Ralph A. Villani
American politician (1901-1974)
Ralph A. Villani (September 11, 1901 – February 28, 1974) served as Mayor of Newark, New Jersey from 1949 to 1953. To date he is the last elected mayor of Newark from the Republican party.
Biography
Villani was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 11, 1901, the eldest child of Anna and Carmine Villani. His parents were Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States in 1898.
On Tuesday, May 17, 1949 Villani was named Mayor of Newark by his fellow City Commissioners.
In 1953, a grand jury charged that Mayor Villani and other officials in the Department of Parks and Public Property, of which he served as director, had received money from employees "as salary kickbacks or payment for promotions." That May, Mayor Villani and fellow City Commissioner Stephen Moran lost their respective bids for re-election. Villani was replaced as mayor by independent candidate Leo P. Carlin.
Villani died on February 28, 1974, after suffering a heart attack at his home. He was 72 years old.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7287140. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1974, 1949 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ralph A. Villani” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.