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TRENTON – Attorney
General Paula T. Dow and Criminal Justice
Director Stephen J. Taylor announced that
a Paulsboro woman who formerly worked as
a local administrator of the New Jersey
Home Energy Assistance (HEA) Program was
sentenced to jail today for defrauding the
program of more than $45,000 by filing false
applications to obtain benefits.
According to Director Taylor,
Lynette Bagby, 40, of Paulsboro, was sentenced
to 364 days in the county jail and five
years of probation by Superior Court Judge
M. Christine Allen-Jackson in Gloucester
County. She was ordered to pay full restitution
of $45,946 to the New Jersey Department
of Community Affairs and is permanently
barred from public employment in New Jersey.
Bagby pleaded guilty on July 15 to a pre-indictment
accusation charging her with third-degree
theft by deception. She approached investigators
and admitted her conduct prior to being
charged in this case.
In pleading guilty, Bagby
admitted that between 2001 and 2008, while
working as an HEA aide and later an HEA
supervisor for Tri-County Community Action
– a nonprofit contracted by the New
Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA)
to administer the HEA program in Cumberland,
Gloucester and Salem counties – she
processed fraudulent applications in the
names of relatives, acquaintances and others,
which generated $45,946 in fraudulent benefits
for herself and others.
Investigations by the Division
of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau into
fraud in the HEA program previously resulted
in prison sentences for a Paulsboro-based
heating oil supplier and three other women
who were local HEA administrators. Charges
are pending against a man who formerly was
employed as a local HEA administrator in
Atlantic County.
Deputy Attorney General
David M. Fritch and Deputy Attorney General
Robert Czepiel have prosecuted Bagby and
the other HEA cases. Deputy Attorney General
Fritch represented the state at today’s
sentencing hearing. The investigations have
been conducted and coordinated for the Division
of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau by
Lt. Keith Lerner, Sgt. Robert Feriozzi Jr.,
Detective Andrea Salvatini, Detective Anthony
J. Luyber, Deputy Chief of Detectives Neal
Cohen, Analyst Alison Callery and Deputy
Attorneys General Fritch and Czepiel.
The prior convictions include
Denise Nicole Johnson, 37, of Paulsboro,
who was sentenced to four years in state
prison by Judge Allen-Jackson on July 15.
Johnson pleaded guilty to second-degree
official misconduct, admitting that she
defrauded the HEA program of $22,980 by
filing nine false applications to obtain
benefits. She filed two of the applications
by entering false information into the program’s
computer system while employed as an HEA
aide in the Paulsboro Office of Tri-County
Community Action.
Nicole Victor, 38, of Paulsboro,
was sentenced on Jan. 7, 2011 to five years
in prison and ordered to pay restitution
of $11,705 in connection with false applications
she filed. Victor pleaded guilty to second-degree
official misconduct. She had been an HEA
administrator in the Paulsboro office of
Tri-County Community Action.
, 26,
of Chester, Pa., a former HEA manager for
Tri-County’s Salem and Gloucester
County offices, was sentenced on July 19,
2010 to five years in prison for official
misconduct. She processed false HEA applications
for herself and five family members, by
which they obtained $24,010 in benefits.
Johnson, Victor and
were each ordered to pay full restitution,
and they are permanently barred from public
employment.
The investigations revealed
that, in addition to benefits in the form
of credits applied to utility bills, the
false applications filed by Johnson, Bagby,
and Victor generated two-party
HEA benefit checks that were payable only
to individuals and their home heating suppliers.
The checks were to be used for the sole
purpose of procuring home heating fuel and
could be deposited only into the account
of a home heating supplier. However, Johnson,
Bagby, and Victor exchanged and
cashed these benefit checks through third
parties for cash or checks payable solely
to them.
Some of the HEA checks were
exchanged for cash or company checks from
Harris Fuel Oil of Paulsboro. Thomas J.
Harris, 68, of Woolwich, the owner Harris
Fuel Oil, pleaded guilty to money laundering
and misapplication of entrusted property
and property of government as a result of
the state investigations. He was sentenced
on June 17, 2010 to four years in prison.
He admitted he defrauded the HEA Program
of $400,000 by offering low-income beneficiaries
cash for their state-issued assistance checks
instead of fuel oil. He was ordered to pay
full restitution.
Charges are pending against
Marvin Laws, 56, of Atlantic City, who allegedly
stole $9,062 through false applications
while employed as an HEA benefits manager
by Atlantic Human Resources, a nonprofit
contracted by DCA to administer the program
in Atlantic County.
The HEA Program is administered
by the Department of Community Affairs and
local agencies contracted by the DCA. The
HEA Program encompasses two separate programs,
the federally funded Low-Income Home Energy
Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the state-funded
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
Johnson, Bagby, and Victor cases
involved both programs. The Harris case
involved the LIHEAP program.
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