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TRENTON –
Attorney General Anne Milgram and Criminal
Justice Director Deborah L. Gramiccioni announced
that a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty today
to taking commercial bribes in return for
steering business to a Jersey City bounty
hunter.
According to Director Gramiccioni,
James Irizarry, 42, of Mohnton, Pa., pleaded
guilty to commercial bribery before Superior
Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto in Morris County.
The state will recommend that he be sentenced
to probation, conditioned on him serving 364
days in jail and forfeiting $5,000 the bounty
hunter gave him. Sentencing is scheduled for
March 13.
Irizarry admitted he took
bribes from the bounty hunter, Adel Mikhaeil,
in return for hiring Mikhaeil to recover fugitives
for his former employer and for approving
Mikhaeil’s invoices for payment. Irizarry
worked for Surety Administrators Inc., a firm
that locates fugitives for insurance companies
that insure bail bonds. The plea was taken
by Deputy Attorney General Anthony A. Picione,
deputy chief of the Division of Criminal Justice
Corruption Bureau.
Irizarry and Mikhaeil, 44,
of Jersey City, were indicted by a state grand
jury on Sept. 29. Also indicted were two former
Hudson County sheriff’s officers, William
Chadwick, 53, of Keansburg, and Alberto Vasquez,
40, of Apex, N.C., and a former supervising
detective in the Hudson County Prosecutor’s
Office, Kenneth Sisk, 48, of Bayonne. Chadwick,
Vasquez and Sisk were charged with official
misconduct for allegedly signing false documents
known as body receipts to indicate that Mikhaeil
caught certain fugitives when the fugitives
had actually been arrested by law enforcement
officers. The receipts allowed Mikhaeil to
collect additional fees.
Trevor Williams, 36, of Jersey
City, a bounty hunter employed by Mikhaeil,
was charged in the indictment with helping
to cover up $92,000 in commercial bribes that
Mikhaeil allegedly paid to an insurance company
executive in return for business. The executive,
John Sullivan, 42, the former vice president
for Sirius America Insurance Company, pleaded
guilty on May 30, 2008 to commercial bribery
and financial facilitation of criminal activity.
He faces a 364-day jail term as a condition
of a sentence of probation. Another employee
of Mikhaeil’s, George Formoe, 42, of
Ridgefield Park, previously pleaded guilty
to covering up those payments and faces probation.
The
indictment is the result of an investigation
by the New Jersey State Police, the Division
of Criminal Justice and the Hudson County
Prosecutor’s Office. The charges against
the remaining defendants are merely accusations
and they are presumed innocent until proven
guilty.
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