A former New Jersey mayor who previously pleaded guilty in a DUI case involving her child is facing new charges alongside her husband after prosecutors alleged false signatures appeared on her nominating petition for a Democratic primary race.

Gina LaPlaca, the former mayor of Lumberton Township who remains a member of the township committee, was charged with making a false statement under oath, knowingly filing a false petition, tampering with public records and falsifying or tampering with records, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office announced Tuesday.

LaPlaca’s husband, Jason Carty, was also charged with knowingly filing a false petition, tampering with public records and falsifying or tampering with records.

The petition submitted by Carty to the Lumberton Township Municipal Clerk for the primary election included an affidavit signed by LaPlaca saying she “personally circulated the petition [and] that such petition was signed by each of the signers thereof in his/her own handwriting.”

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An investigation found that LaPlaca, 47, and Carty, 49, had collected signatures for the petition, prosecutors said. 

“An investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office revealed that multiple individuals whose names and purported signatures appeared on LaPlaca’s nominating petition indicated they had neither signed the petition nor authorized anyone to do so on their behalf in support of the candidate’s nomination,” the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said.

Prosecutors said that without the allegedly fraudulent signatures, LaPlaca’s petition would not have contained enough valid signatures to qualify her as a candidate for the June 2026 Democratic primary for Lumberton Township Committee.

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LaPlaca and Carty have a court appearance scheduled on Sept. 21 in Mount Holly, New Jersey.

LaPlaca served as Lumberton’s mayor from 2021 to 2025. Although she left the mayor’s post, she retained her seat on the township committee, with her current term set to expire at the end of this year.

She sought re-election to the committee in the June Democratic primary but finished third in the contest for two open seats, behind Mayor Terrance Benson and his running mate, Kendra Hatfield.

The new allegations come after LaPlaca pleaded guilty earlier this year in a DUI case stemming from an incident in which her child was in the vehicle.

Prosecutors said LaPlaca was intoxicated when she picked up her child from daycare in March 2025. Witness video showed her vehicle swerving out of its lane and nearly striking a utility pole while the child was inside.

Police said her blood alcohol concentration was 0.30%, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08%.

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LaPlaca was sentenced to three years of supervision under a pretrial intervention program, including mandatory attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Sacramento — The two candidates for California governor came to Sacramento on Tuesday offering policy agendas that were both sweeping and vague on details, with both warning of the dangers posed by their rival’s political party.

Democrat Xavier Becerra vowed to lower healthcare costs for Californians and teased two new policies on energy and artificial intelligence. Republican Steve Hilton pledged to slash gas prices and utility bills to help remedy his dystopian view of California under Democratic rule.

The two candidates will face off in the Nov. 3 election to succeed outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom, and took time to deliver their campaign messages at an afternoon political forum in the state capital.

Hilton pointed to the size of the state budget, the homelessness crisis, high taxes, the cost of living, the unemployment rate and the business climate to argue that 15 years of Democratic control has proved disastrous in California.

“It’s just a complete failure on every front, and it seems to have been immune to any kind of challenge because it’s very powerful. The machine is very powerful, funded by government unions, and you’ve got this alliance of the government unions and nonprofits, and the Chamber of Commerce, and all of this,” he told hundreds of people at a convention center in Sacramento.

Becerra defended California’s Democratic leadership, which controls the state Legislature, the governor’s office and every other statewide political office, as a staunch bulwark against the ruthless agenda of the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress.

“We’re a state. We’re a family. You don’t blame just one parent when things go awry with one of the children,” he said in reference to more than a decade of Democratic governance in California. “We’re all in this together. We all have to work together. I could say that one of the members of the American family in Washington, D.C., has created more chaos than any Democrat in the state of California.”

After a chaotic and competitive June primary, Tuesday marked one of the few times the two men have addressed the same audience. They appeared at a forum hosted by the news organization Politico and sponsored by Airbnb, AT&T, energy company California Resources Corp., Google and the Western States Petroleum Assn.

