NEWARK, N.J. – A Union County, New Jersey, man today admitted making corrupt payments to a public official of the City of Orange Township, New Jersey, as a reward for that public official’s favorable treatment in connection with an Orange municipal project, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.

Jeanmarie Zahore, 56, of Rahway, New Jersey, pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty to Count 1 of an indictment against him, charging Zahore with making corrupt payments to an agent of a local government receiving federal funds, whom Zahore identified as Willis Edwards III. 

On Sept. 29, 2020, Edwards, the former acting business administrator for Orange, was charged in a superseding indictment in connection with payments allegedly made by Zahore, as well as other charges.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Zahore was the sole owner of JZ Nettech, a computer consulting business which he operated out of his residence in Rahway. On Sept. 15, 2015, the Orange City Council passed a resolution awarding JZ Nettech, without competitive bidding, a $350,000 emergency contract to install a computer networking system at a municipal complex that housed the Orange Municipal Court and the Orange Police Department (the “Municipal Complex Project”).

Edwards, as an Orange public official, assisted Zahore in obtaining the contract for the Municipal Complex Project and facilitated the payment of money from Orange to JZ Nettech in connection with the Municipal Complex Project.

Edwards agreed to arrange an advance on the money from Orange for Zahore because Zahore did not have the money to begin working on the Municipal Complex. At Edwards’s instruction, on Sept. 18, 2015, Zahore emailed an Orange employee an invoice for $115,000 in connection with Municipal Complex Project to obtain an advance payment for himself. Typically, vendors are not pre-paid by Orange to purchase supplies for a project.

On Sept. 18, 2015, Zahore received a check from Orange for $115,000 payable to JZ Nettech and deposited that check into JZ Nettech's bank account. Shortly after receiving the $115,000 Orange check, Zahore and Edwards went out together at night to celebrate the award of the $350,000 contract to JZ Nettech.

In October and November 2015, Zahore received two additional payments from Orange in connection with the Municipal Complex Project, one for $140,000 and the other for $95,000.

On more than one occasion Edwards told Zahore, in substance, that Edwards had taken care of Zahore and that Zahore should consider that and do something. Zahore understood those comments by Edwards to be solicitations and demands that Zahore pay Edwards to reward Edwards for Edwards’s assistance in connection with the Municipal Complex Project.

In November 2015, Zahore gave Edwards approximately $10,000 in cash. After accepting the cash payment, Edwards indicated that he was disappointed with the amount and expected more. Zahore made a second cash payment to Edwards for approximately $10,000. Zahore made those two cash payments with the intent to reward Edwards for his assistance.

The charge to which Zahore pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, or twice the pecuniary gain to the defendant or loss to the victims. Sentencing is scheduled for March 3, 2021.

U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge George M. Crouch Jr. in Newark; special agents of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Christina Scaringi; and special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Montanez, with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Cari Fais and J Fortier Imbert of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Division.

The charges and allegations against Edwards are merely accusations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

NEWARK, N.J. – The former acting business administrator for the Township of Orange, New Jersey, who had previously been indicted for multiple acts of corruption and fraud, was indicted today on additional conspiracy, wire fraud, and kickback-taking charges in a superseding indictment, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.

Willis Edwards III, 49, formerly of East Orange, New Jersey, and currently of Lithonia, Georgia, was charged in a superseding indictment with additional counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and taking kickbacks in connection with the business of Orange, a federally funded local government.

According to the superseding indictment:

An associate of Edwards, Jeanmarie Zahore, was the sole owner of JZ Nettech, a computer consulting business. On Sept. 15, 2015, the City Council of Orange Township, New Jersey, passed a resolution awarding JZ Nettech, without competitive bidding, a $350,000 emergency contract to install a computer networking system at a municipal complex that housed the Orange Municipal Court and the Orange Police Department (the “Municipal Complex Project”).

Between August 2015 and November 2015, Edwards solicited and accepted cash payments totaling approximately $20,000 from Zahore as a reward for Edwards’ favorable treatment of Zahore and JZ Nettech in connection with the Municipal Complex Project.

