There were rumors about a jam-up for years and today they proved right.

Tommy Bertoli (above, left), the former hard-nosed North Bergen agitator and thorn in the side of the Sacco machine turned tough guy for the reform team in Jersey City, finally ate those charges.

They used to say that in World War II, every platoon had a brainy college boy technically in charge and a gruff street guy sarge who actually ran the show. In a way, that was was what Bertoli was for Steven Fulop: the sarge who ran the search and destroy missions in multiple elections, going back to The Kid’s ward races and then his forays into locking down th school board.

But to Bertoli, ever the secular Hudson pol who reveled in every chance on the campaign trail to get his hands greasy, the only analogy he sought was “janitor,” fitting for one on terminal boiler room duty with a campaigns and elections stake in public property.

At the time, some of the rumors about Bertoli’s legal troubles surrounded the aftermath of those same conversations that led elected officials to back the 2013 reelection campaign of Governor Chris Christie. Supposedly Bertoli – or his cloest allies – were involved with those close to the Christie Campaign, who sought Hudson and Bergen electeds nailed down on the 2013 endorsement front for Christie’s reelection. There was a communication breakdown somewhere. Fulop was supposed to back Christie (the governor attended his swearing-in ceremony), or so someone thought. But the new mayor (with 2017 gubernatorial aspirations) stayed out of it; the best he could finally do in a nonpartisan election in an overwhelmingly Democratic town was to simply remind people that he was a Democrat, while refusing to wholly individually back doomed challenger Barbra Buono. Team Christie wasn’t happy about it.