In a state with a pronounced Democratic tilt, Becerra, a former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, is the front-runner in the race. Nearly 45% of the state’s voters are registered Democrats, while 25% are Republicans, according to a May report by the secretary of state’s office. Becerra has raised millions of dollars more than Hilton and benefited from well-funded independent groups that spent millions supporting his campaign.

Becerra repeatedly said he would not promise anything he could not deliver, saying that voters “want to see actual outcomes.”

“That’s also why I think you can’t do pie in the sky, inflated promises, because people want to see you deliver, and you can talk a great game, but unless you can deliver, people are going to crucify you,” he said.

He said he could not promise to build 3 million new housing units, as Newsom did eight years ago as a candidate for governor.

“That’s an inflated promise. But I will tell you, we will build, and I will tell you, there will be more Californians who own a home,” Becerra said.

Later, he told reporters he was not specifically referring to the figure Newsom had promised. “I could have said 2 million. I could have said 5 million. What I was saying is, it’s gonna be something that’s realistic,” he said.

Becerra was willing to make some big promises on healthcare.

“Am I going to promise you that I can drop the price of prescription drugs? Yes, because I did it before, and I know I can do it again. Am I telling you that I can keep Californians insured for healthcare, even though the guy in the White House stripped a trillion dollars out of the healthcare system? Yes, because I know how much money is in the healthcare system,” he said.

Pressed for specifics on how he would prevent people from losing their health insurance, Becerra hinted that the solution could be within the healthcare industry itself.

“There’s money in them there hills,” he said. “Healthcare is more expensive in California than anywhere else in the country, and healthcare is more expensive in the U.S. than it is anywhere else in the world. There is money that’s being spent that does nothing to dispense healthcare to you, and we’ve got to stop that game.”

Hilton acknowledged the long odds he faces in the November general election.

“I know I’m probably the only person in this room that actually thinks I can win this election,” he said.

Since the June primary, Hilton has been a constant presence on the campaign trail, crisscrossing the state, holding town halls and news conferences, making speeches and giving media interviews. Becerra has been far less visibly active.

Hilton argued that California is at a crossroads, pointing to residents and businesses moving out of the state.

“I’m here to say we can turn them around,” he said. “It’s an absolute crisis that we’re in if we don’t change direction.”

Hilton has vowed to cut gas prices to $3 per gallon, reduce utility bills, eliminate income taxes for Californians making under $150,000, increase the supply of starter homes and overhaul the business climate, particularly in the entertainment and agricultural industries. Just how Hilton would deliver on his agenda, given that Democrats control the California Legislature, remains unclear.

While he did not make any formal policy announcements at the summit, Becerra said there is “a lot of room to expand” on regulations and protections on AI, and he signaled support for a government-purchased stake in AI companies. “We can make it so they can prosper, but we prosper with them,” he said.

Hilton, who has released several AI-generated campaign ads, criticized Sam Altman of OpenAI and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei for doing little to earn the public’s trust on the fast-emerging technology. He also said there is space to both regulate and give AI more freedom.

“I think we’re in danger of both over- and under-regulating at the same time. I think we’re under-regulating some of the harms, for example, in relation to children and in relation to the creative community and their output, but we’re in danger of over-regulating some of the potential benefits,” including in the medical field, he said.

When asked whether the state’s voters are “stupid” for continuing to vote for Democrats, Hilton replied that they are not, but rather had not been offered a clear, positive alternative.

“There is a sense of inevitability about it, and I think that’s infected perhaps a lot of the political discourse in California,” he said. The notion that “it’s California. Democrats are always going to be in charge. What can you do?”

He said he believes he has a shot in the November election because he has a positive message, similar to that which helped propel the right-leaning Tories to a 14-year reign in the United Kingdom when he was a senior advisor to then-Prime Minister David Cameron.

