Former Birdsall Official Pleads Guilty Days Before Trial: AG

TOMS RIVER, NJ -- A week after the former CEO of Birdsall Services Group (BSG) pleaded guilty in a political contributions scheme, another executive of the company admitted his role, shortly before his trial in the case was to begin.

Thomas Rospos, 64, of Belmar, formerly the executive vice president of BSG and its second largest shareholder, pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree tampering with public records or information before Superior Court Judge James Den Uyl in Ocean County. The scheme resulted in more than $1 million in corporate political contributions that were illegally made through employees of the firm to evade New Jersey’s pay-to-play law.

Birdsall CEO Howard Birdsall pleaded guilty to his role in the case last Thursday.

Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that Rospos be sentenced to three years in state prison. Rospos must waive the presumption against incarceration under state sentencing guidelines for a third-degree offense committed by a defendant with no felony record, according to a news release from Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman’s office.

Rospos must pay $150,000 to the state, representing forfeiture of the political contributions that he made on behalf BSG that were reimbursed by the firm. He will be debarred for 10 years from personally bidding on any public contracts in New Jersey or holding an interest of 5 percent or greater in any company that bids for such contracts.

Before the plea agreement was reached with Rospos, the court began the process of screening jurors for his trial, with an expectation that a jury would be selected by next week.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 13.

Deputy Attorney General Anthony A. Picione, Chief of the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau, and Deputy Attorney General Mallory Shanahan are prosecuting the case and took the guilty plea today from Rospos.

“Within one week, we have taken guilty pleas from the two top executives of Birdsall Services Group, both of whom face prison sentences for overseeing a scheme to make illegal political contributions and stack the deck in their favor in bidding for public engineering contracts,” said Elie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice. “With this case, we have issued a warning that we will come down hard on any corporations and corporate leaders who engage in criminal schemes to try to skirt New Jersey’s pay-to-play law.”

Birdsall Services Group – an engineering firm formerly based in Monmouth County that now is out of business – pleaded guilty on June 13, 2013 to charges of first-degree money laundering and second-degree making false representations for government contracts. As a result of its plea, BSG paid two major criminal penalties: a $500,000 public corruption profiteering penalty and a $500,000 anti-money laundering profiteering penalty. In each instance, the penalty was the maximum amount authorized by law. BSG also paid the state $2.6 million to settle a civil forfeiture action filed by the Attorney General’s Office in connection with the criminal case.