Jerramiah Healy

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Jerremiah T. Healy (born December 1950) is the current Mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey. He ran for the unexpired term of the late Glenn D. Cunningham and was elected in November 2004. In the special election, he defeated Acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith. He was subsequently elected to a full term by a record landslide.

Healy entered public service as an assistant prosecutor for the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office in 1977. From 1981 to 1991, he maintained a private law practice in Jersey City. He was appointed Chief Judge in the Jersey City Municipal Court in 1991, and was reappointed in 1995.^[1] In 1997, he ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Jersey City against Bret Schundler, who later ran for Governor of New Jersey against Jim McGreevey. Healy resumed his private law practice until 2004, when he was elected Mayor.

A graduate of Xavier High School, Healy attended Villanova University in Pennsylvania and the Seton Hall University School of Law.^[1]

He claimed to have been "roughed up", maced, and arrested outside his sister's bar in Bradley Beach. Cops allege he was interfering in a police investigation. Healy claimed that he was attempting to intervene in an argument between a couple outside the bar.^[2] His claims were rejected by the court and he was found guilty of obstruction of justice on June 22, 2007.^[3] Healy plans to appeal the decision and was target of a fairly transparent attempt to portray him as having broad public support.^[4] Healy had a similar charge reduced to violation of a noise ordinance on a guilty plea in August of 1999.^[5]

He is a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition,^[6] a bi-partisan group with a stated goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets." The Coalition is co-chaired by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.