Joseph A. Maressa Sr. (October 17, 1923 – October 30, 2012) was an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician who was elected to serve three terms in the New Jersey Senate, representing Legislative District 3B for his first two years and the 4th Legislative District for the remainder of his service in elected office.
First elected to office in 1972, Maressa decided against running for office for a fourth term in 1982 after accepting a bribe to aid an Arab sheikh from an undercover FBI agent acting as part of the Abscam sting operation, though Maressa claimed that he had accepted the $10,000 as part of his patriotic efforts as an American to bring oil money back to the United States.
He graduated from Camden High School in 1942 and enlisted with the United States Navy during World War II, with which he served in the Pacific Theater of Operations on deep sea mine disposal and was commissioned as a lieutenant.
[1] With Burlington County removed from the 4th District and portions of Atlantic County added in redistricting following the 1980 United States census, Maressa decided against running for re-election and was succeeded by Daniel Dalton, who defeated Kenneth A. Gewertz in the June Democratic Party primary and went on to win the November 1981 general election, defeating Republican Frank B. Smith by a 63%-37% margin.
Maressa justified accepting what he described as legal fees, saying that "I felt like it would be patriotic to take some of this OPEC oil money and get it back to the United States".