By John Burton
FREEHOLD – A Sea Bright man was sentenced Friday to probation and must pay restitution for defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of more than $12,000 in the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy.
William Nagle, 52, a former tenant of a Center Street apartment in Sea Bright, was sentenced in state Superior Court to two years probation and has to pay $12,114 for misappropriating funds from FEMA’s Transitional Shelter Assistance Program, according to Charles Webster, a spokesman for the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.
Nagle had pleaded guilty in February to one count of theft by deception for spending 68 nights in various hotels from Jan. 14 through March 23, 2013. Nagle’s apartment complex had been damaged by flooding from the October 2012 storm and was deemed uninhabitable. However, Nagle’s apartment, which was located in the building’s third floor, received a certificate of occupancy on Dec. 29, 2012, which would have allowed him to return home at that point, according to Webster.
Nagle was arrested as part of a investigation undertaken by the prosecutor’s office’s Super Storm Sandy Fraud Task Force, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
