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In exchange, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office dropped charges against Howley, 68, for trying to slip the three grandkids into the town pool.
Howley, a former Council president whose term was to expire in 2012, is prohibited from taking any public position, paid or unpaid, and must make full restitution to the municipality.
Howley resigned her position in late August while taking her case to Superior Court in Hackensack. Because she has no criminal history, she could have been eligible for Pre-Trial Intervention — a form of probation that wipes the slate clean if the participant goes a year without getting into any trouble. However, it wasn’t offered as part of the deal by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.
Assistant Jeff Ziegelheim said Howley — who was responsible for the Parks and Recreation Department and oversaw pool registrations — was flushed out and finally paid up nearly $700, but that was only after subpoenas were served on June 15 seeking the attendance and payment history of the Howley summer camp account. In her plea today, Howley admitted trying to skip paying for two of the three weeks the kids attended camp.
The youngsters, who live in New Mexico, were staying with her temporarily while her son was involved in marital troubles, a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the case told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Prosecutors also dropped a witness tampering charge that they said around from an attempt Howley allegedly made to conv0nce the borough’s Parks and Recreation director to lie to investigators.
Last year, Howley was accused of stealing from Costco while using the town’s card. Although she paid for her items and no charges were brought, town officials reprimanded her.
Another incident happened when the department of Parks and Recreation moved to a computer registration system. A source said employees who were being trained to use the system logged in with Howley’s ID and password. Somehow, her adult daughter was registered as a child. Again, nothing happened because Howley had enough passes to cover the expense, and no one in charge at Borough Hall was willing to make a case of it.
The pool and day camp investigation was conducted by the Confidential Investigations Unit of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of First Assistant Prosecutor William Galda and Chief of Detectives Steven Cucciniello.
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