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♪ BRIANA: Tonight On "NJ Spotlight News," US Senator Bob Menendez is slammed with a third superseding indictment.

The charges against him are piling up.

>> Does not any way, shape, or form to be able to move on expelling him or to have the will to expel him.

BRIANA: Plus, a new poll finds the candidates looking to replace the embattled senior senator aren't necessarily household names.

>> The electorate as a whole doesn't know a lot about these candidates, even those with higher name recognition, such as the First lady or the congressman.

BRIANA: Also, hired and rehired.

A new study reveals teachers accused of sexual misconduct are skirting a law that should prevent them from getting jobs elsewhere.

>> New Jersey school children deserve the highest level of guardianship.

BRIANA: And cracking down on driving high.

Critics raising concern over a new bill requiring police to perform blood tests.

>> Science confirms that blood testing does not result in any kind of conclusions regarding impairment and there have been numerous studies.

BRIANA: "NJ Spotlight News" begins right now.

♪ ANNOUNCER: from NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

BRIANA: Good evening and thanks for joining me this Wednesday night.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

U.S.

Senator Bob Menendez just got a fresh round of bad news after federal prosecutors on Tuesday hit him with the third superseding indictment against him in his sweeping federal bribery case.

Menendez being indicted on a dozen new charges related to an alleged years-long corruption scheme involving his wife, we New Jersey businessmen, and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

Among the latest charges, new accusations of obstruction of justice in connection with a Mercedes-Benz convertible prosecutors say Menendez knew was a payoff in exchange for his political influence.

That he lied to the U.S. Attorney's office to conceal that it was a bribe.

The new charges, just days after a key co-defendant pleaded guilty and agreed to work with prosecutors.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz has the latest details.

Reporter: It's like a time-released toxin.

Every couple of months, the Southern District of New York produces a new set of superseding indictment which sounds really important to the rest of us.

It is superseding, after all.

Reporter: Superseding is simply legalese for additional charges.

That's all it means.

>> It preserves the original charges and adds new charges, which I think now we are on the third round, and this time, of course, it is obstruction.

Reporter: this former federal prosecutor says the most relevant new material is contained in counts 17 and 18, Obstruction charges stemming from meetings Menendez, his wife and their attorney had with co-defendants.

>> There were meetings in the summer of 2023 between the Council for the senator and his spouse at which time it was represented that their defense was that these payments were, in fact, Loans and the allegation is that the defendants knew full well that that was that was not the case.

You need the new charges come just days after codefendant Jose Uribe pleaded guilty and became a witness for the prosecution.

But it is that slow-and-steady drip of new indictment that is painting the pitcher for potential jurors and making it harder and harder for Menendez to breathe.

This defense attorney says prosecutors will throw as much of a defendant as they can, because you never know.

>> I will tell you that there is nothing extraordinary about superseding indictments.

They are a tool of the government and they are used frequently to bring additional charges and/or.

again I must say, to bring pressure on a defendant from what I would note is, despite all of the strum and dram the government puts on these cases, there is still hanging over this case, some questions about legal and constitutional nature, including charging the senator with acts that I believe are cognate to his responsibilities as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Reporter: That is what the Menendez legal team is argument also.

The Senator maintains his innocence.

Trial is set to begin in May, a month before the Democratic primary election to succeed the senator, which has attracted four candidates, none of them named Menendez.

He also remains adamant about not resigning, no fellow Democrats or the public may think of him.

>> The Senate does not seem in any way, shape, or form to be able to move on expelling him.

Or to have the will to expel him.

And so this falls squarely in his domain, to decide when he goes, and at this point, it will be January of 2025 if he doesn't make the decision otherwise.

Reporter: More fodder for Jersey corruption [mumemes, and maybe, more hope for Republicans who can, come election time, make good political use of a Democrat who most what agree has soiled the state's reputation even further.

I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news.

BRIANA: The candidate vying to replace the embattled senator have been in a slugfest for coveted county organization liens.

On the GOP side, the South Jersey entrepreneur Curtis Bashaw on Tuesday won his fourth so-called party line after Somerset County Republicans endorsed him in the primary, getting out Mandan Borough Mayor Christine Glassner, and former New Jersey 12 reporter Alex sedan.

And while the broad statewide county line support is considered a major victory, a new poll from Monmouth University out today, finds most Republican voters have never heard of the candidates on the Democratic side.

First Lady Tammy Murphy appears to be the most well known among those candidates.

