TRENTON
– Attorney General Paula T. Dow and
Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor
announced that three Pennsylvania residents
were sentenced today for assisting a family
member who was a local administrator of
the New Jersey Home Energy Assistance (HEA)
Program to steal from the state program.
The
administrator, , 24, of
Chester, Pa., pleaded guilty to second-degree
official misconduct on Feb. 26 for stealing
$24,000 from the program.
According
to Director Taylor, Campbell’s sister,
Patsy Campbell, 30, of Chester, Pa., pleaded
guilty to one count of third-degree misapplication
of entrusted property or property of government
and was sentenced today to three years of
probation by Superior Court Judge M. Christine
Allen-Jackson in Gloucester County. She
is responsible, along with her sister, for
paying restitution of $4,710 to the New
Jersey Department of Community Affairs,
which administers the HEA Program.
In
addition, their brother, Dennis Campbell,
38, of Philadelphia, and his wife, Hollyann
Allen, 37, were also sentenced today by
Judge Allen-Jackson. They both pleaded guilty
to third-degree theft by deception on December
14, 2009. Dennis Campbell was sentenced
to up to 364 days in the county jail as
a condition of two years of probation, and
Allen was sentenced to three years of probation.
Together, they must pay back $5,296 along
with .
Two
other sisters, Denise Campbell, 36, of Penns
Grove, and Priscilla Campbell, 22, of Paulsboro,
pleaded guilty to third-degree misapplication
of entrusted property or property of government
and were admitted into the Pre-Trial Intervention
program on Feb. 26. These two sisters were
ordered to pay combined restitution of $9,431,
along with .
is scheduled to be sentenced on
May 27 by Judge Allen-Jackson. The state
will recommend a sentence of five years
in state prison. She is responsible for
payment of full restitution of $24,000 to
the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.
Deputy
Attorneys General David M. Fritch and Robert
Czepiel have prosecuted the case. Deputy
Attorney General Fritch represented the
state at the sentencing hearing today.
The
defendants were indicted by a state grand
jury on Aug. 17, 2009. An investigation
by the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption
Bureau, conducted with assistance from the
Department of Community Affairs, revealed
that used her position
as an HEA manager for Tri-County Community
Action to process false HEA applications
for herself and the five family members
who were charged. Tri-Community Action is
a nonprofit contracted by the state to administer
the HEA program in Cumberland, Gloucester
and Salem counties.
and her 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. His sentencing is scheduled
for May 27.
The
charges in the Campbell and Harris cases
stem from investigations that were conducted
by the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption
Bureau 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 Campbell 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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