A controversial Gloucester County GOP candidate’s nonprofit has been out of compliance with N.J. for years
Martino Cartier compared the issue with his charity to failing to register your car: ‘You’re still allowed to drive your car. You’re gonna get a fine.’
Wigs and Wishes — the nonprofit run by Gloucester County commissioner candidate and celebrity hair stylist Martino Cartier — has not been compliant with state law for three years.
He disputed that his charity had been functioning illegally and compared it to driving a car without a valid registration.
“It’s like a registration for your car,” he said on the phone Thursday. “If you drive your car and your registration’s expired, you’re still allowed to drive your car. You’re gonna get a fine ... you’re not-not allowed to drive your car, technically. You can still drive it. People do it every day.”
Cartier is one of three Republicans trying to oust incumbent Democratic Gloucester County commissioners running for reelection Tuesday.
The celebrity hair stylist founded and runs Wigs and Wishes, also known as Friends Are by Your Side, an organization that provides free wigs to women with cancer and wishes to kids with cancer. He runs the charity out of his hair salon in the Sewell section of Washington Township on an extravagant property he also lives and has a petting zoo on. He has faced scrutiny from his Democratic opponents over offensive statements on his Christian podcast, past legal issues, and accusations of blurring the line between his nonprofit and campaign.
Cartier had not registered his nonprofit with the state for fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025, and did not request an extension for any of those years, making it non-compliant, said Lisa Coryell, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.
“Charitable organizations that continue to engage in fundraising activities without renewing their registration as required, are operating in violation of the law,” Coryell said.
Cartier said he was not aware of the requirement when reached by The Inquirer on Thursday.
“I didn’t even know anything about this,” he said. “Me or my wife knew nothing about this.”
He said the person who previously would have handled the registration no longer works with the charity and he’s no longer on speaking terms with her.
“This isn’t what I do ... I change lives. I do wigs. I do wishes now. The person who was in charge of this is not a part of the charity anymore, and she clearly dropped the ball,” he said.
“She handled the back end, and I handled the day to day,” he added.
He then went to upload documents into the portal to bring his charity into compliance.
After he did so, the red “non-compliant” label switched to a green “compliant.”
But it flipped back to the red label after the Attorney General’s Office reviewed his submission and “found one or more to be deficient,” Coryell said.
“Accordingly, the organization’s registration status remains non-compliant,” she added Thursday evening.
Cartier had been unaware the status changed back to noncompliant when reached again by The Inquirer. He entered the portal and shared an image that shows his 2024 and 2025 registrations were approved but his 2023 one is “pending corrections.”
Under the Charitable Registration and Investigation Act, New Jersey state law requires charities that raise more than $10,000 in gross contributions – or that pay an outside fundraiser – to follow certain rules. Those conditions include registering with the Division of Consumer Affairs’ (DCA) Charities Registration and Investigation Section and renewing it within six months of the fiscal year before fundraising or soliciting, Coryell said.
The act was created to give the Attorney General’s Office access to charities’ financial information in order to “protect the public from fraud and deceptive practices,” according to the state statute. It says that it’s “unlawful” for charities to solicit donations without registering, and that renewal is required but extensions can be granted.
Cartier’s nonprofit reported more than $72,000 in public contributions for 2025, according to the DCA database. The database does not show this figure for prior years but publicly available tax forms show fundraising figures in the hundreds of thousands.
When asked to confirm whether his organization met the benchmark in public contributions for 2023 and 2024, Cartier said someone would have to be “illiterate” to think his organization didn’t bring in at least $10,000 in contributions because of the cost of wigs.
The DCA registration process carries a fee ranging from $30-$250 depending on how much money an organization has raised.
Cartier’s registrations were due in June of this year and the two years prior and each late registration carries a $25 fee.
The Gloucester County Democratic Committee had previously pointed out that Cartier’s charity was listed as non-compliant in the state’s public database. But Cartier thought that was because his organization got an IRS extension to file taxes this year, so he thought the issue was handled when his accountant filed those earlier this week.
Cartier said it’s “crazy and convoluted” that nonprofits have to upload information to a portal that’s separate from filing state and federal taxes.
He also contended Thursday that the fact that his charity was not running legally in the state “has about as much validity as the tooth fairy” because his organization has maintained its federal 501c3 tax exemption status and because he had not faced repercussions from the state.
