Here’s how a corrupt ex-Sheriff got out of prison 7 years early

Corrupt ex-Middlesex County sheriff and former Democratic boss Joseph Spicuzzo served just 815 days of a nine year sentence because of a perfect storm of community support and simple luck, according to a review by NJ Advance Media.

Spicuzzo was sentenced in 2013 for a jobs-for-cash scheme that prosecutors said netted him $112,000 over a more than a decade. He was released early in December even though he'd been denied parole just months earlier.

Spicuzzo — also longtime head of the county Democratic party, and sheriff for more than 30 years — pleaded guilty in 2013 to a single count of bribery. But Prosecutors had alleged Spicuzzo directly or indirectly solicited and took bribes from seven people seeking to be hired as investigators. He also was accused of taking bribes from a sheriff's officer for two promotions.

According to the new NJ Advance Media review, it took Spicuzzo just five minutes to convince a judge to let him out early — in exchange for admission into the state's Intensive Supervision Program, which requires participants to check in several times a day. In 2015, 70 percent of applicants to the program were rejected.

The report said Spicuzzo appeared before just a single judge, instead of the panel of three who'd normally have to OK his release, because only one showed up to work that day. He was surrounded by supporters. His attorney argued his loss of his pension was a real hardship. And the judge declined to listen to statements about Spicuzzo's misdeeds.

"I think the gentleman will be a prime participant in this program," Judge John McNeill said during the hearing, as quoted by the report. "So I don't need to hear anything further."