NJ mayor admits to getting drunk, taking off his pants and passing out in employee's bed

MAHWAH, N.J. — New Jersey Mayor John Roth became so drunk at a township employee’s house party that he took off his pants and passed out in her empty bed without her permission, he said in an interview this week.

Roth said he apologized to the employee for his behavior. The Mahwah mayor, a retired communications executive, said he believed the whole episode to be a private matter. The employee, whom NorthJersey.com has decided not to identify, declined to comment.

The revelations about Roth's conduct come as New Jersey lawmakers are grappling with accusations of widespread misogyny in New Jersey's halls of power. A working group of women political leaders and advocates has formed to hear from women via an online survey about workplace sexual harassment in the Garden State political realm.

The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, in response to those allegations, said this month that it will ban hard liquor from its annual "Walk to Washington" train ride, New Jersey's premier networking event for elected officials and lobbyists.

In Roth’s case, no one has leveled any public accusations about his behavior at the Jan. 10 party, to which roughly two dozen town employees were invited. An anonymous letter signed by "concerned employees of the township of Mahwah" circulated last week detailing the night's events.

In an interview in his third-floor office in Mahwah Town Hall, Roth confirmed that he attended the party and had “too much to drink.”

“I did go upstairs to bed,” he said.

Asked whether he took his pants off before getting into the employee’s bed, he said, “Yes, that’s true.”

Roth’s wife came to pick him up after partygoers woke him up, the mayor added.

The township attorney and Council President David May declined to comment Wednesday.

Roth, a Republican, became mayor of this township of 26,000 in 2018 after voters recalled his predecessor, Bill Laforet. Laforet, who had survived a prior recall attempt, spent years butting heads with the council — there was severe backlash when he criticized the governing body over its approval of regulations that council critics said targeted Orthodox Jews — before voters tossed him out and replaced him with Roth.

Roth had previously been a councilman for 12 years and a school board member for five.

The next mayoral election is in November. Roth suggested in his interview with NorthJersey.com, part of the Paste BN Network, that his political foes, with an eye on that race, are responsible for spreading rumors about the Jan. 10 party.

“They’re leveraging it,” he said.