‘Not worthy’

Ron DiMura is a “complete embarrassment” and “convicted felon,” who does not deserve a portrait on the Middlesex municipal courtroom’s Wall of Mayors.

Michele Tackach, who formerly chaired the Middlesex Borough Democratic Organization and served on the Borough Council, voiced that sentiment to the current governing body at its meeting on Tuesday, June 25.

Joining Tackach in opposing DiMura’s inclusion in the mayoral portrait gallery were her daughter, Kristie, and Elizabeth Spencer, a voting district rep on the Middlesex County Democratic Committee.

During the council’s June 11 meeting, Mayor Jack Mikołajczyk said plans were underway to hang a mayoral portrait of his predecessor, John Madden. Mikolajczyk noted that DiMura’s portrait would also be hung in the courtroom.

Mikolajczyk voiced the opinion then that DiMura’s crimes do not change the historical fact he was once a Middlesex Borough mayor.

After the public show of opposition, however, Mikolajczyk and the council might be rethinking the hanging of DiMura’s portrait. The mayor said the governing body “never really firmed up the matter.”

Mikolajczyk asked council members to forward their thoughts on the issue in writing. It will be addressed “somewhere down the road,” the mayor said.

The Wall of Mayors currently includes portraits of all men who have held Middlesex’s highest elected office since its founding, except for Madden and DiMura. 

Madden’s four-year mayoral term ended honorably on Dec. 31, 2023. DiMura’s term was cut short in mid-December 2019 when he resigned after being indicted by the state Attorney General’s Office. He had been defeated by Madden in the 2019 general election the prior month.

DiMura was charged with laundering campaign donations through a scholarship fund and bilking private investors in a Ponzi scheme. He later pleaded guilty to some charges and was sentenced to a seven-year prison term. DiMura served less than two years before being paroled.

Spencer told the council that DiMura’s misdeeds are “not what Middlesex is all about.” Displaying his portrait publicly with other past mayors, she said, might give youths the mistaken impression he is “someone to be looked up to.”

Kristie Tackach noted that other disgraced leaders don’t have their likenesses displayed publicly. “You don’t go to Germany and see pictures of Hitler around,” she told Mikolajczyk and the council.

Tuesday’s meeting was not the first time that Michele Tackach, once one of DiMura’s strongest defenders, has publicly criticized his criminal behavior.

The former councilwoman spoke at DiMura’s Feb. 16, 2021 sentencing in New Brunswick before state Superior Court Judge Benjamin Bucca. Tackach said then that she and her parents were among DiMura’s Ponzi scheme victims. Her parents also spoke at the sentencing via video hookup.

“He has destroyed my entire family,” Michele Tackach told Bucca. “I sat in his office. He sat at my table. I had conversation after conversation with him. I cried to him and he promised he’d make good on everything. I mean, it was just one lie after another.”

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