A former state DOT official has pled guilty to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding construction and maintenance contracts. Last week a judge sentenced the former official to house arrest, community service, and a small fine.
Nicholas Martino was Assistant District Executive in PennDOT’s District Six for years. He accepted personal payments from an as-yet unnamed PennDOT contractor. In return he awarded them contracts, told inspectors to approve their work even when there were problems, and even looked the other way when the contractor didn’t do the work they were hired for. When an inspector refused to sign off on work that hadn’t been completed, he had the inspector fired.
“This state employee played with taxpayer money in order to get a payout for himself,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “He accepted bribes and knowingly allowed a contractor to not perform their work under their contract with state government.”
Martino is not the only former PennDOT employee to have corruption, bribery, or fraud charges brought against him. Since 2013, investigators have been charging and sentencing a steady stream of DOT inspectors, DOT managers, and contractors involved in multimillion-dollar fraud and bribery schemes. Martino was only charged after a cooperating witness gave evidence against him.
After pleading guilty to ‘conflict of interest – restricted activities,’ Martino was sentenced to between 9 and 23 months of home incarceration, 50 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
Source: DOT, DOT, DOT, DOT, tribdem, chicagotribune, 6abc, tiogapublishing
Explains their crappy roads. From the looks of it there are others in other states. The judge and prosecutors must have been paid off too so he got off so easy.
I was thinking the same thing. They got paid off.
No jail time ? How is this possible?
Dot is wrong why they get the people some help for the first time charger why stop them from getting a job I thank that money buy anything
No jail time? Gosh, what a surprise!
This clown cost an inspector his job because he refused to sign off on substandard work, and he took bribes, and that’s all he gets? Wonder who he knows? If that was you or me, we’d be doing 20 years.
SEEMS AS THO PAYMENTS/KIK BAKKS R TH NORM IN PA……WATCH TH MOVIE KIDS FOR CASH [ NETFLIX ]- ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Thats what happens when they are all playing rounds of golf together and going to the same parties and social gatherings. Penn State: The land of BRIBES and NO JAIL TIME! HOORAH!
Why not give him a gold medal and a promotion?
Try the dot on staten island new york, they put trucks out of service for dumb things like lights, they call a tow truck and tow truck picks and dropps the truck next exit which is less than half a mile, price $900 tell me they don’t get some money out of that? Where is the f.b.i ? They get about 20-40 trucks a day! That’s right a day!
Huh. Sounds like the judge might have been on the take, too.
Felony with no jail time,cost people their jobs and gets hit peepee slapped!!
Where is the justice???
Wow! like this something new Lmao!
Whether or not Judge is in on this…he knows better not tangle with organized crime. Appearances are everyone including AG has their fingers in this pot or someone would really(come on now, really?) pay for crimes against the republic.
Buy buy rule of law an c u in the Caymans.
pay odds rip offs. I worked for a small company. the owner got a contract withe the state of ill . He furnished trucks to haul asphault. It was my job to take an envelope with cash to the inspector every monday morning. If I didn’t have it our loads were rejected. We returned to the plant. Did nothing but sit there until the envelope was brought to me and we returned to the job site. I never once hid giving it to the state inspector . Then again Ill is more corrupt than DC is.
Thanks for the poorly written, light on details story. Nothing like a shallow dive into the facts, not even thename of the judge handing out the non-punishment.
Judge on take 110%
Fines him $10,000, but how much did he make on bribes? Basically, they’re not going to do anything horrible to you for doing it, so it will not only continue, but will probably happen more often.
Frankly, if you’re in control of any government position that you use fraudulently, you should be sentenced to death. Off with your head.
Another example of the two tier justice system that doesn’t hold the rich, politically connected to the law.
We need to take America back!
Hang the mfr
Got to love this screwed up country