Former lawmaker was not afraid to buck the system

Ned Parsekian, a former senator in New Jersey who also held other state posts, savored his reputation for challenging business as usual in government.

The lawyer and outspoken Democrat, who later retired to Sarasota and became a leader in the St. Armands Residents Association, died of heart failure Monday at his home. He was 86.

He served in the New Jersey Senate from 1965 to 1967 and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of the state in 1969.

He was often at odds with the "back-scratching system" he encountered there in the 1950s and 1960s, said his son, Tom Parsekian of Laguna Niguel, Calif.

As head of New Jersey's Division of Motor Vehicles in the early 1960s, Parsekian tried to put an end to the practice of ticket-fixing by government officials. As a state senator, he called for a probe into organized crime.

"He was considered a maverick because he was willing to take on a system that had been in place for so many years," his son said.

Challenging the status quo was not easy, and those who had a vested interest in maintaining it may have contributed to his unsuccessful bid for re-election to the state Senate in 1967 and subsequent election defeats, including a congressional bid in 1974, his son said.

Parsekian's moral compass came from his hard-working immigrant parents, who fled Armenia during a 1915 massacre, Tom Parsekian said.

The elder Parsekian's father, a tailor, died in the early 1930s, leaving Parsekian's mother, a seamstress, to raise her three sons during the Depression.

"They were raised with this great sense of decency, integrity and grace," Tom Parsekian said.

After serving as a pilot and bombardier in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Ned Parsekian graduated from Columbia University and Columbia Law School on the GI Bill. He worked as a federal law clerk and as a lawyer in private practice before accepting a post in the New Jersey attorney general's office in the mid-1950s. He returned to private practice after several years as a public servant.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife of 57 years, Corinne; two daughters, Donna Lynn of Maywood, N.J., and Sandy Parsekian-Martorell of Barcelona, Spain; a brother, Ara of Ocean Grove, N.J.; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Another daughter, Nancy Parsekian Hamilton of Bradenton, died in April at 53 of cancer.

A memorial service for Parsekian will be held Aug. 29 in Ridgewood, N.J.

Memorial donations may be made to the Armenian General Benevolent Union, 55 E. 59th St., Seventh Floor, New York City, NY 10022, for worldwide educational, cultural and humanitarian programs.