By Jerry DeMarco Ocean Daily Voice
A New Jersey-based political consultant admitted Tuesday that he hired two hitmen to whack a longtime associate from Hudson County who had worked for him on various election campaigns, federal authorities said.
Sean Caddle, 44, a former aide to former State Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) paid the pair — one from Connecticut, the other from Pennsylvania — to kill Michael Galdieri, the son of former State Sen. James Galdieri (D-Jersey City) and a prominent figure in local Hudson County politics.
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Galdieri, 52, was stabbed to death in May 2014 before his Jersey City apartment was set on fire, authorities said.
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger didn’t identify Galdieri by name in announcing Caddle’s guilty plea.
He also didn’t name the killers — although court papers identify them as co-conspirators, indicating possible cooperation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“This was a callous and violent crime, and this defendant is as responsible as the two men who wielded the knife,” Sellinger said. “There is no more serious crime than the taking of another person’s life. The defendant has admitted arranging and paying for murder by two other people. His admission of guilt means he will now pay for his crime.”
Caddle paid the Connecticut killer thousands of dollars “to commit a murder on [his] behalf…then recruited a longtime accomplice from Philadelphia to join the plot” in April 2014, the U.S. attorney said.
The following month, the men stabbed the victim to death and then set fire to his Jersey City apartment, Sellinger said.
