Two Passaic County men — Morzetta, 72, an Italian national living in North Haledon, and Antonio Mitchell, 54, a Jamaican national living in Paterson — have each been charged in federal court in Newark with illegally voting in a federal election and with unlawfully attempting to procure United States citizenship, U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced. Mitchell faces an additional count of making false statements while applying for citizenship. The charges are contained in separate criminal complaints and are allegations only: both men are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey, Oct. 29, 2026

Morzetta made his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre in federal court in Newark on the day of the announcement, and Mitchell had his initial appearance before Judge Wettre on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

What prosecutors allege each man did

According to the complaints and statements made in court, both men were non-citizens when they registered to vote in New Jersey, and each falsely certified on his voter registration form that he was a United States citizen — a status a person must hold in order to register and to vote in a federal election. Prosecutors allege Morzetta then voted in person in the November 2024 general election, and that Mitchell voted in person in the 2022 general election; both elections included candidates for federal office.

The complaints set out how each man entered the United States: Morzetta, prosecutors say, entered from Italy under a P21 classification as the spouse of an alien resident, and Mitchell entered from Jamaica on a B-2 visitor visa. Neither held U.S. citizenship at the time he registered or voted, the U.S. Attorney's Office says.

The second half of the case concerns what allegedly happened afterwards. Prosecutors say each man later applied for naturalisation on Form N-400 — an application that must be sworn under penalty of perjury to be complete, true and correct — and that in those applications both falsely claimed they had never registered to vote or voted in any federal election. In Mitchell's case, prosecutors allege he repeated that denial under oath in an interview with an Immigration Services Officer after filing his application.

Who investigated, and who is prosecuting

U.S. Attorney Frazer credited special agents of the FBI — under Special Agent in Charge Stefanie Roddy in Newark — Homeland Security Investigations, under Special Agent in Charge Michael S. McCarthy, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services with the investigation. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark McCarren and Michael K. O'Leary of the Special Prosecutions Division, and the case was brought under the U.S. Attorney's Office's Election Integrity Task Force, a coalition of federal law-enforcement partners focused on elections in the District of New Jersey. The release lists Patrick McMahon, AFPD, as defence counsel.

Part of a running series of New Jersey cases

The Passaic County complaints are the latest in a steady series of near-identical New Jersey prosecutions by the same office and task force. On September 24, 2026, the same U.S. Attorney announced the same charges against Patrick Terrance Reid, 61, of Orange, and Danubis Bernat, 49, of South Amboy — alleging Reid voted in four straight presidential elections — and in May 2026 federal prosecutors charged four other New Jersey residents in separate complaints over voting in the 2020, 2022 and 2024 cycles, a case the Associated Press reported at the time. A Middlesex County case against Marian Charitun followed in the summer. The pattern matters for immigrant readers: in each case, prosecutors say the voting came to light through the person's own later citizenship application.

Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey, Sept. 24, 2026

The other side: a new lawsuit challenges the wider voter investigation

The prosecutions sit inside a much larger federal effort that civil-rights groups moved to challenge on the same day. On October 29, a coalition including Common Cause, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates and the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in California (case no. 3:26-cv-12617) seeking to stop what USCIS calls its "Unlawful Voter Initiative," launched in August 2026. The plaintiffs allege the initiative investigates naturalised citizens using outdated, error-prone data; their filing, as summarised in reporting on the suit, cites a review of a sample of 20,000 California voters flagged as suspected non-citizens in which 38.9% of those with recorded birthplaces were in fact U.S.-born and 71.2% had never voted. "The Trump administration is challenging voters and threatening states based off flawed and outdated data," said Theresa J. Lee, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. Those claims about the wider initiative are the plaintiffs' allegations in a separate case — they do not answer the individual complaints against Morzetta and Mitchell, which will be tested in the Newark court.

Source: Common Cause / ACLU coalition statement, Oct. 29, 2026

Why this matters in Passaic County and for diaspora readers

Paterson is one of New Jersey's most immigrant-heavy cities, and Passaic County sits next to the Middlesex County corridor — Edison and Iselin among them — where many Punjabi and South Asian families live. The practical lesson these cases repeat is stark: only U.S. citizens may register or vote in federal elections, and a false answer on the N-400 naturalisation form about voting is itself a federal charge carrying up to a decade in prison. Anyone who registered while not yet a citizen — even by mistake at a motor-vehicle office — is urged by immigration lawyers in such cases generally to get legal advice before filing for naturalisation, rather than answering the question falsely.

What happens next

Both cases now proceed in the U.S. District Court in Newark following the men's initial appearances before Judge Wettre. The U.S. Attorney's Office has announced no trial dates, and no pleas have been reported. Awaaz Punjab will follow both complaints — and the California challenge to the wider initiative — as they move through court.