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Princeton Township Employee Charged with Illegal Dumping

Mercer County

Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo J. Onofri announced today that a third individual has been charged in his office’s investigation into illegal dumping in Princeton Township.

According to authorities, on Wednesday, October 16, a summons complaint was signed charging Mr. Frank Casole, 60, as an accomplice to bribery in the second-degree.

Police say Casole is a Princeton Township employee who works at the Princeton Sewer Operating Committee (SOC) yard on River Road.

The complaint alleges that between April 1, 2018, and August 31, 2018, Casole committed the offense of complicity to bribery by aiding Thomas Hughes in his bribery scheme.

Casole is accused of having knowledge of his co-defendant’s bribe, and also helping record and conceal the crime by accounting and co-mingling construction waste with other waste so it wouldn’t be discovered.

Co-defendants Hughes, a Princeton Township supervisor, was charged in June 2019 and Pantelis Kounelias, the owner of V & K Construction in Edison, was charged in September 2019.

Kounelias is accused of paying Hughes approximately $3,000 in bribes to allow him to dump excavated soil from a water park project at the Princeton SOC yard.

The cases against both men are pending. Kounelias’ next court appearance is scheduled for October 30. Hughes’ next court appearance is scheduled for November 20.

Onofri stated that the charges are the result of an investigation by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Economic Crime Unit (ECU).

The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact the ECU at (609) 989-6365. Casole is scheduled to appear in Mercer County Superior Court on October 31.

Despite having been charged, all persons are presumed innocent until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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