Former Campaign Treasurer for LoBiondo Sentenced for Embezzlement

CAMDEN – The former campaign treasurer for Representative Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey was sentenced Wed., Sept. 7 to 30 months in prison for embezzling more than $450,000 from the congressman’s election and re-election campaign accounts, announced New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward of the FBI’s Newark, N.J., Field Office.
Andrew J. McCrosson Jr., 60, of Egg Harbor Township, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas to a criminal Information charging him with one count of wire fraud and one count of embezzling and converting funds contributed to a federal candidate.
According to the Information to which McCrosson pleaded guilty and statements made in Camden federal court:
McCrosson was the campaign treasurer for LoBiondo from 1995 through Aug. 23, 2010. The election and re-election campaign committees were known as LoBiondo for Congress. As campaign treasurer, McCrosson was responsible for maintaining the campaign committee’s financial records, keeping track of contributions to and expenditures of the campaign committee and filing necessary submissions with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). McCrosson was paid a fee for his services ranging between $3,000 and $8,000, either per election cycle or per calendar year.
The campaign committee maintained bank accounts into which campaign contributions were deposited and from which expenditures were paid. During the guilty plea hearing, McCrosson acknowledged that he controlled those bank accounts on behalf of the campaign committee and was responsible for reporting all campaign contributions and expenses to the FEC. McCrosson admitted that from 1995 to August 2010, he wrote checks totaling approximately $458,000 from the LoBiondo for Congress bank accounts to himself without authorization and for no legitimate campaign purpose. According to the Information, McCrosson used the embezzled funds for personal purposes such as the repayment of a federal income tax lien, home mortgage payments, college tuition payments for his children and other living expenses.
McCrosson failed to report to the FEC all of the checks he wrote to himself, in an effort to conceal his theft. McCrosson also admitted that he materially misrepresented in these FEC filings the amount of cash on hand held by the campaign committee in its bank accounts to further conceal his embezzlement from Congressman LoBiondo, the campaign committee, the FEC and the public.
LoBiondo represents the Second Congressional District which includes all of Salem, Cumberland and Cape May counties and parts of Gloucester, Atlantic and Burlington counties. McCrosson performed his duties as campaign treasurer for the committee from his home in Marmora and later from his home in Egg Harbor Township.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Irenas sentenced McCrosson to three years of supervised release and ordered him to serve 100 hours of community service and pay $458,000 in restitution to LoBiondo for Congress.
McCrosson served on the Upper Township Committee, including five years as mayor of the township.
“When this story broke a few years ago, we asked our auditor to give us guidance,” said Rich Palombo, Upper Township’s current mayor. “Just to make sure, we had Dan Young (Upper Township Solicitor), call the U.S. Attorney’s office and they said they had no reason to feel that Upper Township was involved.”
In commenting about McCrosson’s sentence, Palombo said, “Every public official needs to be held to very high standards. These kinds of things can’t be condoned.”
The case was investigated by the FBI. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skahill of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Camden, as well as Trial Attorneys Tracee Plowell and Nancy Simmons of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section in Washington.