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A candidate for a Verona Township Council seat has a history of legal and financial difficulties, including multiple arrests on assault charges, that have not yet been raised before the May 9 non-partisan municipal election.

Christian Strumolo has faced a string of arrests and criminal charges over the last two decades, including a 2002 arrest for aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer that was later negotiated down to a guilty plea on a simple assault charge.

Over the years, Strumolo has pled guilty to impersonating a public servant or law enforcement officer, obstructing the administration of a government function, loitering while intoxicated, and assault.

Four years ago, Strumolo was arrested for drunk driving on Bloomfield Avenue in Verona within 1,000 feet of a school.  That was his second DUI conviction: the first came in 2008 while driving on Pompton Avenue in Cedar Grove, again within proximity of a school and with a refusal to take a breathalyzer test.

He filed for bankruptcy in 2015 after accumulating over $600,000 in debt and assets of roughly $6,000.  Between 2009 and 2018, the Internal Revenue Service and the New Jersey Division of Taxation filed about $500,000 in liens against Strumolo, according to filings with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.  He also owed $8,500 to Caldwell College for unpaid tuition for his minor child.

That happened while claiming monthly take-home pay of $8,250 from a cleaning company he owned.

“Voters can’t make informed decisions unless they’re informed.  If you asked any self-respecting constituent of George Santos, they’d tell you they wish they knew then what they know now,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University.  “Voter diligence is the most bedrock, necessary principle of casting an informed vote.  It will do Verona zero good