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TRENTON – Attorney
General Paula T. Dow and Criminal Justice
Director Stephen J. Taylor announced that
a local administrator of the New Jersey
Home Energy Assistance (HEA) Program pleaded
guilty today to stealing from the state
program. Two of her sisters also pleaded
guilty in the scheme today.
According to Director Taylor, ., pleaded guilty
to a charge of second-degree official misconduct
before Superior Court Judge M. Christine
Allen-Jackson in Gloucester County. The
charge was contained in an Aug. 17, 2009,
state grand jury indictment that charged
her and five family members with stealing
from the program.
In pleading guilty,
admitted that she used her position as an
HEA manager for Tri-County Community Action
Partnership to process false HEA applications
for herself and the five family members
who were indicted. Tri-Community Action
is a nonprofit contracted by the state to
administer the HEA program in Cumberland,
Gloucester and Salem counties.
The state will recommend
that be sentenced to five years
in state prison. She must pay full restitution
to the New Jersey Department of Community
Affairs, which administers the HEA Program,
including $4,089 for fraudulent applications
for assistance she filed for her benefit,
and $19,921 for fraudulent applications
she filed to deliver financial benefits
to the five family members, all of whom
have pleaded guilty and will be responsible
with her for paying back the funds they
received.
Two sisters of
also pleaded guilty today. Denise ,
36, of Penns Grove, and Priscilla ,
22, of Paulsboro, each pleaded guilty to
third-degree misapplication of entrusted
property or property of government. Each
was admitted into the Pre-Trial Intervention
program and was ordered to pay restitution.
Denise was ordered to pay $5,720
in restitution while Priscilla was ordered
to pay $3,711 in restitution.
Deputy Attorneys General
David M. Fritch and Robert Czepiel took
the guilty pleas for the Division of Criminal
Justice Corruption Bureau. Sentencing is
scheduled for May 27.
The other members of
’s family who were involved
in the fraud and who pleaded guilty previously
include a sister, Patsy , 30, of
Chester, Pa. She pleaded guilty to third-degree
theft by deception on Jan. 11. The state
will recommend that she be sentenced to
a term of probation conditioned upon her
serving up to 364 days in jail and paying
restitution of $4,710. A brother, Dennis
, 38, of Philadelphia, and his wife,
Hollyann Allen, 37, each pleaded guilty
to third-degree theft by deception on Dec.
14. The state will recommend that each of
them be sentenced to 364 days in the county
jail as a condition of a term of probation.
They must pay restitution of $5,296.
Family members received
a total of $24,010 in benefits for which
they were not eligible, including approximately
$15,000 in HEA checks intended for heating
oil purchases. They traded the checks for
cash from a Paulsboro-based heating oil
supplier, Thomas J. Harris, 66, of Woolwich,
owner and sole proprietor of Harris Fuel
Oil.
Thomas Harris pleaded guilty
on Aug. 10, 2009 to second-degree charges
of financial facilitation of criminal activity
(money laundering) and misapplication of
entrusted property and property of government.
He admitted that he defrauded the HEA Program
of $400,000 by offering low-income beneficiaries
of the program cash for their state-issued
assistance checks instead of fuel to heat
their homes. He faces four years in state
prison and must pay restitution of $152,111,
representing the total proceeds of the HEA
checks he fraudulently acquired minus the
amounts he paid to the beneficiaries from
those proceeds.
The charges in the
and Harris cases stem from investigations
by the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption
Bureau, conducted with assistance from the
New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.
The investigations were conducted and coordinated
for the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption
Bureau by Lt. Keith Lerner, Sgt. Robert
Ferriozzi, Detective Andrea Salvatini, Detective
Anthony Luyber, Deputy Chief of Detectives
Neal Cohen, Analyst Alison Callery and Deputy
Attorneys General Fritch and Czepiel.
The HEA Program is administered
by the New Jersey Department of Community
Affairs and local agencies contracted by
DCA. The New Jersey HEA Program encompasses
two separate programs, the Low-Income Home
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and Universal
Service Fund Program (USF). The LIHEAP program
provides direct financial assistance to
beneficiaries in the form of payments to
utility companies and to fuel vendors to
help low-income households meet the cost
of home heating and medically necessary
cooling. The USF program assists such households
by providing credits against their natural
gas and electric bills. The Harris plea
involved the LIHEAP program. The
pleas involved both programs.
was an
office manager/HEA manager for Tri-County’s
Salem County and Gloucester County offices.
Her duties included processing HEA benefit
applications. The state’s investigation
revealed that, between January 2007 and
June 2009, created fraudulent
accounts for herself and each of the indicted
family members, none of whom were eligible
for benefits. Four, including ,
didn’t even reside in New Jersey.
Some accounts used the family member’s
name, but others used the name of another
person or a fictitious name to hide the
beneficiary’s true identity and to
allow these individuals to collect financial
benefits from multiple fraudulent benefit
applications. Certain applications also
deliberately understated household income
or included additional fictitious dependents
in order to increase the amount of benefits
paid out on the application.
Where a false name was used,
the family member’s name would be
listed on the account as the authorized
representative of the household, so checks
would be payable to the family member. The
four defendants who did not reside in New
Jersey used the address of a New Jersey
resident family member or Post Office box
in New Jersey to receive the benefit checks
and to hide the beneficiary’s out-of-state
residency. The sisters who did live in New
Jersey, Denise and Priscilla, received USF
benefits in the form of credits to their
utility accounts, in addition to LIHEAP
checks.
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