U.S. Attorney: Paterson official took kickbacks for $146K in bogus payments

PATERSON — An unnamed local official took kickbacks for making $146,500 in illegal payments from the Paterson Municipal Utilities Authority to a vendor who did not perform any work for the money, federal authorities announced Tuesday.

The unnamed Municipal Utilities Authority official issued five separate checks for bogus work to the vendor from Dec. 2014 to May 2015, and then received a “significant percentage” of the money back from the vendor after he cashed the checks, according to information released by the United States Attorney’s Office.

The amounts of the checks ranged from $15,000 to $45,000, federal officials said. All of those payments were made more than six weeks after the Paterson City Council had voted to dissolve the controversy-plagued utilities authority in Oct. 2014, a measure that was supposed to shift the $1 million in assets that the agency had at the time into the city’s coffers.

The vendor, Carnell Baskerville of Linden, pleaded guilty in federal court to committing conspiracy with a utilities authority commissioner, the U.S. Attorney said.

Federal officials did not disclose the name of the utilities authority official. Nor did they say whether any charges would be filed against the person. Federal authorities described the utilities authority commissioner as a co-conspirator who controlled the agency’s finances.

Neither Mayor Jane Williams-Warren nor Eric Lowe, the chairman of the utilities authority’s board of commissioners at the time it was dissolved, could not be reached for comment.

City Council President Ruby Cotton expressed shock at how anyone from the utilities authority could have had access to the agency’s fund after it was disbanded.

“All that money was supposed to be transferred out of there,” Cotton said. “Somebody wasn’t watching it like they were supposed to.”

In 2015, city auditors had found irregularities involving utilities authority payments allegedly made after the dissolution of the agency, Paterson Press previously reported. City officials at the time referred the matter to the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office.

Federal authorities issued subpoenas last October for Paterson documents involving the utilities authority’s dissolution. The agency oversaw the management of a hydroelectric plant near the Great Falls.

Baskerville, the vendor, also admitted getting a $29,635 check from the Jersey City Childhood Development Centers in 2014 and splitting the money with the agency’s executive director at the time, Robert Mays, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Mays pleaded guilty to fraud charges in 2016, authorities said.

As part of his guilty plea, Baskerville must pay $176,175 in restitution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. But authorities did not say whether the unnamed Paterson MUA commissioner would have to pay any restitution for his share of the bogus payments.