Former toms river, n.J., school administrator sentenced to 37 months in prison for bribery scheme

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 10, 2012

 

TRENTON, N.J. – The former supervisor of Athletics and Special Projects for the Toms River, N.J., Regional School District, was sentenced today to 37 months in prison in connection with a scheme to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to the superintendent of the school district in exchange for his official assistance, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Frank D’Alonzo, 55, of Lavallette, N.J., previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Garrett E. Brown Jr. The sentence was imposed today by U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano in Trenton federal court.

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

D’Alonzo pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and one count of tax evasion, admitting that he participated in a scheme in which he received corrupt payments from Francis X. Gartland, 71, of Baltimore, Md., an insurance broker who specialized in providing insurance brokerage services for public entities, including the Toms River Regional School District. As early as 2001 through June 2006, D’Alonzo took hundreds of thousands of dollars in corrupt payments from Gartland and others and then passed on a portion of these proceeds as bribes to Michael J. Ritacco, 66, who was then superintendent of the school district, in exchange for Ritacco’s official assistance in maintaining insurance and other business with the school district. Ritacco and Gartland were each sentenced recently to 135 months in prison.

D’Alonzo admitted that for the 2005 tax year, he evaded the assessment of hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal income tax by concealing the illegal proceeds that he received from the bribery scheme.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Pisano sentenced D’Alonzo to three years of supervised release. Any restitution and forfeiture are to be determined at a hearing before Judge Pisano at 10 a.m., Dec. 12, 2012.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward, and IRS – Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Shantelle P. Kitchen, with the investigation leading to today’s sentence.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dustin Chao, Harvey Bartle, and Lee M. Cortes Jr. of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Special Prosecutions Division.

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Defense counsel: Lisa Mack Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Newark

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