For more on the poll results, I'm joined by Patrick Murray.

He is director of the Monmouth University polling Institute.

Patrick, always good to talk to you.

We in the news have been very focused on these nominating conventions, but what does your latest polls tell us about how much remove voters are paying attention to these candidates?

GUEST: the electorate as a whole doesn't know a lot about these candidates, even those with higher name recognition such as the first lady or the congressman.

There really is not a lot that they do know about them.

And I think one of the reasons why we did this poll is a bit of a reality check for those who are following this closely.

That this is an insider contest right now.

It is about meeting those party leaders, those committee members.

It's not about bringing a message out to the larger public right now.

Andy Kim has slightly more favorable ratings than Tammy Murphy does among the Democrats, but there is a lot of unknowns.

What was interesting to me was that even though Tammy Murphy has the highest recognition over all for anybody we poll, Democrat or Republican, that is running for Senate, she has a huge number of people who say, you know what, I have heard her name but I don't really know what I think of her yet.

Even though there are some negatives there, it gives her a lot of room to introduce herself to voters when we get into the actual primary season.

BRIANA: Does this translate who primary voters will cast a ballot for in June?

Is there a way to connect the two?

Guest: Know, and currently that kind of an addiction the media has, they need horserace numbers or they can't understand what is going on.

I saw a report on the poll that we put out, that said there way the questions are worded limits the conclusions you can draw.

Well, if we had asked the horserace question, the typical Head-to-head question, there would have also been a lot of limits to conclusions you could draw at this early stage when voters don't know a lot about these candidates.

But the media generally not mentioned that.

We will wait until we get to an actual set of official candidates after the filing deadline when we know who is running on what line, exactly who will be on the ballot and where.

When these candidates start actually really introducing themselves to voters, that is when we'll start asking questions about who you are going to vote for.

BRIANA: Historically I am thinking about these opinion gaps and when voters like you mentioned, really start to pay attention focusing on the campaigns.

How much does that matter as we head into the primary and then, of course, the general election you have these gaps in opinions?

Should we glean anything from that?

Guest: That is exactly what we should look at, those gaps tell us what the starting point is for any of these candidates.

How strong is the opinion about them.

So even with Andy Kim and Tammy Murphy, it's not that something that is written in stone, Tammy Murphy has a lot of ground she can make up with the unknowns.

Andy Kim could lose his positives once we get into an actual campaign.

And what we know is there will be a small subset of voters who, in June, even though it is a presidential election year, as we know.

The primaries are basically done, so by the time we get to the New Jersey primary, there will not be a presidential election that will drive voters out, it will be this race.

It's not going to be a huge number of voters.

But after we get past the nomination, one of the things that have seen in nearly 30 years of bullying here in New Jersey is that voters forget who the candidates are after the primary.

They kind of go into a summer lull and they have to be reintroduced to those candidates all over again when September rolls around.

So I'm sure we are going to see something similar to this again.

BRIANA: It is part of the reason why it is always election season in New Jersey.

Patrick Murray is the director of the Monmouth University Polling institute.

Thank you.

Guest: my pleasure.

BRIANA: families of American Israeli hostages are hoping their presence at tomorrow night's state of the Union address will put more pressure on President Biden to bring their loved ones home.

Head of the speech, bipartisan congressional members, including New Jersey representatives Josh Gottheimer hosted more than a dozen family members who united today on Capitol Hill and their call for the immediate return of the hostages being held by Hamas.

Tenafly native Edan Alexander's mom was among them, sharing how painful the last 150 days have been as they await word for his status and proof of life.

Alexander's mother will be the guest of South Jersey congressman Donald Norcross during the speech.

She hopes the Biden administration will be reminded of their plight.

A scathing new state investigation is calling out New Jersey's so-called Pass the Trash law, designed to stop teachers with histories of sexual misconduct or child abuse from keeping their records a secret and finding jobs at other schools.

Instead, the Deming report finds both educators and school districts are not only ignoring the law, in some cases, they are purposely many believing it at the expense of schoolkids.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports.

>> New Jersey schoolchildren deserve the highest level of guardianship to protect them from having sexual predators in their classroom.

Reporter: Sandy at a report just released by the state commission of investigation for New Jersey found that some sexual predators had made their way back into New Jersey classrooms, even after being accused of misconduct in the previous district, something New Jersey's 2018 law called "Pass the Trash," was created to stop.

