AP story reports — per a story in today’s Star-Ledger — that former Newark mayor Sharpe James “used a credit card issued by the city police department to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in charges at taxpayers’ expense.” The article says that “among the $80,000 in expenses James rang up were a more than $6,500 tab for a five-day trip to Rio de Janeiro during the final week of his 20-year tenure as mayor of New Jersey’s largest city.” The story concludes: “James said he went on the Rio trip, which included a stay in a luxury hotel and dining in fine restaurants, to follow up on a 2004 visit in which he lectured on affirmative action, sanitation, housing and the poor.”