismissed) conspiracy with Baxter started in 2020, according to court records.

In July 2023, his wife, Linda, established One Stop Construction LLC to provide building and handyman services. Al-Tarik promoted the company often on his Facebook page, posting videos of himself at various job sites. The company would soon land a redevelopment deal with the City of Newark.

An endless cycle of poverty

Newark is a city where one in four residents live in poverty and the average household income is $37,476. Buying a home is out of reach for most Newark residents, and 80 percent are renters. These factors have made the city a fertile hunting ground for speculators looking for a bargain.

For decades, Newark has suffered a relentless stream of foreclosures that created a huge revenue shortfall and an urban landscape dotted with vacant lots and abandoned houses that degraded property values and attracted crime.

Newark currently holds title to more than 800 foreclosed properties that generate no tax revenue. (The city has not responded to a Jan. 20 OPRA request from The Jersey Vindicator for a list of all city-owned parcels sold in the last 10 years.) The West and South wards have been hardest hit, prompting city officials to officially classify large chunks of real estate as areas in need of redevelopment.

The blight designation provides City Council members with enhanced latitude in the sale of city-owned property. Every week, the council approves the sale of a dozen or so of these parcels to would-be developers at discounted prices, hoping to get them back on the tax rolls. At the same time, the city has been dishing out more and more long-term tax abatements to attract developers.

This financial conundrum, urban poverty experts say, attracts real estate bottom feeders who seek property on the cheap, often including any number of subsidies, and purchase it under the veil of limited liability companies that make it difficult to know who the real buyer is.

Between 2017 and 2020, almost half of the city’s residential housing stock was purchased by anonymous corporate investors, according to a 2022 Rutgers University study. That was a threefold increase since 2010, and it was the highest rate of this type of real estate practice in the nation, according to a 2022 study by the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLIME).

These investors “are focusing purchases on predominantly Black neighborhoods.” That amounted to 2,500 homes in the city’s West and South wards alone during that three-year time frame.

“The trend grew out of the foreclosure crisis that wiped out significant middle-class wealth in particular Newark neighborhoods,” the study says, resulting in “rapidly rising rents, lower homeownership rates, a diminished Black middle class … (and) even more housing instability for low- and moderate-income Newarkers and displacement.”

The public portion of Newark City Council sessions is often consumed with angry residents and advocates decrying the city’s housing policies. They say Newark’s building boom is gentrifying the city. A new Rutgers CLIME report released this month gives some credence to their claim.

“Newark is in the midst of ‘Jobless Gentrification’ where investment in expensive market-rate new housing and investor-led renovations raise prices without the corresponding job growth,” reads the report.

While home values have doubled from the downtown building boom, “the majority of Newark residents are housing cost-burdened. Roughly 55 percent report they spend more than they can afford on rent. Furthermore, homelessness is a growing problem in the city. The point-in-time estimate of homelessness in January 2025 was 2,451, up by more than 900 people in just the last year,” according to the report.

“There also have been very large increases in real estate prices in the outer wards, particularly in the West and South wards, raising concerns about unaffordability and the potential for displacement,” reads the report. “Thus, geographically concentrated investment has left Newark with pockets of what looks like new development gentrification around its downtown and university areas, especially the Ironbound, and investor-based price escalation in some of its lowest-income areas.”

These are the tricky socioeconomic tectonics that the Baraka administration and the City Council are facing.

Buying city-owned lots

The Sept. 5, 2024, Newark City Council meeting was unusually long, even by Newark standards. By the time the five-hour session ended, the council had churned out 69 resolutions and 16 ordinances. That included a dozen resolutions to sell off city land for redevelopment, as well as five ordinances granting long-term tax abatements.

A little over two hours into the meeting, the Newark Department of Economic and Housing Development put up a resolution to approve the private sale of 56 Seymour Avenue, a city-owned parcel, to a developer who would turn it into a three-family unit. The resolution passed unanimously without discussion. The developer was One Stop Construction LLC, whose managing member is Linda Onque, Al-Tarik Onque’s wife. Al-Tarik Onque did not respond to emails and phone messages from The Jersey Vindicator. But his wife, Linda Onque, who is listed as the managing member of One Stop Construction, said her husband has nothing to do with that project.

Less than three months after the Seymour Avenue sale, it was Baxter’s turn. The council approved the sale of four city-owned South Ward properties to Baxter’s company, L.A.B. Acquisitions LLC, for a bargain price of $9 per square foot. The resolution breezed through without discussion, though two council members abstained.

