Newark's Israeli Interesting Mayor
Mayor Ras Baraka caught my attention after his stunt trespassing onto ICE’s federal property. I go over his connections to Benjamin Netanyahu and Bob "Gold Bar" Menendez through State Sen. Lesniak.
On May 9th, the Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for protesting trespassing onto ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center. These protests aren’t born out of concern for illegal immigrants but protecting migrant indentured servitude and modern slavery by organized crime.
Last January, the mayor also protested the ICE raid of Ocean Seafood Depot — a Portuguese wholesale fish supplier — in Newark, New Jersey where both citizens and non-citizens were detained.
A Newark Fish Market Was Raided by ICE | Eater | February 2025
Janota told PIX11 that it appeared ICE was going after “certain kinds of people — not every kind, because they did not ask me for documentation for my American workers, Portuguese workers, or white workers.” The military veteran asked for his documentation is Puerto Rican, he told the news outlet.
“Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized,” Baraka said in a statement.
Luis Janota’s statement was completely contradicted in the article when he said no one asked his American workers for documentation. The article also mentioned Janota didn’t ask for a warrant, so did he give his permission for the search? Funny how there’s no mention that the detained Puerto Rican military veteran was the manager. Managers hire and fire people and he would be the one to employ undocumented immigrants. Someone needs to notify the Mayor of Newark that being a veteran doesn’t mean you get to violate labor laws. If anything, you should be held to a higher standard.
According to Ocean Seafood Depot’s website, the company was founded in 1998 by Luis and Bela Janota, and they import seafood from Portugal, Spain, and Morocco.
About Us - Ocean Seafood Depot | Seafood Supplier NJ & NYC
Ocean Seafood Depot delivers the highest quality fresh, live, and frozen seafood to restaurants across New Jersey and New York City. Our commitment to quality is evident in every product we offer. We specialize in importing premium wild fish from Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. This global sourcing ensures our customers receive only the best seafood available.
Those countries are interesting since Portugal and Spain have a Russian and Romanian mafia problem (as I have previously written about) while Morocco has an Israeli one.
BUSINESSMAN LUÍS JANOTA OFFICIALLY INAUGURATED THE SEAFOOD RESTAURANT "OCEAN SEAFOOD", IN IRONBOUND | LusoAmericano | September 16, 2022
The complex, which also includes the facilities of his distribution company to the restaurant sector, occupies an area of 30 thousand square feet…
The businessman from Santarém made the symbolic ribbon cutting with the presence of several figures of Portuguese life in Bairro Leste, including state deputy Eliana Pintor-Marín, councillor general Luís Quintana and councillor Michael Silva
Portuguese Organized Crime in New Jersey
In 2014, PortuCale Restaurant & Bar — a Portuguese restaurant — was used as a front for laundering $400 million for the Genovese organized crime family.
Baraka’s Campaign Finance Violations
Mayor Baraka has previously been fined for campaign finance violations and his campaign treasurer (and fall guy), Frank Murphy, was sentenced to 30 months in jail after pleading guilty in 2018 for embezzling over $220,000 in campaign funds.
Newark mayor accused of violating campaign finance rules | nj.com | November 02, 2017
In some cases, the filings were amended to disclose unreported contributions more than eight years after their due date.
Newark mayor, ex-campaign treasurer fined $30K over election law violations | New Jersey Monitor | December 1, 2021
The campaign’s alleged campaign finance violations — Baraka, Murphy, and ELEC entered a consent order that did not include an admission of guilt — included nearly $185,000 in improperly reported contributions and just over $23,000 in expenditures reported late.
Per the commission, Baraka was late to report $156,724 in contributions and entirely failed to report $13,287 in donations. Another $9,400 in political donations were reported without all details required under the state’s campaign finance disclosure rules.
Angelo Genova, who represented Baraka in the ELEC matter, has ties to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and was the general counsel for the very dirty New Jersey Democratic Party according to his LinkedIn.
