Proposed upgrades to Bay View Manor will be done over the next three years.
By Donald Wittkowski
A sentencing hearing for a former top Ocean City Housing Authority executive who was caught in an embezzlement scheme has been postponed for three weeks amid ongoing efforts to clean up and restructure the troubled agency since she was removed.
Alesia Watson, who was fired from her job as the housing authority’s executive director a week after she pleaded guilty to embezzlement on May 8, was scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday in federal court in Camden. However, officials said Monday her sentencing has been pushed back until Sept. 7.
William Skaggs, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, said no reason was given for the postponement. He noted it is not unusual for sentencing hearings to be rescheduled.
Bob Barr, a city councilman who also serves as housing authority chairman, said the agency was notified by the court that Watson’s sentencing had been rescheduled but was not told why. Watson’s attorney, John Zarych of Northfield, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The housing authority is scheduled to continue its post-Watson staff restructuring plan when it holds its monthly board meeting Tuesday. Barr said the board is expected to eliminate one position, reduce the hours for another job and discuss possible employee furloughs.
The personnel moves are related to the authority’s “financial condition,” Barr noted. More details are expected to be disclosed at the authority’s meeting, which may include a closed session to discuss the staff changes.
Meanwhile, Watson, 54, of Galloway Township, faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine for embezzling federal housing funds to pay off credit card bills for her personal expenses.
During her guilty plea, she admitted she misused two housing authority credit cards to buy 69 MasterCard gift cards between December 2013 and March 2015. The gift cards were used for personal expenses and were also shared by Watson with friends and family members, authorities said.
Watson then used U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, funds administered by the authority to pay off the credit card bills associated with her purchase of the gift cards, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Authorities said between $6,500 and $15,000 was lost in the embezzlement scheme.
Following her guilty plea, Watson was removed by the housing authority’s board on May 16, setting into motion a series of financial and management reforms at the agency. Among them was the approval of an agreement with the Vineland Housing Authority to have its executive director, Jacqueline Jones, serve in the same capacity for the Ocean City Housing Authority.
Other changes included new financial controls that require three authority officials to sign checks, instead of just one. Watson formerly was in charge of signing checks.
The housing authority also hired an outside accounting firm to conduct an audit covering the period from Oct. 1, 2015, to Oct. 1, 2016. The audit came up with 15 “findings” needing corrective action. At its July meeting, the board approved a “corrective action plan” formalizing the audit’s recommendations.
Bay View Manor is one of the housing facilities under the Ocean City Housing Authority's control.
In his position as board chairman, Barr has repeatedly expressed confidence that the authority is taking the right steps to rebuild the agency, including the hiring of Jones, a veteran housing executive held in high regard by HUD.
Last month, Barr revealed that federal and county investigators may conduct a broader review of the authority’s finances based on the results of the new audit and other undisclosed documents from Watson’s former reign as executive director.
The authority uses federal funds from HUD to provide affordable housing for low-income senior citizens, families and the disabled at its Pecks Beach Village and Bay View Manor facilities in Ocean City.
Barr, who took over as chairman this year, tried to have Watson removed from her job in March after growing suspicious of the authority’s finances, but was unable to win enough support then from his fellow board members.
Watson became the executive director of the Ocean City Housing Authority in 2013 under a shared services agreement with the Brick Housing Authority, where she held the same position. In May, the board terminated the agreement with Brick, effectively getting rid of Watson to make way for Jones as the new executive director.
Before she was hired in Ocean City, Watson had four previous theft convictions, according to a report in The Press of Atlantic City. She resigned her position as executive director of the Atlantic City Housing Authority in 2007 after the paper disclosed her criminal past.
Barr was unable to explain why Watson was hired in Ocean City, despite her previous theft convictions. He noted that he was not an authority board member at that time.