Hilton labeled Becerra “unqualified” and didn’t discuss his endorsement by President Trump, which propelled his advancement to the general election.

“We’ve got everything going for us in California. We’ve got incredible assets and resources. We’ve got natural beauty, the best weather, great universities, amazing people, the incredible innovation ecosystem, the kind of startup hustle rebel spirit,” he said. “We just need, I think, a proactive, pro-business governor [who] recognizes that we’ve just ended up …, often with good intentions, frankly, in a situation where we’ve just got this massive, bloated bureaucratic government that’s stifling the spirit of California.”

Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, is trying to reassure voters that she doesn’t support men having access to women’s locker rooms — a stance she believes her opponents have tried to obfuscate.

“I’m a mom with two kids in Iowa public schools. Their education and safety literally keep me up at night. So, when my opponent cherry-picks and twists my record, I have to set it straight,” Trone Garriott said in a recent campaign video.

“I oppose letting men in women’s locker rooms,” she added.

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However, Trone Garriott’s voting record from her time in the Iowa legislature is clashing with her assertions, complicating the picture for her as she attempts to flip one of the country’s most competitive House seats and topple incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa.

Even before Trone Garriott captured the Democratic nomination to run in the district earlier this year, Republicans have sought to highlight parts of her record that seem to show she has championed positions farther left than the campaign she’s currently running.

Many have bashed a Muslim prayer she offered up on the Iowa Senate floor and how, as a Lutheran minister, she officiated a satanic wedding.

However, it was Trone Garriott’s stance on bathroom policy that Vice President J.D. Vance zeroed in on in a campaign speech for Nunn earlier this year.

“His opponent voted to push biological males in girls’ sports as early as kindergarten. She was voting against banning gender transition surgeries for minors,” Vance said.

Vance, like other Republican critics, referred to two key votes Trone Garriott cast in the Iowa Senate: one, passed in 2023, prohibits elementary and secondary schools from letting someone enter a bathroom “that does not correspond with the person’s biological sex.” A second bill, which became law in 2022, sets the eligibility rules for school and college sports teams based on biological sex.

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Trone Garriott voted against both of them.

Her votes seem consistent with previous statements she made in 2023 where she indicated bathroom policies and sports policies looking to restrict participants were based on racial and gender tensions.

“It’s very threatening of the idea of the white, male powerful figure because it muddies the waters and makes things ambiguous and confusing,” Trone Garriott said in an address with the United Methodist Church, speaking on politics and faith.

“We see all sorts of responses happening in legislation and in community conflict — a lot more emphasis on really funding and supporting the private schools, the parents’ rights. And within that, the parents’ rights piece is used to enact book bans, sports bans about who can play and who can compete; it’s really couched in a language of there’s a threat to women. And white men are responsible to protect women against threats.”

Her campaign did not address how her previous votes and statements align with her current campaign positions, or whether those positions have changed. But in a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for Trone Garriott said she stood by her campaign video.

“Sarah does not want men in women’s locker rooms. As a parent, there is nothing more important than the safety of our children, that’s why she will always stand up for a parent’s right to decide what’s best for their children,” Zach Schenkman, the spokesperson, said.

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In her campaign video, Trone Garriott said she believed too much political attention had been given to the topic.

“Politicians have become too extreme on these issues. I’ll always put kids and families first,” Trone Garriott said.

At least one Republican strategist isn’t buying the switch in position.

“Even Sarah Trone Garriott’s handlers realize her radical record and insane history of woke statements is completely unelectable in Iowa. No amount of false ads or consultant lies will hide the truth about the Wicked Witch of Woke and her sinister trans-for-all obsession,” Zach Kraft, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee (RNC) said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

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Nunn, the district’s current representative, last won re-election in a 51.8% to 47.9% victory over Democratic challenger Lanon Baccam in 2024. With the Democratic nomination in tow, Trone Garriott will face off against Nunn in the Nov. 3 general election.