January 12, 2010
Office of The Attorney General
– Anne Milgram, Attorney General
Division of Criminal Justice
– Deborah L. Gramiccioni, Director
Peter Aseltine
609-292-4791
Second Former Hudson County Sheriff’s Officer Pleads Guilty to Official Misconduct in Fraud Involving Bounty Hunter
TRENTON – Acting Attorney General Ricardo Solano Jr. and Criminal Justice Director Deborah L. Gramiccioni announced that a former Hudson County sheriff’s officer pleaded guilty today to signing false documents so a bounty hunter could collect additional fees for fugitives he didn’t catch. He is the second sheriff’s officer to plead guilty as a result of an investigation into alleged fraud involving Jersey City bounty hunter Adel Mikhaeil.
According to Director Gramiccioni, Alberto Vasquez, 40, of Apex, North Carolina, a former detective with the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office, pleaded guilty to an accusation charging him with third-degree pattern of official misconduct before Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto in Morris County.
Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that Vasquez be sentenced to serve 270 days in the county jail as a condition of a term of probation. In addition, he must forfeit $3,500 in illegal cash gifts that he admitted receiving from the bounty hunter. Vasquez will be permanently barred from public employment in New Jersey and must cooperate in the ongoing prosecution of Mikhaeil, 45, and other defendants in the case.
The guilty plea was taken by Deputy Attorney General Anthony A. Picione, who is deputy chief of the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau.
In pleading guilty, Vasquez admitted that he signed documents known as body receipts that falsely indicated that Mikhaeil caught certain fugitives, when the fugitives had actually been arrested by law enforcement officers. He admitted Mikhaeil paid him for signing false body receipts and also for providing official information about fugitives, including arrest photos.
Another former Hudson County sheriff’s officer, William Chadwick, 54, of Keansburg, pleaded guilty on July 14, 2009, to second-degree official misconduct for signing false body receipts for Mikhaeil. The state will recommend that he be sentenced to five years in state prison. He forfeited $5,500 in illegal cash gifts that he admitted receiving from Mikhaeil.
Chadwick, Vasquez and Mikhaeil were indicted on Oct. 1, 2008 along with Kenneth Sisk, 49, of Bayonne, a captain who was in charge of homicide detectives in the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, and two other individuals. In the indictment, Sisk was charged with signing two false body receipts. The charges against Sisk are pending.
The indictment resulted from an investigation by the New Jersey State Police, the Division of Criminal Justice and the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.
By claiming he caught the fugitives and presenting the false body receipts, Mikhaeil collected higher fees from insurance companies that insured the fugitives’ bail bonds.
While a bounty hunter does receive a fee for locating a fugitive who is already in custody – what is called a “paper transfer” – the fee is lower than for a “physical apprehension,” when the bounty hunter actually locates and arrests a fugitive who is at large. The fraudulent body receipts also had the effect of reducing the amount of bail forfeited, resulting in savings for the insurance companies that insured the bail bonds but a loss of funds to the counties where the fugitive jumped bail and the State of New Jersey, which divide the forfeited funds.
On Feb. 5, 2009, another defendant named in the indictment, James Irizarry, 43, of Mohnton, Pa., pleaded guilty to commercial bribery before Judge Ahto. Irizarry admitted he took bribes from Mikhaeil in return for hiring Mikhaeil to recover fugitives for his former employer and for approving Mikhaeil’s invoices for payment. Irizarry worked for a firm that locates fugitives for insurance companies that insure bail bonds. The state will recommend that he be sentenced to probation, conditioned on him serving 364 days in jail and forfeiting $5,000 Mikhaeil gave him.
Trevor Williams, 37, 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 charges against Williams are pending.
The insurance company executive, John Sullivan, 43, 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, 43, of Ridgefield Park, pleaded guilty to covering up those payments and faces probation.
The charges against the remaining defendants are merely accusations and they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The case is being prosecuted by Deputy Attorney General Picione and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Manis. They led the investigation along with Detective Sgt. Myles Cappiello and Detective Sgt. Neil Hickey of the New Jersey State Police Official Corruption North Unit; Detective Scott Donlan and Analyst Alison Callery of the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau; and Detective Sgt. Mary Reinke of the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office. The Hudson County Sheriff’s Office also assisted in the investigation.
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