It was not Baxter’s first deal with the city. In November 2021, the council approved a redevelopment deal with Baxter in which he bought ownership of two city-owned properties for $45,708. One of the properties was a vacant lot at 24-26 Wainwright Street, which remains vacant. The city has yet to transfer the title to Baxter, which means it remains off the tax rolls. The second house, at 18 Fabyan Place, has since been demolished. That deed also has not been transferred.

Another Newark figure who cashed in on city-owned land was Ramesch Broadbelt, a city developer and real estate agent who had been charged along with Onque and Baxter in the Essex County forgery case.

In 2019, the council approved the sale of four city-owned properties to Broadbelt, where he agreed to build two two-family homes and construct a 12-unit apartment building. The total purchase price was $67,375 — $7 per square foot. The properties were assessed at $198,900 and had not been appraised.

The city transferred the deeds for all four lots to Broadbelt in February 2021. City ordinance mandates he complete construction on redevelopment deals within 18 months of deed transfer. Four years passed, and he has performed no work on the properties.

On April 2, the council passed a resolution with no discussion to not only extend his deadline but expand the scope of his plan: The original plan for 14 units was increased to 35 units.

Broadbelt, in an interview, said that the amended scope of the plan is the result of a new zoning law passed last year, which allows for higher-density development projects. As for the dismissed criminal charges filed against him, Broadbelt said, “I have no idea why I was charged in the first place.”

Baraka declined to address specific questions about the land deals with Onque, Baxter and Broadbelt, but he defended the integrity of the city’s real estate transactions.

“The city has rigorous processes in place for all redevelopment projects,” Baraka said in his written statement. “Every deal goes through a public process, is subject to legal review, and ultimately must be approved by City Council. This structure ensures that no one person or office has unilateral control over public land or resources. We rely on checks and balances because they are essential to good governance.”

City Council President Lawrence Crump did not respond to two emails seeking his comments.

Unfinished business

McCallum has yet to be sentenced despite pleading guilty more than three years ago — an unusually long time by federal standards. Plea deals are made with certain conditions, such as cooperation with the investigation and possible trial testimony. The long delay suggests there is still unfinished business concerning his case. Malik Frederick, McCallum’s co-defendant in the case, also has not been sentenced.

Their sentences will likely provide an indication of the level of their cooperation in the investigation. Noncustodial sentences for such serious crimes could suggest they have provided information beyond what has become public thus far.

Also awaiting sentencing is former Deputy Mayor Carmelo Garcia, who in June pleaded guilty to providing favors for bribes — including cash, a Rolex and jewelry — allegedly in exchange for his assistance in the acquisition and redevelopment of city-owned property. Garcia also allegedly was given a $25,000 cash bribe, according to court records, “in the bathroom of a restaurant in Mountainside, New Jersey.”

Garcia was well-positioned to administer favors: Baraka had made him director of the Newark Department of Economic and Housing Development and executive vice president and chief real estate officer of the Newark Community Economic Development Corporation. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October. Baxter is scheduled for September.

But the future course of any federal investigation now seems uncertain with a new attorney general in Washington directing a Department of Justice with a dramatically new agenda. On March 24, President Trump appointed New Jersey native Alina Habba as the interim U.S. attorney for the state. Habba, often described as Trump’s attack dog, has represented him in three high-profile court cases. On her first day as interim U.S. attorney, she spoke briefly to reporters outside the White House.

“There is corruption, there is injustice, and there is a heavy amount of crime right in Cory Booker’s backyard and right under Governor Murphy, and that will stop,” she told reporters, pointing specifically at “what’s going on in Newark, what’s going on in Camden.”

It didn’t take long for Baraka to respond.

“Alina Habba, who I invite to leave the beautiful country clubs of Bedminster and come hang out with us here in the city of Newark so you can learn about our community, our town, see beautiful working-class people and some of whom are immigrants,” he said. “No MS-13 (gang) here, just resilience, culture and progress.”

Four days later, Habba showed up in Newark wearing a flak jacket and accompanied by U.S. Marshals as they arrested an 18-year-old member of the Bloods gang.

A recent timeline of Newark corruption

For the past eight years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI have been investigating corruption in and around Newark City Hall. It has landed a series of criminal convictions, several of which involved people with ties to Mayor Ras Baraka. Here are some of the most high-profile cases.

Source for timeline information: Court documents