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TagsBY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Joseph Rivera of Winslow, a senior investigator with the state Department of Labor & Workforce Development, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in federal prison for his role in a bribery scheme in which he accepted $1.86 million from owners and operators of temporary labor firms in return for his official assistance.
As part of his penalty, Rivera, 56, agreed before U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman to surrender $120,400 in cash, a 2008 Lexus ES350, two Ocean City properties, a Fort Lauderdale property, and gold bars obtained as proceeds of the scheme.
According to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, between 2002 and 2008, Rivera sought and accepted cash payments from at least 20 owners or operators of temporary labor firms in South Jersey. Authorities said he calculated the amount of a bribe payment by multiplying $0.25 by the total number of hours worked by a labor firm’s employees.
In return, Rivera refrained from inspecting firms who made payments and falsely certified that they were in compliance with state law, authorities said.
Rivera also attempted to evade paying taxes on the illegal income. For the 2007 tax year he filed an individual tax return that claimed taxable income of $89,696 when his taxable income was $499,176, upon which he owed $149, 677 in federal income taxes.
In addition to the prison term, Hillman sentenced Rivera to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $250,000 in restitution to the state Department of Labor.
