Published: Thursday, February 23, 2012, 8:20 PM     Updated: Thursday, February 23, 2012, 8:21 PM

Detectives with the state Attorney General’s office raided North Bergen’s Department of Public Works today, removing computer records and reams of documents as part of an investigation into corruption within the agency, a town spokesman said.

People familiar with the investigation said the Attorney General’s Division of Criminal Justice is trying to determine if the head of the agency, James Wiley, used department employees to do landscaping at his home in North Bergen, and whether he and other supervisors coerced the employees to do work for the township’s Democratic Municipal Committee.

"They removed documents and records and possibly hard drives," said Paul Swibinski, the spokesman. "We are cooperating with the investigation."

The sources, citing the sensitivity attached to an ongoing investigation, requested anonymity.

They also said detectives removed computers from the agency’s headquarters and questioned workers, while at the same time descending on Wiley’s house. They removed additional records there, the sources said.

According to the sources, Wiley regularly pressed public works employees — from truck drivers to clerks — into a kind of double role. They were directed to campaign and raise funds for the North Bergen Democratic Municipal Committee, the sources said, with the threat that if they didn’t, they risked losing their jobs.

In addition, a law enforcement official confirmed investigators are looking into whether Wiley and other supervisors are engaged in a bartering and kickback system with North Bergen businesses, picking up their garbage in exchange possibly for merchandise, services and cash.

By local law, businesses must use private carters to take away their trash, including "bulk" waste, such as furniture and televisions.

This morning, the parking yard for the agency’s beige, cement offices was filled with investigators’ vans. By the afternoon, routine seemed to have returned, with the department’s green garbage trucks coming and going, parking near a two-story mountain of unused road salt. The department is responsible for many areas, including garbage pickup, road and sidewalk repairs, and maintaining bus shelters. Its street crews employ about 45 workers.

A woman standing at the entrance of the agency referred inquiries to Swibinski. And a man answering the door at Wiley’s home early this evening said that Wiley was not there.

Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the state Attorney General said that, consistent with its policy, the office would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Star-Ledger Staff Writer Christopher Baxter contributed to this report. 

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