Sort of a yawner on the corruption prosecution front last week -- headlined by Camden school officials sentenced for stealing thousands in public dollars, though none are going to jail.
On Thursday, state prosecutors announced that a Motor Vehicle Commission employee and four other individuals have been charged in a scam that illegally provided driver’s licenses and related documents to customers. Customer service representative Rosalind C. Magee, 25, of Egg Harbor Township faces seven charges, including conspiracy and bribery. News release.
Also Thursday, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty today to taking commercial bribes in return for steering business to a Jersey City bounty hunter. Here's the connection to government shenanigans: The man (James Irizarry, 42, of Mohnton, Pa.) and bounty hunter Adel Mikhaeil were indicted last year along with 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. They allegedly signed false receipts to indicate that Mikhaeil caught certain fugitives when the fugitives had actually been arrested by law enforcement officers; that enabled him to collect additional fees. News release.
On Friday, two former Camden school officials and one teacher were sentenced to probation and community service for theft convictions in cases brought by state prosecutors. They are Patricia Johnson, 59, of Atco, former school facilitator at the H.B. Wilson School, who got three years of probation and 100 hours of community service; Juanita Worthy, 61, of Evesham, the former principal of the U.S. Wiggins School, sentenced to five years of probation and 300 hours of community service; and Worthy's daughter, Keah Worthy, 33, of Evesham, formerly a teacher at the H.B. Wilson School, who was given two years of probation and 100 hours of community service. All three pleaded guilty to third-degree attempted theft by deception for attempting to bill the Camden Board of Education $25,000 in extra wages for 14 members of School Leadership Councils for eight meetings that never took place. Johnson -- along with Michael Hailey, 67, of Delran, the former principal at the H.B. Wilson School, who'll be sentenced Feb. 13 -- also stole $14,000 from students and teachers by deceiving them into paying for field trips that were paid for by the district. News release.