On Sept. 14, 2015, after communications between Edwards and Zahore in August 2015, Edwards advised a senior official of the Orange Municipal Court and a senior official of the Orange Police Department that there was an urgent need to address a potential security vulnerability in the Municipal Complex’s computer network, and that JZ Nettech had been selected as the vendor to fix the problem. Edwards caused Orange to issue a Certification of Funds, certifying that $350,000 was available for the Municipal Complex Project and identifying the vendor as JZ Nettech.

On Sept. 15, 2015, Edwards spoke before the Orange City Council in support of allocating emergency funds for the Municipal Complex Project and awarding the Municipal Complex Project to JZ Nettech. At the meeting, during which Orange City Council members raised questions about the selection of JZ Nettech as the vendor for the Municipal Complex Project, Edwards did not disclose that he had engaged in communications with Zahore since at least August 2015.

On Sept. 16, 2015, the day after the Orange City Council approved the $350,000 contract, Edwards approved the issuance of a blanket purchase order authorizing Orange to pay JZ Nettech $350,000 in connection with the Municipal Complex Project.

From Sept. 18, 2015, to Nov. 10, 2015, Zahore received and deposited three Orange checks totaling $350,000 in connection with the Municipal Complex Project into his JZ Nettech bank account.

Beginning shortly after Orange made its first payment to Zahore, Edwards told Zahore on more than one occasion, in substance, that Edwards had taken care of Zahore and that Zahore should consider that and do something.

In November 2015, following Edwards’ multiple solicitations and demands for payment from Zahore, Edwards received approximately $10,000 in cash from Zahore as a reward for Edwards’ favorable treatment of Zahore and JZ Nettech in connection with the Municipal Complex Project. Upon receipt of that $10,000 cash payment, which was funded in substantial part by money paid by Orange to JZ Nettech, Edwards expressed his dissatisfaction to Zahore with the amount of the payment. Edwards received a second payment of approximately $10,000 in cash from Zahore, who characterized those two cash payments in a spreadsheet that Zahore maintained of expenses related to the project:

11/20/2015                                          Gift: WE         $10,000.00

11/23/2015                                          Gift: WE         $10,000.00

The superseding indictment further charges that Edwards willfully signed a 2015 federal tax return under penalty of perjury that did not report, among other items of income, the approximately $20,000 in kickbacks.

The charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud (Count 14) and wire fraud (Count 15) each carry a potential penalty of 20 years in prison; the count of accepting kickbacks in connection with the business of a federally funded local government (Count 16), carries a potential penalty of 10 years in prison. All three counts are also punishable by a fine of $250,000.

These charges were added to a 28-count indictment returned on July 7, 2020. Zahore was indicted on Aug. 18, 2020.

U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge George M. Crouch Jr. in Newark; special agents of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Christina Scaringi; and special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael Montanez with the investigation leading to the charges.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Cari Fais and J Fortier Imbert of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Division.

The charges and allegations contained in the indictments are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

NEWARK, N.J. – The former acting business administrator for the Township of Orange, New Jersey, has been charged in a 28-count indictment with conspiracy, bribe-taking, money and property fraud, federal tax fraud, and making false statements in connection with a mortgage, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced today.

Willis Edwards III, 49, formerly of East Orange, New Jersey, and currently of Lithonia, Georgia, was charged with 14 counts of wire fraud, two counts of bribery in connection with the business of a federally funded local government, two counts of theft from a federally funded local government, two counts of mail fraud, two counts of false statements concerning a mortgage, one count of bribery in connection with the business of a federally funded local government and organization, one count of theft from a federally funded local government and organization, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and the IRS, and one count of filing a false tax return. A date for Edwards’ arraignment has not yet been scheduled.

According to documents filed in this case:

In January 2015, Edwards had his friend, Franklyn Ore, form Urban Partners LLC (Urban Partners), using cash provided by Edwards. During 2015, Edwards used Urban Partners to funnel to himself a stream of concealed kickbacks in exchange for Edwards’ official action as an Orange public official and assistance in the affairs of Orange and in violation of his duties in connection with:

A Saturday literacy program for which Orange and the Orange Public Library were awarded a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and administered by Essex County, to provide tutoring services for low and moderate-income families (the Saturday Literacy Program);

 

A project for which an urban planning company located in Montclair, New Jersey, had received a one-year, $150,000 contract from Orange to provide professional economic planning services to analyze the conditions within the Central Orange Redevelopment Area (the “redevelopment project”); and

 

A project to acquire the Orange YWCA building and develop it into a community recreation center.

