After prison, NJ Democrat party boss works public teaching job

🔴 Top Hillside Dem shows up to $80,000 teaching job

🔴 He was hired 3 months after pleading guilty to federal crime

🔴 Calls his time in prison an "inconvenience"

HILLSIDE — The most powerful Democrat in this New Jersey township is teaching at his new job after being released from federal prison earlier this year.

On Feb. 13, Anthony Salters was released six weeks early from Fort Dix in Burlington County. He was sentenced last year to six months in prison after pleading guilty to failing to file a tax return in 2017, a misdemeanor. He had been facing more serious fraud charges, which have since been dismissed.

Now, the former inmate is a homebound teacher for Hillside Public Schools. The district gave him the job around one year ago — several months after he admitted to the crime.

The position is new for the 2024-2025 school year. And school officials never said Salters would not be paid while he was in prison.

Salters, who makes $80,000 a year, said in a letter to his coworkers that his time in prison was a "total waste of taxpayer monies" and a "tremendous inconvenience."

Connected Democratic Party boss

Last October, the New York Times reported that Salters's defense attorney Raymond Hamlin, who is also the school board's attorney, said there was nothing illegal about hiring the federal convict for the teaching post.

Hamlin also said there was no reason for Salters to step down as chairman of the Hillside Democratic Committee, according to the report.

No one has said explicitly why a new position was created for Salters. But he has significant influence in the district, according to one former Hillside Public Schools teacher.

In 2020, a former television production teacher at Hillside High School said he used his connections with Salters to get the gig — and accused Salters of later conspiring to get him fired in retaliation. The case was dismissed in July 2021.

Read More: These 20 school districts in NJ about to have funds cut by feds

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EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this report should have said that Salters pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.