Brick Housing Authority Director Resigns In Wake Of Embezzlement Plea

BRICK, NJ — Alesia Watson, who pleaded guilty on Monday to embezzling federal funds in her role as executive director of the Ocean City Housing Authority, agreed to resign from her position as executive director of the Brick Township Housing Authority Friday night.

In a special meeting of the authority at the community center at the David Fried Apartments called in response to Watson's guilty plea, Watson and her attorney, John J. Zarych, of Northfield, met with the board and its attorney, Terry Brady, for almost an hour in executive session. After what appeared to be extensive negotiations, with Watson and Zarych walking out of the room to talk and then going back in, Watson signed a sheet of paper and she left the community center. With tears in her eyes, she hugged Zarych and got in her sport utility vehicle and left.

Returning to public session, Brady announced that Watson had resigned and that the commissioners who were present — Chair Kim Terebush, Vice Chairman Stephen Scaturro, Kathy Russell, Ron Jampel and Resident Commissioner Pete Dunne — would be "reserving comment to a future time." Commissioners Richard Dyer and Robyn Gedrich were absent.

An interim executive director has not been named, and Brady said who that person will be "remains to be determined." The board has a regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, May 22; that meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. in the community room at the Forge Pond Apartment building.

In the meantime, the commissioners voted to require two of the seven commissioners to sign off on every check, which Brady said will assure no one has unfettered access to the housing authority's funds.

The commissioners did not take formal action to sever their shared services agreement with the Ocean City Housing Authority, though that contract was scheduled to be part of the executive session discussions. The Ocean City board is expected to vote to end the agreement when that board meets Tuesday.

Under the shared services agreement, Ocean City was paying Brick $60,000 for Watson's services. Watson, 54, of Galloway, had worked for the Ocean City authority since August 2013; in November 2014 she was hired into that same role in Brick under the shared services agreement. She was paid $95,830 in 2016, but it was not clear how much of Ocean City's share went to her salary and how much went to her benefits.

It was in her Ocean City executive director's role where Watson used a pair of credit cards issued by the authority to purchase 69 gift cards that she then used for personal items and gave as gifts to family and friends, federal prosecutors said Monday. She paid off the OCHA-issued credit cards using funds from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides support for the housing authorities.

In both Brick and Ocean City, the housing authorities manage housing for low-income families, senior citizens and the disabled, with funding provided by HUD.

A news release from federal prosecutors did not mention Watson's position with the Brick Housing Authority, and said her crime was related to her Ocean City position. But Brick Township Mayor John G. Ducey on Tuesday night said an accountant was reviewing the Brick authority's financial records nonetheless. The Brick authority had a budget of $3,359,000 for the 2016-17 fiscal year that ends June 30, according to budget documents posted on the authority's website.

The announcement of her guilty plea caught officials at both authorities by surprise; board president Bob Barr of the Ocean City board told the Ocean City Patch that commissioners there had no inkling that Watson was under investigation. Friday night, staff members of the Brick Housing Authority said they only learned of Watson's plea from news reports.

According to a report in the Press of Atlantic City, Watson previously had been convicted of theft on four occasions from 1992 to 2001, when she was known as Alesia Humphrey. The Press of Atlantic City report said those prior convictions let to her resigning as executive director of the Atlantic City Housing Authority fafter just five weeks on the job when those convictions came to light.

When Watson was hired as the executive director in November 2014, the Brick Housing Authority had been operating without a permanent executive director since 2012, when then-Executive Director Dennis Salerno retired. The lack of a permanent executive director had drawn repeated warnings from the state Department of Community Affairs, according to meeting minutes from the July 2014 board meeting.

Republicans criticized the authority board for not appointing Anthony Matthews, who had been serving as the assistant executive director for a time, but a statement from then-Chair Vera Fozman included in the July 2014 meeting minutes said but the DCA rejected him because Matthews did not meet the minimum education and experience requirements.

In September 2014, the authority was poised to sign a shared services agreement with Passaic for an executive director. But rampant politcal rancor and accusations that Democrats were making a patronage hire led to the agreement not being finalized.

Vera Fozman, wife of Councilman Jim Fozman, bore the brunt of the criticism at the time, and in October 2014 she and Delores Lunetta-Radice both resigned as a result. Dyer and Stanley Schick were appointed to replace them, and a short time later the shared services agreement with Ocean City for Watson's services was approved.

Sources told the Patch that Fozman and Lunetta-Radice resigned from the housing authority because the board was being pressured to hire Watson despite her prior fraud convictions and they wanted no part of the hire. Vera Fozman declined to comment on that issue.

Editor's note: This report was originally published May 13, 2017, and was edited on May 18, 2017, to update with information from Brick Township Housing Authority meeting minutes. Photo by Karen Wall