CAMDEN — About a dozen trucking company officials have been charged as scofflaws for allegedly failing to pay tolls on the four Delaware River Port Authority bridges.

DRPA CEO John Hanson said drivers going through E-ZPass lanes without paying cost the regional transportation agency about $1 million annually.

The biggest offenders are now facing criminal indicted by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Hanson said the top 12 offending trucking companies owe a total of $202,000 in delinquent tolls, but declined to name the firms involved, deferring to the prosecutor's office for further information.

The prosecutor's office on Wednesday released a list of 10 individual company owners or other principals originally charged with theft in the E-ZPass cases. (The list did not identify the names of the trucking companies.)

Those facing charges are:

Ronald Coleman, 45, of Willingboro

Carl Coombs, 68, Bridgeton

Clifford Lick, 75, Mertztown

Robert Winzinger, 81, Hainesport

Alieu Mustapha, 66, Chesilhurst

Rosetta Mustapha, 52, Chesilhurst

Joseph Spinelli, 79, Vineland

Jerry Valentine, 63, Williamstown

Mamry Coulibaly, 46, Darby, Pennsylvania

Palwinder Gil, 36, Bordentown

They were each charged with skipping tolls totaling between $500 and $75,000 over a period of several years.

Hanson said 12 companies had a pattern of toll evasion but that the $202,000 represents only a fraction of one percent of the $334 million in tolls collected last year on the Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman, Betsy Ross and Commodore Barry bridges.

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DRPA Chief Financial Officer James White said these companies did not pay the overdue tolls even after E-ZPass customer service sent them violation notices and subsequently then turned the cases over to a debt collection agency.

"So we made a decision for the first time to go to the prosecutor's office with these 12 companies. Previously we were aggressive only in civil litigation," Hanson said in an interview Tuesday with White at DRPA headquarters in Camden.

"My feeling is that if people are intentionally evading or recklessly ignoring their toll obligation, they are stealing from the DRPA and toll-paying motorists," the CEO added.

Of the $202,000 owed by the companies, only a total of $16,302 has been collected from some of them as of Tuesday, according to DRPA figures provided. For the past five years combined, the toll delinquency total was just under $5 million.

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Carol Comegno: @carolcomegno; 856-486-2473; ccomegno@gannettnj.com\





