Former School Contractor Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy, Theft, Money Laundering

The Somerset County Prosecutor's office announced Friday that Robert E. Titus Jr., one of four defendants accused of defrauding $2.1 million from the Bernards Township School system while performing projects through Aramark Corp. between 2003-08, entered pleas of guilty to related charges in State Superior Court.

Titus, 54, of Jackson, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of first and third degree money laundering, second degree theft by deception and second degree conspiracy to commit those offenses before the Superior Court Judge Julie M. Marino, according to a news release from County Prosecutor Geoffrey D. Soriano.

Soriano said the charges stem from an investigation that was conducted by the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigation’s Unit that began in December 2008, after the alleged theft was reported. The investigation consisted of numerous interviews, the execution of several search warrants, the obtaining and review of a voluminous amount of documents and countless hours of investigation, according to the prosecutor's office.

Embezzled funds reportedly returned to school district

The initial charges filed in the alleged long-term embezzlement scheme were announced last . At that time, Township Schools Superintendent Valerie Goger said all of the money had been returned to the district.

Soriano said the investigation began after Aramark Corporation representatives and officials jointly reported an alleged long-term theft perpetrated by Robert E. Titus, an employee of Aramark. Titus allegedly cooperated with three other men in the scheme, officials said previously.

On Friday afternoon, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Jack Bennett, said that Titus is the only of the four defendants so far to enter a guilty plea.

Titus was employed by Aramark, a national corporation that provides management and maintenance of facilities as well as food services to various clients, including the Bernards Township School District.

Since 1999, Aramark was the successful bidder for the Bernards Township School District contracts to provide food services, janitorial services, and manage the maintenance of their facilities as well as to serve in a general contractor-like role to complete special projects, repairs and facilities upgrades, the release said.

Aramark assigned an on-site manager who had offices at to manage the maintenance of the facilities and to oversee the completion of these various other projects performed mostly by outside subcontractors, according to the prosecutor's office.

Titus became the on site manager at Bernards Township in 1999, and was able to hire contractors to complete various construction-type projects throughout the school district, the prosecutor said. In addition, at least one of the primary contractors hired by Titus, John Paris Construction, also functioned essentially as a general contractor and in turn also hired other subcontractors to perform work, the prosecutor said.

In July 2008, the newly-appointed business administrator for the Bernards Township school district, Nick Markarian, began noticing inconsistencies between the invoices that had been submitted for payment by Titus through Aramark and the actual work that had been performed in the school district, according to Friday's release.

The business administrator then notified Schools Superintendent Valerie Goger, who according to the release confronted Titus regarding the invoice inconsistencies.

According to the prosecutor's office, Titus admitted to the superintendent that he had “doctored” an invoice, apologized for his actions, cleaned out his office and left the district.

Aramark then began its own internal investigation regarding Titus’ activities while at the Bernards Township school district, the release said.

An internal audit was conducted by Aramark and subsequently turned over to and reviewed by the Special Investigations Unit of the Prosecutor’s Office, the prosecutor said. That audit revealed a theft from overbilling, of approximately 2.1 million dollars from the Bernards Township School District from January 2003 until October 2008.

A previous release from the prosecutor's office said Titus allegedly used his illegally gained funds to pay off gambling debts.

Earlier this year, the prosecutor's announced a Somerset County Grand Jury had returned an indictment Titus along John Paris, 61, of Bedford, with first- and second-degree money laundering, second-degree theft by deception and also second-degree conspiracy to commit those offenses.

The Grand Jury then also charged Edward G. Beach, 52, of Toms River, with first- and second-degree money laundering, third-degree forgery and third-degree uttering torged documents, the prosecutor's office said at that time Gabriel Caponetto, 51, of Howell, was indicted on a charge of third-degree money laundering, according the earlier release from the prosecutor's' office.