In December 2016, the FBI raided the historic Orange Public Library, seizing computers and documents. Then they raided City Hall. Over the next few years, they quietly slammed the city with subpoenas.
Over the last few months a woman who prepared taxes, two small business owners and the former director of the public library were charged in the wide-ranging probe of the 2.2 square mile city, where the median household income is $38,000.
This week the U.S. Attorney's Office indicted a fifth person: Willis Edwards III, a one time state Assemblyman in the early 2000s. Edwards was appointed by Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren as his deputy business administrator. It was a position Edwards never legally held but nonetheless used to approve sham contracts in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.
"Elected officials should really watch who are they are appointing to positions, where they can appoint political patronage jobs. They really need to know who they are appointing because when it goes bad it brings down a lot of people," said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director at the Bloustein Local Government Research Center at Rutgers University. "It affects confidence in government."
He says municipalities can't skimp on internal controls that help prevent corruption and fraud.
Edwards is facing a laundry list of charges that include bribery, conspiracy to defraud the government, property fraud, and federal tax fraud.
Authorities allege a sprawling kickback scheme between 2012 and 2015 that included siphoning money from a library literacy program for low-income kids and a redevelopment project. The indictment also charges him with approving fraudulent purchase orders for services at the YWCA that were never completed. He allegedly even faked invoices in order to pay a consultant to write his academic papers for his graduate program -- which he also billed the city for.
"When you trust people too much this is what you get," said Council President Kerry Coley who, like the mayor, is a Democrat. Coley says Edwards still owes the city his $268,000 salary back after two courts found the mayor couldn't appoint him to the business administrator position without council approval.
Mayor Warren says the alleged behavior is "a strict departure from the standard" he sets for employees.
Longtime resident Karen Wells says it's hard to believe Edwards did all these things without notice from elected officials.
"Somebody was writing the checks, somebody was approving the checks. You can’t just move this kind of money around and nobody knows except Willis," she said.
A date for Edwards's arraignment has not been set. His attorney did not return a request seeking comment.