Two housing authority officials from a Pennsylvania town are facing federal charges of bribery and fraud for allegedly taking more than $75,000 in bribes from a contractor, and bilking the housing authority of more than half a million dollars in a separate scheme.
Norman D. Wise, 57, from Mullica Hill, N.J.; Douglas E. Daniel, 65, from Philadelphia, and Leonard F. Coleman, 53, from Paulsboro, N.J., were charged in the matter relating to the Chester Housing Authority, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a press release.
The first scheme involved an arrangement where Coleman allegedly paid off Wise and Daniel in exchange for securing contracting work from the CHA. Coleman’s company.
Wise, who was the director of public housing for CHA, and Daniel, who was the housing program manager and Wise’s chief assistant, inflated invoices submitted by Coleman’s company to extract more money from the CHA. The excess payment was then channeled back to Wise and Daniel in the form of bribes.
Over the course of the scheme, Coleman allegedly paid around $76,400 in bribes to Wise and Daniel, while his company received approximately $2.5 million in revenue from the CHA.
The second scheme, distinct from the first, involved Wise and Daniel’s creation of a contracting company named Trinity Management Group. The two reportedly used TMG to submit fraudulent invoices to the CHA for services that were either carried out by CHA employees during regular working hours, other contractors already paid by CHA, or not conducted at all.
The fraudulent invoices covered a range of services including landscaping, painting, window replacements, and construction work at CHA facilities. These fabricated billings led to a purported loss of roughly $545,000 for the CHA.
“The agency is of course gravely disappointed to have been victimized by trusted personnel,” Steven A. Fischer, the authority’s executive director, said in an emailed statement to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “This will not cause the CHA to waiver from its mission of providing affordable housing. The recovery from this misfortune is well underway as we await the legal outcome of the individuals involved.”