TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The Passaic City mayor is the latest New Jersey public official to face a prison term after being snared in a federal corruption investigation.
Mayor Samuel Rivera, a former police officer, pleaded guilty Friday to attempted extortion, admitting he accepted $5,000 in cash to influence government contracts. He resigned as mayor, effective at 5 p.m. Friday.
Rivera, 61, was among 12 people -- including 11 public officials -- arrested in September for taking bribes after a statewide FBI investigation. He is the eighth person among that group to either plead guilty or be convicted. Trials are pending for the others.
His attorney, Henry Klingeman, said Rivera faces 18 to 24 months in prison at sentencing on Aug. 15.
``He's terribly sorry to the people of Passaic who have supported him for many years,'' Klingeman said.
Passaic is a densely populated city of about 70,000 residents about 15 miles west of New York City. Rivera had been mayor since 2001.
``By his own conduct, Mr. Rivera added himself to the growing roster of corrupt public officials in New Jersey,'' U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said. ``The citizens of Passaic deserved better.''
Christie's office has convicted about 130 public officials on corruption charges since 2002.
The investigation that resulted in Rivera's conviction began in 2006 amid evidence of corruption in the Pleasantville school district near Atlantic City. The FBI established an undercover insurance company that employed two cooperating witnesses and undercover agents.
Rivera admitted taking $5,000 from a cooperating witness in exchange for using his official influence to make the undercover company Passaic's insurance broker.
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