This is why Paterson Councilman Michael Jackson must surrender the passcode for his phone

PATERSON — Councilman Michael Jackson must surrender his cellphone passcode to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office for a grand jury investigation into possible new criminal charges against him, a judge has ruled.

Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed also decided that Jackson — who is already facing an election fraud indictment — is not entitled to see the sealed allegations used as the basis for the cellphone warrant.

“It is well settled that grand jury proceedings are generally secret,” Mohammed said in his ruling, issued last Thursday.

The judge noted in his decision that a grand jury is looking into possible new criminal charges related to the original indictment, including witness tampering, hindering prosecution and false swearing, against the councilman and maybe others.

What did Jackson say?

Jackson on Monday told Paterson Press he already has filed an appeal of Mohammed’s ruling.

“I’m not concerned about that one bit,” Jackson said, when asked about the threat of new charges against him.

The councilman said the state’s original case against him was so weak that the Attorney General's Office has been trying to force witnesses from the first indictment to make false statements that he tried to get them to change their story.

“I’m not that stupid,” Jackson said. “I never made contact with any of their witnesses, other than the fact that I’m their council person.”

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Why does the case focus on Paterson's 2020 elections?

The case focuses on Paterson’s 2020 all-vote-by-mail ward council elections and a state probe that resulted in charges against Jackson, Councilman Alex Mendez and campaign workers for Councilman Shahin Khalique. The state has dismissed the complaints against the Khalique supporters, but last month it filed a far more expansive set of new charges against Mendez.

In the attorney general's new charges against Mendez, state authorities say he and his backers tried to get witnesses against him to retract their stories.

Mohammed said in his ruling that the original case against Jackson would not go to trial until the current grand jury probe into possible other crimes is completed.

Jackson said that in 2020 state investigators asked him to help them file what he said would be “false charges” against others targeted in the probe. The councilman said the detectives told him about all the positive things they heard about his work as a city elected official.

“They said, ‘We think you didn’t know you were breaking the law,’” Jackson recalled.

Jackson said he told the investigators that he had no knowledge of wrongdoing by anyone else and later ended up getting charged in the case.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ: Michael Jackson must surrender phone passcode to NJ AG