Driver For Corrupt Mayor Cops Guilty Plea For Role In Rigging Public Housing Lottery That Landed Him 2-Family Home

From the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General:

• Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced that a man who served as personal driver to former Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas was sentenced [] in connection with a scheme involving Vas to rig a public housing lottery.
  
  Anthony S. Jones, 51, of Perth Amboy, was sentenced to five years of probation by Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mellaci Jr. in Monmouth County. Jones pleaded guilty on Aug. 18, 2011 to a criminal accusation charging him with third-degree falsifying or tampering with records.
  
  In pleading guilty, he admitted that he falsified personal financial information that he submitted in order to qualify to buy an affordable two-family home on Market Street in Perth Amboy through the Perth Amboy Home Program. Previously, Vas admitted that he rigged the public lottery for the home so that Jones won the opportunity to buy it. Jones forfeited his job with the city and is permanently barred from public employment in New Jersey.
  
  Jones was ordered, as a condition of probation, to refrain from entering the property, which he has vacated, to perform 100 hours of community service, and to pay various amounts as restitution related to his illegal acquisition of the property. The home is currently in foreclosure.
  
  Jones was ordered to pay $147,600, representing principal and interest on a second mortgage which secures HUD grant funds that were provided to make the property affordable housing. He must pay $2,000 to reimburse the City of Perth Amboy for closing costs it paid when Jones took title to the property. He must pay the state $127,123, representing rent he collected by leasing the second unit of the property. Finally, he must pay $6,020 in rent for his occupancy of one unit of the property for four months after he was supposed to have vacated the property. Jones entered a consent judgment to pay all of those amounts.

For the New Jersey AG press release, see Driver for Former Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas Sentenced in Connection with Scheme to Rig Public Housing Lottery.