Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that a suspended engineer for the New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT) was indicted today by a state grand jury on official misconduct charges for allegedly falsifying timesheets to steal $15,000 in overtime pay and using a state vehicle to make numerous personal trips to Philadelphia.
Alkesh Desai, 62, of Bensalem, Pa., was charged in the indictment with conspiracy (2nd degree), two counts of official misconduct (2nd degree), theft by deception (3rd degree), tampering with public records or information (3rd degree), and falsifying records (4th degree). Desai is suspended from his job as a DOT engineer.
He had been acting as the supervisor of the Drainage Bureau.
A co-defendant, Harish Bhanderi, 53, of Newtown, Pa., pleaded guilty on Jan. 9 to an accusation charging him with third-degree theft by deception, admitting that he and Desai fraudulently collected emergency overtime pay.
As a result of his guilty plea, Bhanderi forfeited his job as manager of the DOT Roadway Maintenance, Engineering and Operations Section.
The state will recommend that he be sentenced to 364 days in the county jail as a condition of a term of probation.
Bhanderi must pay restitution of $19,905 and is permanently barred from public employment in New Jersey.
It is alleged that Desai and Bhanderi submitted timesheets indicating they were entitled to emergency overtime pay for responding after hours to emergency roadway incidents. In reality, they were not responding to emergencies after hours, but were simply driving their state vehicles past sites where emergencies had occurred days or even weeks earlier.
It is alleged that the two typically drove to the sites together. The state’s investigation revealed that Desai allegedly submitted 71 false overtime claims totaling $15,076 between June 2013 and June 2014.
In addition, during the same one-year period, Desai allegedly used a state vehicle to make 96 trips to Philadelphia, sometimes making round trips to the city twice a day to drive his daughter to and from college. Personal use of a state vehicle is prohibited.
Acting Attorney General Hoffman and Director Honig noted that the Division of Criminal Justice has established a toll-free tip line 1-866-TIPS-4CJ for the public to report corruption, financial crime and other illegal activities confidentially.