The Nation - News from Jan. 1, 1985

A federal judge in Newark, N.J., who called former Atlantic City Mayor Michael J. Matthews a “crook” sentenced him to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for his guilty plea to an extortion charge. “You served the people shamefully. The people of Atlantic City thought they were electing a mayor, not a crook and that is what you turned out to be,” U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman told the 50-year-old accountant. Matthews pleaded guilty on Nov. 27 to taking $10,000 from an undercover federal agent.