>> I am sure the state is a safer place than it was a few years ago when we passed the laws, but, obviously, there are things you need to improve to make it even safer for our kids.

Reporter: Assemblyman Jay Webber sponsored the law that requires an educator who's been accused of sexual misconduct to report the allegation when looking for a new job.

And it requires hiring school districts to request any such background files from the sending school district, which, in turn, must turn over those documents.

Failure to comply is a Class 4 felony.

But SCI found cases where those disclosures broke down at every > level.

>> SCI found one school district that apparently had purposely evaded the law by coming up with with a nondisclosure agreement and sending a sexual predator to another school.

It is exactly why we wrote the law, to stop the kind of thing.

Reporter: the SCI investigation only looked at about 100 of the states, more than 590 school districts, not enough to fully understand the prevalence of the problem, says the chair.

>> our recommendation is that the State Department of Education should do a comprehensive audit so that the state of New Jersey's citizens and parents can know how widespread the problem is and what we are going to do to actually fix it.

Reporter: the New Jersey school Board Association convened a meeting in December to raise concern around this issue.

>> It was already on the radar that our boards were concerned with the lack of oversight, and that belief statement said that our local school districts need additional resources.

They need related tools and supports to assist them in collecting and maintaining the information that will limit or prevent physical or emotional abuse of children by their school employees.

Reporter: The state commission of investigation recommends the Department of Education create a database that all districts and staffing companies who help employ educators can access during the hiring process.

>> The centralized database needs to be a place that a school district can compare the names of applicant that they have to see if the applicant is on the centralized database, and, a centralized database makes it much easier for smaller school districts that may not be as well-resourced, and for larger school districts that are in crises with getting teachers hired.

Reporter: Assemblyman Jay Webber says they considered the database when they wrote the bill, but -- >> The problem with the database is that teachers are prevented from getting jobs if they are accused of misconduct, but it is not established.

Right?

The point of the law was to stop teachers from jumping from one job to another when there were a substantiated but open allegations of misconduct.

If we start a database that has been substantiated allegations in it, that could pose a problem, I think, for teachers who are wrongly accused.

We have to balance those interests as well.

So we will look at that.

Reporter: How do you hold school districts accountable when there has been failures?

?

Who is responsible?

Is it the superintendent?

Are there criminal punishments?

Are there fines?

>> Ultimately, superintendents are responsible.

I think our law might benefit from having one individual designated.

Whether it is the Superintendent or someone else who is responsible for these background checks and who will be held accountable if the process isn't followed.

Reporter: He says he is open to working with the SCI in the legislature to make improvements to the law to prevent offenders from slipping through, and he wants to strengthen penalties for perpetrators.

Joanna Gagis, NJ Spotlight News.

BRIANA: 's day three of New Jersey transit's weeklong public hearings on a proposed Fare hike, a system wide 15% increase starting July 1, and 3% every year after.

The agency is defending the bump, which would be the first in nearly a decade despite pushback from commuters about the change.

Participation at these hearings has been low and criticized for not providing virtual options.

Today riders in Trenton shared his frustrations, and reminded those listening that years of underfunding the agency is having a big impact on everyday lives.

Ted Goldberg reports.

Reporter: You are not going to find many commuters happy to fork over more money to ride NJ Transit.

>>>> It is too steep too soon.

, I think they need to just roll it out maybe one and a half, July is coming quickly.

Reporter: NJ Transit hasn't raised fares for nine years.

But fewer riders means they were staring down $100 million deficit for the next fiscal year.

Their next budget is balanced without any planned reduction in best or train routes, thanks to more advertisements, and a 15% increase in fares.

>> Gradual increase would have been better.

They are talking a 15% increase.

Then they said there was no increase for 10 years.

.

Wasn't anybody paying attention for the last five years?

>> I am actually OK with it.

I know it has been a while.

>> People complain about everything.

It's been two years since they raised the fare, the buses run on time, trains are running on time.

>> Will realize that they need to do some of great, some of the stations, -- some upgrades, some of the stations and the train themselves.

We get it, but to get hit with that kind of increase in-run shot is a lot.

>> Costs go up.

The workers want to get paid.

I know I want to get paid.

Many passengers spared their grievances in the fifth public hearing regarding what NJ Transit called Sara adjustments.

They were upset about higher costs and some reduced services.

>> I don't think it is basically there to pay more if we are going to add more to the service.

>> Is extremely difficult for me to catch a train.

