Man Who Used Dead Dad's ID In Fraud Gets 10 Years In Jail

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A contractor from Seaside Heights who pleaded guilty to more than $1 million in fraud has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, the Ocean County prosecutor's office announced.

Robert W. Brower, 45, was sentenced Friday to prison by Superior Court Judge Therese A. Cunningham in the thefts of more than $225,000 in a grant he received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and more than $750,000 in a separate case from a Toms River homeowner whose Sandy-damaged home Brower had been contracted to repair, prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said.

Brower pleaded guilty before Cunningham in both cases on Jan. 29. He was arrested in August 2018.

In the HUD case, Brower received $229,395.22 in grant funds on Feb. 19, 2016, from the department’s Landlord Repair Program to repair 33 Sampson Ave. in Seaside Heights as part of a construction advance. In court, Brower admitted that he converted those funds for his own use rather than use them on the project by transferring them to a bank account he opened using his dead father's Social Security number and date of birth. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with five years of parole ineligibility.

In the Toms River homeowner's case, Brower admitted taking about $786,500 from the homeowner for repairs on a Sandy-ravaged home. Brower repeatedly asked for additional money in excess of the contract in order to move the project along, but spent the money on himself, leaving the home unfinished. During his plea, Brower claimed that he spent the money on illegal narcotics. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison for second-degree theft.

He additionally was sentenced to 5 years in prison for selling 18 folds of heroin to a person in a Toms River parking lot in February 2018, Billhimer said.

Cunningham ordered that Brower’s sentences will be served concurrently and ordered him to pay $229,395.22 in restitution to the NJ Division of Consumer Affairs for Housing and Urban Development and $786,500 to the Toms River homeowner.

The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Division of Criminal Justice Financial and Computer Crimes Bureau, Ocean County Sheriff’s Department, the United States Marshals Service, the Toms River Police Department and the Seaside Heights Police Department.

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