Mayor Gary Catrambone released a video message letting the people of Delran know that Delran’s Solicitor, Sal Siciliano, would not be resigning as the Council President had asked him to do, and would instead be providing a memo to explain some of the unanswered questions that have haunted the administration for months.  Those questions have been asked mainly by first amendment activist and former Delran resident, Patrick Duff, who has personally grilled the Council. Mayor, and the Solicitor over questions regarding the planning of the Lloyd Celebration, the inflated trash contracts, and most of all, the Township’s treatment of Dunphy’s Landscaping.  The memo promised by the Mayor was never produced by Siciliano, who instead, shocked the township and turned in his immediate resignation on February 21st.

During the last 2 Council meetings several comments have been made about Duff, including Council Person Tom Lyon calling him a “Carpetbagging, Self Serving, disingenuous person looking to make money from lawsuits”.  He went on to claim that Duff and “his lackey” were staring at him and making faces during the council hearings.  Lynn Jenney claimed that Duff and “his lackey” got within two inches of his face in an aggressive manner, causing him to need police escorts to and from the building.  Wendy Mitchell,  Delran’s Communications Director, claimed that because of Duff’s inquiries, this is the first time Council, the Mayor and herself need police escorts to their cars.  She went onto say that because of an image that Duff shared on his blog of her publicly available FaceBook page, which included a photo of Mitchell and Carli Lloyd and a background image of her son, that the “police department and Council have determined it was probably unsafe for me (her) to bring her 5 year old son to Winterfest”, a claim that the police nor the Council could substantiate. 

Back in October, just 2 weeks after Duff published his first story about the Carli Party, he recieved an online threat to shoot him in the face that warned him that he better stay offline, the threat also included several homosexual slurs and the person claimed to be a cop.  Duff has also been the victim of a hit blog created that claims he faked having cancer to sell cbd products, he stole money from the MLK memorial in Maple Shade, and several other stores to try and defame the activist and deter him from his investigations. From the information gathered thus far, the author of the hit blog, and or the person feeding them information, is most likely a very high ranking member of the Burlington County Democratic Comittee, a fact that once confirmed the person’s name will be released.

In November of 2021 a Delran resident named Michael Bigaj, decided to make a political hit video against Duff, where he used his own daughters as actors in the piece in an attempt to again defame the activist.

Just four days after Duff posted his first article, the Mayor posted a message that said a “nonresident” was making claims that “bribery and coercion” took place with regards to a donation to the Lloyd Party.  This message was joined by a message on Carli Lloyd’s fan page, where Lloyd herself attempted to silence the activist by using her platform of almost 2 million followers to tell “Patrick Duffy” to stop questioning things in Delran, which only seems to have made Duff dig deeper.  The Mayor’s Facebook page is controlled by Mitchell, who has been operating without any insurance for the entire year of 2021 up until January 17th of this year.  When the Mayor was asked what Mitchell’s qualifications for that position were, the Mayor stuttered and claimed that she was an entrepreneur and that he was training her, yet he did not state any valid qualifications as to why Mitchell was awarded the position. 

It seems that Mitchell has been drafted to handle a new responsibility in town, the responsibility of hiring a new Solicitor.  In a recent Burlington County Times posting it shows that all applications shall be delivered in a sealed envelope attentioned to Delran’s “Communications Director”, which is Mitchell. 

Duff recently filed a lawsuit against the Township for violating OPRA laws, a move the Township Council could have avoided by just filling the request, but instead the Township will be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees to Duff’s attorney, CJ Griffin, as well as the temporary Solicitor to defend it if Duff wins.  Council People, Lynn Jenney and Tom Lyon, claimed that Duff makes money from the OPRA suits that he and his attorney file, yet he has yet to see a dime from the many OPRA lawsuits he has been involved with, with Duff winning every one of the eight he has filed.

While OPRA lawsuits do not pay damages directly to the Plaintiff, defamation and retaliation suit do, which is something the Township might want to alert their insurance about this time, because that will be Duff’s next move.