Jerome Epstein

Jerome M. Epstein (born March 15, 1937) is an American Republican Party official who served in the New Jersey State Senate and then went to federal prison for being a pirate.

Epstein attended the Wardlaw-Hartridge School and graduated Rutgers University in 1958. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was an executive with his family's fuel oil and gasoline distribution company. He was the Chairman of the Union County Health Board, and was a Legislative Aide to State Senator Nelson Stamler.

In 1967, he was elected to the Union County Board of Freeholders and served one term. In 1971, he was elected to the State Senate. He ran with two incumbent GOP Senators, Matthew John Rinaldo and Frank X. McDermott for the open seat of Nicholas LaCorte (R-Union), who had resigned to become a Judge. He defeated Carmine J. Liotta of Elizabeth, an attorney for the New Jersey Office of Consumer Protection, by just 400 votes, 68,531 to 68,131.

In 1972, Epstein wanted Leslie Glick, an ex-Assistant Union County Prosecutor, to get a Superior Court Judgeship, but Governor William Cahill instead nominated Stephen Bercik, a former Mayor of Elizabeth. Epstein escalated his feud with Cahill by using Senatorial Courtesy to block the reappointment of former New York Stock Exchange Chairman James C. Kellogg III for reappointment as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Feuds with Cahill and with local Republican leaders in Union County caused Epstein to lose party support in his bid for re-election to a second term in 1973. He lost the Republican primary to Assemblyman Peter McDonough, 7,214 (60.37%) to 4,735 (39.63%).

In 1977, Epstein was sentenced to nine years in a federal prison after his conviction on charges that he pirated $4 million worth of fuel oil from tanks belonging to Exxon, systematically rigging gauges on a rental oil barge over several years to take 4,000 gallons of oil but only pay for 2,000.

As of 2017, Epstein works at the Polo Ralph Lauren factory store in Manchester Center, Vermont.