 

The Saturday Literacy Program Fraud and Kickbacks

Despite knowing that Urban Partners did not provide any services to the library in connection with the Saturday Literacy Program, Edwards caused false and fraudulent vouchers to be submitted in March 2015 and in May 2015 to Essex County seeking Saturday literacy grant funds for expenses purportedly paid to Urban Partners. In support of the fraudulent vouchers, Edwards had phony documents submitted to Essex County, including: (1) a sham contract between Urban Partners and the library, backdated to over six months before Urban Partners had been formed, (2) false statistical data about the children who supposedly attended the literacy sessions, (3) fake Urban Partners invoices, and (4) backdated library checks payable to Urban Partners that had not been negotiated when submitted to Essex County to give the false impression that the Library had paid Urban Partners, when it had not done so.     

Between April 2015 and June 2015, Essex County provided the Library with $50,000 in HUD funds for the Saturday Literacy Program. Between May 2015 and August 2015, Edwards caused the library to pay Urban Partners approximately $36,000, despite knowing that Urban Partners had not provided the library with any services in connection with the Saturday Literacy Program. Edwards received kickbacks from Ore from the money paid to Urban Partners by the library. At Edwards’s direction, Ore also provided a portion of the proceeds from the library to an associate of Edwards. Ore spent the remaining proceeds for his own personal benefit.

The Redevelopment Project Fraud and Kickbacks

  Edwards used his influence as an Orange public official to arrange for the planning company to hire Urban Partners after the planning company had received its contract with Orange. Ore provided services to the Planning Committee and, between August 2015 and February 2016, the planning company, which was receiving payments from Orange, paid Urban Partners $33,220. Edwards received kickbacks from Ore from the money that the planning company paid to Urban Partners.

The YWCA Project Fraud and Kickback

In December 2015, aware that his resignation as an Orange public official would become effective on Dec. 31, 2015, Edwards took further steps to use his position for corrupt and fraudulent purposes. Edwards advised Ore that Edwards had access to Orange discretionary funds and wanted to use them by the end of the year. At Edwards’s instruction, Ore generated and submitted a fraudulent invoice from Urban Partners to Orange, billing Orange $16,800 for services purportedly related to the YWCA Project. Edwards, knowing that no services has been rendered, approved the issuance of a purchase order and Orange paid Urban Partners $16,800.  On Dec. 30, 2015, Edwards received a substantial amount of the $16,800 in a kickback from Ore.

The Plagiarism Scheme

From June 2015 to June 2016, Edwards duped Orange into making payments to a consultant, which were, at least in part, for academic papers that the consultant arranged to have written for Edwards. Edwards, who was enrolled in a graduate program at a university in New Jersey, plagiarized the papers that Orange paid for and passed them off as his own work. Between December 2015 and March 2016, with Edwards’s approval, the consultant submitted three fraudulent invoices to Orange calling for payments of $12,000, $16,000, and $10,000 for purported professional services. Orange paid the money to the consultant and Edwards received from the consultant academic papers that had been written for him. On June 20, 2016, Edwards submitted several papers which were virtually identical to the papers that he had received from the consultant. In emails to the professors, to which the papers were attached, Edwards asked the professors to grade the attached outstanding assignments so that he did “not receive a failing grade for all of the hard work that [he had] done.”

The Graduate School Payments Scheme

The indictment also charges Edwards with fraud in connection with funding his graduate studies. Between December 2015 and July 2016, Edwards engaged in a scheme to defraud Orange of $25,142 in payments to himself and University 1 related to Edwards’s graduate courses there and at another university in New Jersey through the use of a fraudulent approval memorandum. In February 2016, when Edwards was no longer an Orange public official, he dictated the following language to an employee in Orange’s Finance Department (Orange Employee 1) for use in a fraudulent approval memorandum addressed to Edwards: “As per the employee handbook, this memorandum serves as consent for you [Edwards] to enroll in the courses as discussed. Please forward the invoices to process for payment.” Edwards instructed Orange Employee 1 to backdate the memorandum to Aug. 17, 2015, to give the false impression that Edwards had received approval for Orange to pay for academic courses in which he had enrolled.

