Essex County Sheriff’s Chief John Dough is literally rolling in dough, thanks to a decade-long double-dipping scheme.

Dough has cheated a state pension fund out of $860,000, according to a New Jersey Watchdog investigation.

In addition to his $114,000 annual salary from Essex, Dough draws $77,500 a year from the state Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (PFRS).  The key to the scam is a strategic fudging of his job title that has allowed him to trick the pension system.

When Dough retired in 2000 as a deputy chief of the Newark Police Department,  Sheriff Armando Fontoura hired Dough as his new chief officer.  As sheriff’s chief, Dough should have been required to re-enroll in PFRS and forfeit pension checks until he leaves the job, according to state rules.

Instead, Dough improperly collected $763,000 in pension payments.  In addition, he should have contributed 8.5 percent – around $97,000 – of his new earnings to the PFRS fund.

To fool pension officials, Essex County personnel records listed Dough as “chief warrant officer” – a different and lesser position that is exempt from PFRS.   That charade allowed Dough to turn the pension fund into his personal jackpot, collecting both retirement checks and paychecks for more than 10 years.

The fact that Dough really functions as the sheriff’s chief – and not a lower-ranking chief warrant officer – is documented in public records:

• Dough identified himself as “Chief of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office” in a 2001 statement to a Congressional committee.
• Under oath in 2007, Dough testified as “Chief of the Sheriff’s Department” to the state Public Employment Relations Commission,
• According a state Civil Service Commission decision in 2009, Dough was the “Chief, Sheriff’s Office,” who supervised and outranked a Sheriff’s Officer Captain.
• The Essex County Sheriff’s official web site proclaimed: “As Chief of the Department, Chief Dough is responsible for the day to day operations of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office.”

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