Hoboken Mayor Won't Resign

HOBOKEN, New Jersey - Peter Cammarano III, an election law lawyer and mayor of Hoboken, says he has no intention of stepping down from his job as city leader after he was arrested in an FBI corruption probe on Thursday.

Speaking briefly to the media from Hoboken City Hall on Friday afternoon, Cammarano said he looks forward to his day in court when he will be fully exonerated. 

He denied the charges against him and said he was "fully capable" of carrying out his role as mayor.  Cammarano did not take questions from reporters.

The 33-year-old is accused of accepting $25,000 in cash bribes from a government witness acting as a real estate developer.

According to a federal complaint, on May 19 Cammarano and a cooperating government witness were at the Malibu Diner when Cammarano said in reference to the runoff election: "I could be indicted and still get 85 percent to 95 percent of the vote."

Cammarano also told the witness that people can be divided into three groups: "people with us (you guys), people who climbed on board during the runoff will wait in line and people who were not with us the whole way- they get ground into powder."

On June 23, Cammarano accepted $10,000 in cash from the cooperating witness, in response he said "great, we're going to be friends for a long time."

Cammarano has only been in office for a few weeks. He won a runoff election in mid-June.

He was one of several political figures arrested in the state's largest corruption bust.