In 2024, George Norcross — a New Jersey democrat power broker — was charged with racketeering in waterfront redevelopment case and was subsequently let off on a technicality. New Jersey Councilman Anand Shah was arrested with known members of the Lucchese organized crime family in an alleged gambling ring. It’s funny how the New Jersey AG can never find a Russian or Israeli mobster.
Baraka's lack of disclosure | POLITICO | March 28, 2024
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a candidate for governor in 2025, is in trouble with ELEC. Again!
These alleged offenses appear worse than the last ones. To this day, Baraka hasn’t filed the vast majority of campaign finance disclosures that were required for his campaign. Neither has his joint candidate committee that funded his council running mates. Taken together, according to ELEC, this is around $1.5 million in campaign spending that went unaccounted for, though usually there’s at least some duplication, as money transferred between these accounts is counted twice. (The little that Baraka’s campaign did disclose of its election spending came over a year late.)
Connection to Gold Bar Bob Through Ray Lesniak
Ras Baraka might have violated campaign finance laws to hide he was taking money from State Senator Ray Lesniak’s anti-Waterfront Commission PAC.
The New York & New Jersey Waterfront Commission was born in the 1950s after public hearings revealed the pervasive influence that organized crime had over the ports. The 70-year-old agency performed background checks on prospective port workers and decided how many can be hired and when.
On July 17, 2023, at the instigation of the New Jersey Gov. Murphy, the bi-state commission was dissolved and succeeded by the New Jersey State Police at NJ ports.
Group fighting Waterfront Commission gave big to Lesniak's super PAC | nj.com | Mar. 13, 2015
With legislation that seeks to pull New Jersey out of the bi-state Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor recently reaching the governor's desk, The Auditor noticed that a group fighting with the commission has given a substantial sum of money to the super PAC of the bill's sponsor.
The New York Shipping Association in October 2014 gave $50,000 to a super PAC called the Committee for Economic Growth and Social Justice, which is associated closely with the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union).
The disclosure does not say, for instance, on which New Jersey races the money was spent. Lesniak, however, said the super PAC has been public about where it has played.
"It's no secret that it was involved in the Elizabeth Board of Education election," he said. "It was involved in (Newark Mayor) Ras Baraka's election. It was involved in (Bayonne Mayor) Jimmy Davis's election. And it was also involved in Mayor (Eric) Jackson's election in Trenton. "
Baraka’s Ties to Israel via Lesniak
State Senator Lesniak sat on the board of BankAmericano that donated to the now convicted Bob Menedez. Menedez’s legal defense was funded by the Chisraeli Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.
Menendez legal defense fund takes in $1.6M with Adelson's help | nj.com | July 16, 2015
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on Wednesday reported raising $1.6 million for his legal defense fund in his first financial filings since his indictment on federal corruption charges.
The contributions included $20,000 from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who together spent more than $90 million on behalf of Republicans in 2012.
State Senator Lesniak’s ties to Israel and Chabad Lubavitch
Interesting how Lesniak’s PAC funding Ras Baraka’s mayoral run never comes up.
Legislators form ‘Faith Leaders Against Violence’ | New Jersey Jewish News | February 24, 2015
A Rabbi, a State Senator, and Seven Hundred Winter Coats for Ukrainian Orphans | Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters | November 2, 2022
Bibi’s Anti-Israel Manufactured Hero
The media has consistently highlighted his father’s poem that had a verse that mentioned Israel had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. But it’s interesting Netanyahu’s ties to organized crime and the Mexican cartels was never mentioned. Or how he was funded by Israeli interesting State Senator Ray Lesniak.
Who Gets to Control Newark’s Schools? | Slate | May 21, 2014
A rabble-rousing new mayor wants to undo the reforms that Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg brought to town.
