Gina LaPlaca, a former Democratic mayor in New Jersey already sentenced for a DUI with her toddler in the car, now faces criminal charges alongside her husband for allegedly forging signatures on her primary election petition.
The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office announced charges against LaPlaca, 47, and her husband Jason Carty, 49, for submitting a nominating petition riddled with signatures that voters say they never wrote. Prosecutors say the couple needed those names to get LaPlaca on the ballot for the June 2026 Democratic primary for the Lumberton Township Committee, and without them, she would not have qualified.
LaPlaca faces counts of making a false statement under oath, knowingly filing a false petition, tampering with public records, and falsifying or tampering with records. Carty faces the same charges minus the false-oath count. Both are scheduled to appear in court September 21 in Mount Holly, New Jersey.
The prosecution's case rests on a straightforward claim: people listed as petition signers told investigators they never put pen to paper. The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office laid out the findings in a public statement:
"An investigation by the Prosecutor's Office revealed that multiple individuals whose names and purported signatures appeared on LaPlaca's nominating petition indicated they had neither signed the petition nor authorized anyone to do so on their behalf in support of the candidate's nomination."
Carty submitted the petition to the Lumberton Township Municipal Clerk. It included an affidavit signed by LaPlaca in which she swore she had "personally circulated the petition" and that it "was signed by each of the signers thereof in his/her own handwriting." Prosecutors allege that statement was false.
The New York Post reported that without the fraudulent signatures, LaPlaca's petition would have lacked the minimum number required to place her name on the primary ballot. Neither the exact number of forged signatures nor the total signature threshold has been publicly disclosed.
Even with the allegedly padded petition, LaPlaca lost. She finished third in the June Democratic primary for two open committee seats, behind Mayor Terrance Benson and his running mate Kendra Hatfield. The fraud, if proven, gained her nothing but a set of criminal charges.
The petition charges land on a record already stained by a serious conviction. In March 2025, LaPlaca picked up her child from daycare while intoxicated. Police bodycam footage showed her vehicle swerving out of its lane and nearly striking a utility pole with the child inside. Officers recorded her blood alcohol concentration at 0.30%, more than three times New Jersey's legal limit of 0.08%.
LaPlaca pleaded guilty earlier this year in the DUI case. She was sentenced to three years of supervision under a pretrial intervention program that includes mandatory attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The case also involved child abuse charges connected to the toddler's presence in the car, though the precise scope of her plea was not fully detailed in public reporting.
She is hardly the only Democratic officeholder generating headlines for misconduct. In Minnesota, St. Paul's police chief filed a sexual harassment complaint against the city's mayor over explicit texts, adding to a pattern of local Democratic leaders facing serious personal and legal trouble.
LaPlaca served as Lumberton Township's mayor from 2021 to 2025. She still holds a seat on the township committee, though her current term is set to expire at the end of this year. Whether the new charges will affect her remaining time in office is unclear.
Nominating petitions exist for a basic reason: they prove a candidate has enough community support to earn a spot on the ballot. When a candidate swears under oath that real voters signed a petition, and prosecutors say those voters did no such thing, the integrity of the process takes a direct hit.
LaPlaca and Carty both allegedly participated in collecting signatures for the petition, Fox News reported. The affidavit LaPlaca signed carried the weight of a sworn statement, making the false-oath charge particularly pointed. Filing a fraudulent petition is not a paperwork error. It is an attempt to bypass the rules every other candidate follows.
The broader Democratic Party continues to face questions about accountability within its own ranks. In California, a Newsom ally was recently revealed to have worn an FBI wire during a federal corruption probe, another case where the legal system, not party leadership, forced the reckoning.
And at the national level, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries faces an internal revolt from progressives and even some of his own allies, suggesting the party's troubles extend well beyond any single township in New Jersey.
Several questions remain unanswered. How many petition signatures were allegedly forged? How many valid signatures does Lumberton Township require for a primary candidate? Have LaPlaca or Carty retained attorneys or responded publicly to the charges? None of that information has surfaced in available reporting.
LaPlaca's political career was already functionally over before the petition charges dropped. She lost the primary. Her committee term expires in months. Her DUI conviction, with a blood alcohol level nearly four times the legal limit and a toddler in the back seat, had already made her a liability no serious party operation would want on a ballot.
Now she and her husband face the prospect of criminal prosecution for trying to manufacture the community support she apparently could not earn honestly. The September 21 court date in Mount Holly will determine whether the case moves forward toward trial or resolves in some other fashion.
Voters in Lumberton Township already rendered their verdict at the ballot box. LaPlaca finished last. The legal system will now decide whether she also broke the law getting there.
