Following article is from the Morris County (NJ) Daily Record.
2 charged with attempt to defraud NJ railroad rehab program
Cops: Men from Philadelphia, Boston tried to use Morristown & Erie RR in scam
By Peggy Wright • Staff writer • September 24, 2010
A state Department of Transportation engineer and a Boston resident have been charged with trying to entice the Morristown & Erie Railway Inc. into a scam to defraud the state of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money.
DOT senior engineer Gaudner B. Metellus, 31, of Philadelphia, and Ernest Jerome Dubose, 30, of Boston, were charged late Thursday by the state Division of Criminal Justice with official misconduct and attempted theft by deception between July 21 and Thursday.
Both men were lodged early Friday in the Morris County jail on $100,000 bail each, and bail review hearings are scheduled to occur in Superior Court, Morristown, on Monday.
According to an arrest affidavit, representatives of the Morristown & Erie Railway, which operates shortline freight rail service in Morris and Essex counties, contacted the state Attorney General's Office on Aug. 13. They reported that Metellus invited the rail company to engage in a conspiracy to defraud the state of money intended for railroad rehabilitation projects.
Rail representatives had secretly recorded the meeting that occurred in Morristown, at which Gaudner outlined a scheme to artificially inflate grant applications for rehab projects, the affidavit said.
The railway would benefit by submitting false invoices to the state for work that was never performed and then share with Gaudner the state grant monies they obtained, the affidavit said.
The rail company cooperated with the state by surreptitiously taping further meetings, and at another meeting, rail officials gave Gaudner and Dubose two checks totaling $325,000, both payable to Dubose. The checks allegedly represented a portion received from the state through the scam.