Tuesday Baraka unveiled his agenda for educational “local control”: a return of the Newark school district to city management, and a total rejection of the school reform policies embraced by his predecessor Cory Booker, Gov. Chris Christie, and their philanthropic patron Mark Zuckerberg, whose $100 million donation has reshaped the city’s educational landscape in the direction of new charter schools and teacher evaluation and pay based on student standardized test scores.
Amiri Baraka died in January. Today he is most often remembered as the controversial former New Jersey poet laureate, who claimed in verse that Israel had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. But before all that, he was a beatnik, a black nationalist—and an education reformer.
Born Everett Leroy Jones, Amiri Baraka grew up in Newark and attended the racially integrated Barringer High School, where he worked on the school newspaper and eventually earned a scholarship to Howard University. He later joined the Air Force and landed in Greenwich Village, where he began his career as a political agitator, poet, and playwright.
After Malcolm X’s death in 1965, Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka, separated from his white, Jewish wife, and returned to Newark, where he hoped to live out his emerging black separatist ideals.
“Who on Earth would become Governor of New Jersey if not ordered by a Mob boss or Bibi Netanyahu?” — a friend.
Isn’t that one and the same? If you had to know anything about Bibi, then it’s his ties to Russian and Israeli organized crime.
You can follow me on X.com @DCinTejas (my DMs are always open) or email me at DCinTejas@proton.me. If you email just DM me, so I know to check it. Thanks!
-DeAnna Calderón
Additional Articles:
Daughter of Controversial Poet Is Killed at Her Sister's Home | The New York Times | Aug. 14, 2003
The 31-year-old daughter of Amiri Baraka, the poet, playwright and civil rights activist, and a friend were found murdered late Tuesday night in the home of another of Mr. Baraka's children in Piscataway, N.J., the authorities said yesterday.
The victims, Shani Baraka, and Rayshon Holmes, 30, were shot several times and were found in the family room of the house owned by Ms. Baraka's older sister, Wanda Pasha, the Middlesex County prosecutor, Bruce Kaplan, said.
He said detectives are searching for Ms. Pasha's estranged husband, James Coleman, for questioning in the double murder.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on ‘My Brother’s Keeper’: One Year Later | Center for American Progress | March 18, 2015
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka's ties to Louis Farrakhan resurface: 'Divisive and hateful rhetoric' | New York Post | March 24, 2025
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO AND MAYOR RAS J. BARAKA HEADLINE THE WATERFRONT CONFERENCE (pdf) | The Waterfront Alliance | May 8, 2017
Few candidates for governor want to get on Norcross' bad side | POLITICO | February 28, 2025
First, the Democrats. Steve Sweeney, Norcross’ childhood friend, had what I consider one of the most clear positions. He called Norcross and his co-defendants “innocent” and the prosecution “political.” On the opposite side of the Democrats was Steve Fulop, who complained that Norcross got off on “technical legal reasons vs what is actually right/wrong.” Sean Spiller was also a bit more critical of Norcross, saying the dismissal “leaves many unanswered questions that will only build distrust.”
Ras Baraka said nothing at all, which is puzzling considering his usual outspokenness and appeal to progressives, though he is endorsed by Camden Mayor Vic Carstarphen.
Baraka v. Fulop 2025: A Developing Rivalry and What it Means | Insider NJ | June 19, 2022
In the 2017 gubernatorial pre-season, Ras Baraka supported Steven Fulop, the two big city North Jersey mayors bound by a common sense of an enemy festering in South Jersey. But now, with Fulop reigniting his ambition for the governorship and Baraka's allies prodding him toward his first statewide run, the mayors of Jersey City and Newark respectively appear headed for a 2025 collision
Racketeering Indictment Charges 10 Alleged Members and Associates of Genovese Crime Family | “Operation Fistful” by Division of Criminal Justice & Waterfront Commission | New Jersey Office of Attorney General
Statement of Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin on the Arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka | New Jersey Office of Attorney General
