A disgraced New Jersey local official already serving a supervision sentence for drunk driving with a toddler in her car now faces criminal charges for allegedly faking the signatures she needed to run for reelection, and she still lost in a landslide.
Burlington County prosecutors charged Lumberton Township Committeewoman Gina LaPlaca, 47, and her husband Jason Carty with forging supporters' names on a nominating petition to place LaPlaca on the Democratic primary ballot, the New York Post reported. Without the fraudulent signatures, prosecutors said, LaPlaca would not have had enough names to qualify as a candidate.
The charges cap a months-long stretch of legal trouble for LaPlaca that includes a DUI arrest, a guilty plea to child endangerment, a domestic assault accusation against her husband, and now allegations of election fraud, all while she was trying to hold onto a seat on the governing body of a small Burlington County township about 20 miles east of Philadelphia.
LaPlaca and Carty each face multiple charges filed by summons. LaPlaca was charged with making a false statement under oath, knowingly filing a false petition, two counts of tampering with public records or information, and falsifying or tampering with records. Carty was charged with knowingly filing a false petition, two counts of tampering with public records, and falsifying or tampering with records.
Investigators found that multiple people listed on the petition told authorities they never signed it. LaPlaca and Carty allegedly wrote those people's names on the document without their knowledge or consent.
LaPlaca then signed a sworn attestation on the petition, stating she "personally circulated the petition [and] that such petition was signed by each of the signers thereof in his/her own handwriting." Carty submitted the petition to the Lumberton Township clerk.
The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office put it plainly:
"Without the fraudulent signatures, the investigation revealed, LaPlaca's petition would have lacked the requisite number of signatures required to be a candidate for the primary."
Prosecutors did not reveal how many signatures were forged or how many the petition required. A pre-indictment conference is scheduled for Aug. 19, and the pair's first court appearance is set for Sept. 21 at Superior Court in Mount Holly.
Even with the allegedly fraudulent petition clearing her path onto the ballot, LaPlaca's bid went nowhere. Three candidates competed for two spots on the Lumberton Township Committee in the June 3 Democratic primary. Mayor Terrance Benson led the field with 1,100 votes. Former committeewoman Kendra Hatfield finished second with 1,052. LaPlaca came in last with 323, fewer than a third of the votes earned by either winner.
The lopsided result raises an obvious question: if LaPlaca couldn't even gather enough legitimate signatures to qualify for the ballot, what made her think voters would carry her across the finish line? The answer, based on her conduct in the final days before the primary, suggests she had no intention of running a conventional campaign.
Election integrity remains a persistent concern across New Jersey. The state's governor has acknowledged that thousands of non-citizens ended up on voter rolls, and federal authorities have pressed for accountability on the issue. LaPlaca's case is smaller in scale but no less corrosive to public trust: if a candidate can forge her way onto a ballot and face consequences only months later, the system's safeguards failed at the front end.
Roughly five days before the June 3 vote, LaPlaca posted on Facebook alleging that people in dark suits had visited at least 10 of her supporters, an accusation she framed as voter intimidation. She offered no evidence of who sent them or why.
LaPlaca wrote on the LumbertonTwpMayor Facebook page:
"I can't believe these kind of tactics have come to Lumberton, but I guess if someone is that scared of me winning, I must be doing something right."
The claim was never corroborated by investigators or any independent source. Given what prosecutors now allege about the petition, the accusation reads differently in hindsight. If people listed on her petition were being contacted, and some of them were telling authorities they never signed it, the visitors in dark suits may have been investigators, not intimidators. The source material does not confirm that, but the timing is notable.
The petition fraud charges are not LaPlaca's first brush with the law in recent months. On March 17, 2025, police arrested her for driving under the influence with a toddler in the vehicle. Her blood alcohol concentration measured.30%, nearly four times New Jersey's legal limit of.08%.
LaPlaca pleaded guilty in March to DUI and child endangerment. She received a three-year supervision sentence after being accepted into a first-time offender intervention program, a result prosecutors characterized as a "second chance." She is currently serving that sentence.
The fact that LaPlaca was actively seeking reelection while under criminal supervision for endangering a child tells voters everything they need to know about her judgment. And the voters of Lumberton apparently agreed, burying her candidacy by a wide margin.
New Jersey's political class has generated no shortage of controversy in recent years. State Democrats have clashed with federal authorities over election data and immigration enforcement, often prioritizing political posturing over institutional accountability. LaPlaca's case is a local example of a broader pattern: officials who treat the rules as obstacles rather than obligations.
The turmoil in LaPlaca's household spilled into public view just days before the June 3 vote. LaPlaca accused Carty of aggravated assault, telling the New Jersey Globe that he "literally tried to kill me." Carty was charged with aggravated assault by strangulation and harassment with the intent to cause alarm. He was told to leave the home.
LaPlaca later posted on social media about the incident, offering a disjointed account that raised more questions than it answered:
"My husband was the one drinking, not me. I am on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, and this incident happened at 6:45 AM when, frankly, I'm not at my best. Never been a morning person."
The current status of the domestic assault charges against Carty is not clear from available reporting. What is clear is that the man LaPlaca accused of trying to kill her is the same man prosecutors say helped her forge petition signatures to get on the ballot. The two are now co-defendants in the fraud case.
The dysfunction on display in Lumberton stands in contrast to the larger battles New Jersey Democrats have chosen to wage. While state leaders have turned federal detention facilities into stages for political theater, local party machinery apparently couldn't keep a candidate with a.30% BAC arrest and a forged petition off the ballot in the first place.
Both LaPlaca and Carty were charged by summons rather than arrested. That means they received a notice to appear in court rather than being taken into custody, a common procedure for lower-level charges but one that can strike ordinary citizens as lenient when the alleged conduct involves sworn false statements and tampering with public records.
LaPlaca faces five charges in total. Carty faces four. Making a false statement under oath, the charge unique to LaPlaca, carries particular weight because she personally swore on the petition that every signature was authentic. If prosecutors can prove that claim was knowingly false, it goes beyond sloppy paperwork into deliberate deception of the electoral system.
The broader question is whether New Jersey's election infrastructure has adequate front-end safeguards. LaPlaca's petition made it through the township clerk's office and onto the ballot. Voters cast their ballots on June 3. Only now, months later, are criminal charges catching up. The system caught the fraud eventually, but not before a candidate who allegedly didn't belong on the ballot consumed a line on it.
New Jersey has faced repeated questions about the integrity of its election systems. The state's governor has drawn criticism for prioritizing political confrontations with federal authorities over basic governance, and the LaPlaca case suggests the rot extends down to the municipal level.
Several open questions remain. Investigators have not disclosed how many signatures were forged or how many legitimate signatures the petition contained. The status of the domestic assault charges against Carty is unclear. And it remains unknown whether the people LaPlaca claimed were intimidating her supporters were in fact connected to the investigation into her own petition.
When a candidate has to forge signatures just to get on the ballot, loses by nearly 800 votes anyway, and faces criminal charges while already serving a sentence for drunk driving with a child, the system didn't fail to catch her. The voters of Lumberton did that job themselves. The courts are just cleaning up what was left.
