| TRENTON – Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that a technician for the New Jersey Department of Transportation pleaded guilty today to collecting thousands of dollars in unearned overtime pay by falsely listing overtime shifts on his time sheets that he did not work.
Kyle Rounsaville, 50, of Easton, Pa., pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree theft by unlawful taking before Superior Court Judge Robert J. Gilson in Morris County. Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that Rounsaville be sentenced to 180 days in the county jail as a condition of a term of probation. He must pay $14,722 in restitution. Rounsaville forfeited his job and will be permanently barred from public employment in New Jersey. He was indicted by a state grand jury on Feb. 28 as a result of an investigation by the New Jersey State Police, the Division of Criminal Justice and the NJDOT Inspector General’s Office.
Deputy Attorney General Matthew J. Lafargue and Deputy Attorney General Anthony A Picione, Chief of the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau, prosecuted the case and took the guilty plea from Rounsaville. Judge Gilson scheduled sentencing for July 18.
Rounsaville was employed as a DOT construction and maintenance technician who inspected job sites for safety violations. DOT technicians work both planned and emergency overtime on projects, for which they are paid from an escrow account set up by the contractors at the beginning of the project. The state’s investigation revealed that Rounsaville routinely put in for overtime shifts he claimed to have worked at job sites, when in fact he never went to the job sites or performed any work during the shifts. From January through June 2013, he stole approximately 300 hours of overtime pay totaling $14,722. Each DOT technician is assigned a state vehicle containing a GPS tracker. Rounsaville tried to circumvent the tracker and conceal where he went in his state vehicle by purchasing a GPS jammer.
Detective Thomas Donnelly investigated the case for the State Police Official Corruption Bureau. Investigator Rochelle Miller investigated for the DOT Inspector General’s Office, under the supervision of Chief of Investigators Thomas Flanagan. NJDOT Inspector General Johanna Barba Jones referred the case to the New Jersey State Police.
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