Landscaper bribed Nydam for no-bid contracts Guilty plea is latest involving Brick Township officials BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer A landscaping contractor here has pleaded guilty to bribing former public works director John H. "Jack" Nydam, bribes that resulted in more than $40,000 in no-bid snow-plowing contracts, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said. Lance Hadley, 38, admitted in federal court before U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden last week that he paid Nydam with two separate checks of $2,000 each. Hadley and Nydam conspired to disguise the payments by making false and fraudulent notes in the memo sections for a "boat purchase" and a "loader rental," authorities said. Nydam, who pleaded guilty to official misconduct, theft and witness tampering on April 3, 2006, is continuing to cooperate with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office. Federal authorities have characterized his cooperation as "substantial." His sentencing has been postponed five times. The charges involving Hadley do not name Nydam. But he was the public works director at the time. Nydam was responsible for hiring and deploying outside companies to plow snow in the township during emergency snow conditions, when it snowed more than 5 or 6 inches. He hired Lancescaping, Hadley's business, to plow snow in the township at least three times between December 2002 and March 2003, authorities said. Hadley pleaded guilty to one count of bribery, which carries a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26. Hadley remains free on a $10,000 bond. The news came as no surprise to Township Council President Stephen C. Acropolis, who was the lone Republican on the council in 2003. Acropolis that year challenged a $2,800 township contract to Lancescaping for landscaping work at the Dealaman farm tract on Herbertsville Road. Hadley's was by far the lowest bid, but it came with an unusual stipulation: Hadley would be allowed to store some of his equipment on the farm property. "I wasn't surprised," Acropolis said late last week. "I talked about this in 2003, to let people know what was going on." Acropolis said in 2003 that over time, Hadley began to run his business on the site, stored more trucks and equipment, used township-paid utilities and built greenhouses on the property without permission. He reported the matter to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, after the township agreed to buy the greenhouses and assorted equipment from Lancescaping for $5,000. That incurred the wrath of then-Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli, who called it one of the most "irresponsible" actions he'd seen as mayor at a stormy October 2003 council meeting. Scarpelli resigned last Dec. 8. One month later, he pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark to accepting bribes from an unnamed developer. Acropolis said recently he thought Hadley's guilty plea last week and the Dealaman property issue were connected. "It's all intertwined, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "It doesn't matter to me what he [Hadley] goes for. Anybody that does anything wrong needs to be held accountable. I think that's what you have right now. All he [Christie} needs to do is get you on that one thing." A December 2002 memo from then-Administrator Scott A. MacFadden warned Hadley that he was operating a commercial enterprise on the Dealaman property. The Green Acres violated the township's ability to receive future funding, he said in the memo. "We knew something was wrong," Acropolis said. "It didn't look right back then in 2003. It didn't seem right. It's not a happy day. You have to be in public service for public service and not self-service. I think the people that are here now are for public service." Hadley's plea is another step in the "cleansing process," he said. "Moving the town out of what has been a long U.S. Attorney's investigation and hopefully getting the township back on a sound footing again. We hope to restore some of the confidence people have in elected officials. Every time something like this happens, people say that all officials are corrupt."