New tax evasion charges were filed against a former Jersey Shore mayor less than a year after he settled a similar case brought against him in federal court.
A state grand jury last week indicted former Wildwood Mayor Peter Byron on new charges for failing to report employment from a source outside of the city and for failing to report on state tax returns how much he earned in that role, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said Monday.
Byron began serving Wildwood as mayor in 2020, resigning last September. The alleged misconduct, officials said Monday, happened between 2017 and 2018, when Byron served as a city commissioner.
During that time, he allegedly abused his position to acquire employment through an attorney affiliated with Wildwood, later omitting earnings made from his job on state tax filings. Other documents required by New Jersey did not list his employment with the law firm, officials said.
“Elected officeholders are expected to serve the public, not use their authority to line their own pockets,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement Monday.
Bryon is represented by Eric Shenkus, a public defender. A message left by NJ Advance Media for Shenkus was not immediately returned Monday.
The fresh indictment comes while the state attorney general has a pending case on Byron and two other city commissioners over unlawful gain of state health benefits.
Last March, he pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from tax fraud that, prosecutors said, shorted the IRS of about $7,000.
Byron resigned as mayor six weeks after pleading guilty in the federal court case, initially insisting he wouldn’t leave the job despite his guilty plea. He also served as the head of the city’s Department of Public Works, Parks & Public Property.
From October 2017 through September 2018, Byron received $40,425 in payments while employed in a sales position at a Gloucester County law firm, failing to disclose his earnings from the job on his tax returns, leading to the IRS being shorted about $7,000 in owed taxes, according to court papers.
It was unclear Monday if both the state and federal cases are linked, but state officials said Byron failed to pay state taxes from his employment in question between 2017 and 2018.
Meanwhile, Byron, Wildwood’s current mayor, Ernie Trioiano Jr., and the city’s deputy mayor, Steve Mikulski, face a precedent indictment in a separate corruption case involving their acquisition of state-fund health benefits.
Since 2010, New Jersey has required that elected officials be full-time employees to be enrolled in the state’s health benefits program. A full-time employee is defined as one “whose hours are fixed at 35 or more a week.”
All three, as part-time employees, state officials said, were ineligible to receive state health benefits. The trio say they were eligible to receive benefits, citing a 2011 city resolution that considered them serving in full-time positions.
That case potentially was moot when the charges in that case were dismissed without prejudice last July. The three were then, for a second time, indicted by a state grand jury on the same charges. The matter is still pending, state officials said.
As mayor, Byron’s supporters considered him instrumental in refurbishing Wildwood’s infrastructure, specifically the city’s famed boardwalk, an important source of revenue for the Jersey Shore town.
Byron, for the charges announced Monday, faces between five to 10 years in state prison and a fine of up to $150,000 if convicted.
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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.