On Feb. 10, 2016, at Edwards’s direction, Orange Employee 1 sent an email to a senior public official in the office of the Mayor of Orange (Orange Employee 2) containing a draft of the fraudulent approval memorandum. Orange Employee 2 later provided Orange Employee 1 with a final copy of the fraudulent approval memorandum on Orange letterhead, purportedly from the Mayor of Orange, addressed to Edwards, and backdated to Aug. 17, 2015. It included the language that Edwards dictated to Orange Employee 1 and bore the stamp of the initials of the Mayor of Orange to give the false impression that the Mayor of Orange had approved Edwards’s reimbursement for the courses, when the Mayor of Orange had not done so.

Federal Tax Fraud

Edwards also caused a false 2015 federal tax return to be filed with the IRS. From January 2016 to April 15, 2016, Edwards conspired with his tax return preparer, Zenobia Williams, to defraud the United States and the IRS by claiming bogus labor expenses of $27,055 for his business, Natural Care Municipal Cleaning Services LLC (Natural Care), on that tax return. In addition to falsifying business expenses, Edwards also underreported Natural Care’s income. He reported $40,000 in gross receipts, when Natural Care actually received approximately $52,000 in payments from a New Jersey law firm and approximately $32,500 in payments from a local Board of Education. Edwards also did not report the ill-gotten gains that he obtained in 2015 in connection with the Saturday Literacy Program, the Redevelopment Project, and the YWCA Project. 

Making False Statements in Connection with a Mortgage

In 2014, Edwards also made false statements to obtain mortgage relief on a $248,000 30-year mortgage loan that he obtained in 2005 to purchase a residence in East Orange, New Jersey. As of Feb. 11, 2014, Edwards had fallen substantially in arrears on his mortgage payments. On April 7, 2014, Edwards submitted a completed Request for Mortgage Assistance form to the mortgage servicer. Edwards disclosed that he was employed by Orange and falsely indicated that he did not have a second employer, when, at the time, he also was employed by a New Jersey County College at an annual salary of approximately $45,000. On Oct. 8, 2014, Edwards and the mortgage servicer entered into a Home Affordable Modification Agreement. In reliance upon false representations made by Edwards, the mortgage servicer provided the following benefits, among others, to Edwards: (1) $95,590 of Edwards’s debt was forgiven between July 2015 and July 2017, and (2) the real estate property was taken out of foreclosure.

The charges carry the following maximum potential penalties:

 



Offenses Charged





Maximum Term of Imprisonment





Maximum Fine





Conspiracy to commit wire fraud or wire fraud and mail fraud





20 years





$250,000





Wire fraud





20 years





$250,000





Mail fraud





20 years





$250,000





Theft from a federally-funded local government





10 years





$250,000





Bribery in connection with the business of a federally funded local government





10 years





$250,000





Conspiracy to defraud the United States and the IRS





Five years





$250,000





Subscribing to a false tax return





Three years





$250,000





False statement concerning a mortgage





30 years





$1,000,000



 

 

 

 

On Jan. 13, 2020, Ore entered a guilty plea to an information charging offenses related to the Saturday Literacy Program, the Redevelopment Project, and the YWCA Project. On Feb. 13, 2020, Timur Davis, the former Executive Director of the Orange Library, entered a guilty plea to an information charging an offense related to the Saturday Literacy Program and another HUD-funded program to replace an HVAC/Chiller unit at the Library. On Dec. 30, 2019, Williams entered a guilty plea to conspiring to defraud the United States and the IRS.

U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Joe Denahan in Newark; special agents of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Christina Scaringi; and special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael Montanez with the investigation leading to the charges.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Cari Fais and J Fortier Imbert of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Division.

The charges and allegations in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.