The Township of North Bergen will petition the court to reverse the sentence reduction of their former Department of Public Works superintendent who previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit official misconduct in September 2012.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“The taxpayers of North Bergen were the victims of James Wiley’s corrupt scheme to misuse township resources for his own personal gain, and it is disgraceful that the Attorney General’s office did not so much as notify the local governing body that it intended to reduce Wiley’s sentence and leave him with no jail time and little more than a slap on the wrist for his admitted crimes,” spokesman Nick Bond said in a statement.
“Township attorneys will be officially petitioning the court to reverse this sentence reduction and ensure that James Wiley makes full restitution for what he stole from North Bergen taxpayers, including the employee man hours he misdirected to personal tasks like renovations to his home and his son’s home and the illegal purchases he made on township credit cards.”
While Wiley admitted to have DPW workers to perform personal chores while on township time, as well as occasionally working on political campaigns elsewhere in Hudson County, over a decade ago, he signed a new guilty plea at the end of October.
According to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, Wiley signed a new plea agreement that recommends noncustodial probation, not jail time, pleading guilty to third-degree theft by unlawful taking.
The original plea agreement recommended five to 10 years in prison and a spokesman for the AG’s office said the new deal “takes into account his cooperation in various other matters.”
“It’s deeply unfair that while the lower level employees Wiley ensnared into his corrupt scheme served lengthy jail sentences and had their lives and careers ruined, the orchestrator of the crime in James Wiley is allowed to go on with his life with no jail time and minimal punishment,” Bond added.
“This is an absolute miscarriage of justice and we will take all possible steps to prevent it from happening.”
Wiley was a key witness in the cases of former North Bergen DPW Supervisors Troy Bunero and Francis Longo, who were convicted on all counts, including two counts of official misconduct, by a Hudson County grand jury on June 30th, 2015, as HCV first reported.
Bunero unsuccessfully tried to appeal his conviction and both received five-year prison sentences.
“I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar … I had men working at my house, I did some political work out of town with laborers that I shouldn’t be doing and it came to a point that I had to be honest with myself,” Wiley said on the witness stand on June 11th, 2015.
Additionally, former North Bergen Department of Public Works Deputy Director Timothy Grossi was sentenced to three years in prison for ordering employees to work political campaigns while on township time back on December 8th, 2017.
However, he a judge suspended his sentence due to his declining health.
