MORRIS COUNTY — The chief of a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey training academy in Morris County admitted today that she cheated the agency out of thousands of dollars by putting in for time she never worked and expense money she wasn’t entitled to, state Attorney General Paula Dow announced. A lower ranking employee of the same...
MORRIS COUNTY — The chief of a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey training academy in Morris County admitted today that she cheated the agency out of thousands of dollars by putting in for time she never worked and expense money she wasn’t entitled to, state Attorney General Paula Dow announced.
A lower ranking employee of the same academy pleaded guilty to related charges.
Cotea Jones, 46, of Palmer, Pa., the supervisor of the bi-state agency’s Tunnels, Bridges and Terminals Training Academy, pleaded guilty today to theft by deception in Superior Court in Jersey City, Dow said. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors are recommending that Jones be sentenced to 364 days in the Hudson County jail and ordered pay $7,922 restitution to the Port Authority, for falsified hours and improper meal and mileage expense claims.
Vincent Price, 50, of Roselle, an employee at the training academy in Parsippany, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft by deception, Dow said. Her office will recommend that Price be sentenced to a term of probation, and ordered to pay $2,103 in restitution.
Both of them resigned from the Port Authority today and are barred from any future public employment.
The criminal investigation grew out of a report by the Port Authority’s own inspector general’s office identifying abuses by agency employees.