September 23, 2011
Office of The Attorney General
– Paula T. Dow, Attorney General
Division of Criminal Justice
– Stephen J. Taylor, Director
Media Inquiries-
Peter Aseltine
609-292-4791
Citizen Inquiries-
609-292-4925
Former Local Administrator of NJ Home Energy Assistance Program Sentenced to Jail for Defrauding the Program
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.
, 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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