Kearny Mayor Alberto Santos had this reaction to the news of John Leadbeater’s guilty plea:
“The initial charges came as a surprise to me,” said Santos, who defeated Leadbeater in the 2009 mayoralty contest. “And the guilty plea was a disappointment in that John devoted so many of his years to public service, both on the Town Council and Board of Education.”
Nonetheless, Santos said, there was money lost through the criminal enterprise and “those who lost money are the ones who suffered damage here and they need to be made whole. This was not a victimless crime.”
If there can be said to be an up side in this situation, Santos said, it is that the criminality charged to his onetime political rival was “not related to his past services as a councilman or member of the school board.”
