BY JENNIFER DOME
Staff Writer
Former Brick mayor and utilities authority Chairman Daniel F. Newman Sr. will not be held criminally liable for failing to pay sewage charges for 19 years.
Current Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority (BTMUA) Chairman Andrew P. Nittoso Jr. will also not be held criminally liable for his alleged involvement in the overdue sewer bill.
The decision by an Ocean County grand jury was announced by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office June 15. Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher said in a press release that the decision to not hold Newman or Nittoso criminally liable was “based on the evidence presented.”
“I said from the very beginning that I was innocent,” Nittoso said Friday. “I did nothing wrong; Mr. Newman did nothing wrong.”
Newman paid the overdue sewer bill, in the amount of $10,794.12, on March 28. That same day, the Prosecutor’s Office requested documents from the BTMUA pertaining to Newman’s Pineland Plumbing and Heating business, formerly located on Piel Avenue and Mantoloking Road. The overdue bill was discovered when the building’s new occupant applied for site plan approval last fall.
In 1986, sewer service was brought to Mantoloking Road and a sewer pipe was run to Pineland’s building. Newman said last week that even though BTMUA officials visited the site several times over the last 19 years to read the water meters, and he paid for water use, no one discovered the discrepancy until October.
Newman spoke to the media for the first time since the Prosecutor’s Office’s investigation began, from his attorney Steve Cucci’s office last Thursday. Newman appeared at the BTMUA’s meeting Monday to relay the same story he told members of the press last Thursday.
Newman said he wanted to speak out sooner about the allegations that he tried to cover up the overdue bill, but was advised not to.
“This really bothered me,” Newman said about the allegations. “It bothered my family. I was really hurt by it.”
BTMUA Director Kevin Donald has said that Nittoso told him to “bury” Newman’s overdue sewer bill — an accusation that Nittoso has denied and Newman says is a lie.
“These accusations made by Kevin Donald, the executive director, are absolute lies,” Newman said.
Donald said Monday that he stands by his statements.
“What I said was the truth,” Donald said. “It stands there in testimony and everything.”
The chain of events,
according to Newman
Both Donald and Newman have said they first learned of the unpaid bill in October — after the construction committee learned of it. At that time, Donald said he informed Newman about the bill.
Newman said he was embarrassed when he learned of the overdue bill while sitting in Donald’s office. He was especially embarrassed, he said, because he has served as mayor, state assemblyman and at the time was chairman of the BTMUA.
“I guess I kind of blamed them [the BTMUA] at the time for not finding it,” Newman said, “and I stormed out of there.”
Newman said he didn’t speak to anyone about the bill for a few weeks after that.
“I decided there was no way that I could be chairman and deal with this at the same time,” he said.
In mid-November, Newman said he told Donald that he would deal with the bill in February when he planned to give up his seat as chairman of the BTMUA. The night of his last meeting as chairman, Newman said BTMUA Attorney John P. Doyle approached him and told him to deal with the bill.
“As of that minute, I had never seen the bill … I didn’t know what the figures were,” Newman said. Newman said he saw Donald in the hallway of the BTMUA offices and told him to prepare the bill.
Donald has said that from the moment the utilities authority learned of the overdue bill, he continued to pursue payment. Newman said last Thursday that wasn’t true.
“He never, ever spoke to me about this bill,” Newman said.
Doyle spoke to him about the bill five or six times after that, Newman said, but “now I’m getting a little stubborn,” he said.
Finally, a week before Easter in March, Newman said he decided to reach out to Donald to talk about the bill. Newman said he left a message for Donald on Holy Thursday that he’d be in that Friday “to straighten out this mess that we have.”
Newman said he erroneously went to the BTMUA offices on Good Friday, forgetting that offices would be closed for the holiday. So, he returned that Monday, March 28, to pay the bill.
He said that he told Donald at the time, “I didn’t pay the bill the day you served the subpoena; you served the subpoena the day I paid the bill.”
When asked if he would have paid the bill had it been delivered to him the day he stepped down as chairman in February, Newman said, “Reluctantly like heck, yes.”
Newman said he checked with the BTMUA staff on March 28 to make sure the total bill was $10,794.12 and that he didn’t owe interest as well.
“No one ever paid interest at the MUA” Newman said.
Newman’s afterthoughts
Looking back, Newman said he was stubborn not to contact Donald sooner after he had stepped down as chairman.
“Some people told me it was a mistake, the way I handled it,” Newman said last Thursday. “In retrospect … I underestimated the intensity of it.”
Newman said he was embarrassed further when state Sen. Andrew Ciesla (R-District 10) was called in to testify before the grand jury on his behalf.
“No one from the Democratic Party stood up for me,” Newman said.
Ciesla served as executive director of the BTMUA at the time the sewer service was installed at Newman’s Piel Avenue business, Newman said.
“I wasn’t there when they installed that; I was away,” Newman said.
The reaction of other township officials has surprised him, Newman said. He said he believes many former friends have turned on him.
“I would’ve never done it to them,” Newman said.
Newman’s plans for the future
On Thursday, Newman said he planned to confront Donald at Monday’s BTMUA meeting. He said one thing he wanted to clear up was Donald’s statement that there was only one other instance where an overdue bill was discovered for undocumented and unpaid sewer or water use.
“I think it’s time for Kevin Donald to move on,” Newman said. “This entire incident is his fault and my fault, and he has not handled his side.
“Instead of investigating Mr. Nittoso, we ought to be investigating Mr. Donald,” Newman said, referring to the Township Council’s discussion of removing Nittoso from his position as BTMUA chairman.
“I want to retire from the local political scene,” Newman said, closing Thursday’s press conference. “Go get yourselves another whipping boy.”