To be here by 10:00, I had to be at the door before 5:00 a.m. this morning.

>> The dropping of the flex pass is also a major problem for people who benefit from the art daily riders.

>> Adam couldn't attend today's meeting because there was no virtual option, in fact, none of the meetings this week had one.

>> I am unable to attend an in person gathering that doesn't have a masking requirement so for me, these hearings are not accessible.

We have other New Jerseyans who are similarly situated.

Reporter: The lack of accessibility inspired him to start a petition with more than 200 signatures, meeting with NJ Transit to let people attend these events virtually.

Between the different times and locations, fewer than 20 members of the public have attended the first five meetings this week.

>> The idea that the hearing on March 8 that is taking place in the boardroom where they have cameras and microphones that livestream ever at the hearing, the idea that they can't find them on is just incredibly callous.

>> Not everybody can take time during the day to come here, or take time from work to come here and express our concerns or support, whatever it is, just their opiniono an NJ Transit spokesman previously said there would be no intention to offer a virtual option and said there would be plenty of other ways for people to chime in.

>> There is no reason why New Jersey transit can't provide a virtual option, especially at the Newark hearing at its own headquarters.

Reporter: These public hearings will go through the end of the week.

So if you have anything to say on the subject, NJ Transit says they are taking public comment until Friday night at 11:59.

In Trenton, Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

BRIANA: On Wall Street, stocks moved higher today after said chair Jerome Powell reiterated that interest rates will come down this year, by the central bank is not ready to start cutting just yet.

Here is where the markets closed.

♪ BRIANA: Three years after the state legalized recreational cannabis, law enforcement agencies are still trying to figure out the best way to determine if someone is driving high.

In new bill is proposing that drivers suspected of being under the influence would have to give a blood sample to police without the officer first having to obtain a word, something required under federal law -- obtained a warrant, something that is required under federal law.

That has both cannabis and civil liberties experts worried.

Melissa Rose Cooper reports.

>> It strikes me as a solution in search of a problem, and by that matter, not such a good solution.

Reporter: He is expressing his concerns over a recently introduced bill that would require drivers in New Jersey to provide police with a blood sample if they are suspected of driving under the influence of marijuana.

>> Last November, our highest court decided that police officers who are trained in the topic of drug recognition impairment, can testify and have that testimony admitted into evidence about someone's impairment while they are operating a motor vehicle.

So under New Jersey law, there is no reason to have blood testing.

Reporter: The proposed legislation comes three years after recreational marijuana became legal in the garden.

>> Science confirms that blood testing does not result in any kind of conclusions regarding comment, and there have been numerous -- regarding impairment, and there have been numerous studies that have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which unequivocally finds that blood testing does not present any evidence of impairment.

Reporter: Experts say using a blood test takes so long to determine whether someone is impaired, and would be challenging.

>> Research and surveys suggest that people who use DHC, may be half of them use it on the basis.

For these individuals, the level of THC in their blood can remain detectable and elevated beyond the three nanograms per milliliter, which was identified as a proposed demarcation of impairment in the New Jersey legislation.

The elevation above that in people who use THC on a regular basis can be many hours longer and, in some cases, one or two days.

-- one or two days longer, well after the acute psychoactive effects dissipate.

Reporter: There are also concerns the proposed legislation would unfairly target people of color.

>> We know already that people of color, particularly black people, are disproportionately stopped in the state.

Even for things where they are violating the law at the same rate as anybody else, right, whether you're talking about speeding or things like that.

We have had years and years of data to confirm that.

If we now say not only are you going to be subject to the indignity and the inconvenience of a police stop, but we are going to otherize those same police officers to mandate that they stick a needle in your arm, that is really increasing the stakes of what we know to be disproportionate contact with policeo we reached out to Senator Shirley Turner who is gone the bill, for comment, and are awaiting a response.

While critics agree that drivers under the influence shouldn't be behind the wheel, they say more research needs to be done to figure out the best way to make a proper assessment.

For NJ Spotlight News, I am Melissa Rose Cooper.

BRIANA: And that will do it for us tonight, but make sure to tune into ChatBox with David Cruz tomorrow night.

He looks at the growing discontent among school administrators and lawmakers over state aid cuts in Governor Murphy's budget proposal.

That is tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. on the Youtube channel.

I am Briana Vannozzi.

Further entire NJ Spotlight News team, Thanks for being with us.

Have a great evening.

We will see you back here tomorrow night.

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