How a city Building Department advanced bribery, while employees who reported irregularities faced retaliation.

PATERSON, N.J. — Jose Fermin started at the Paterson Building Department as a trainee earning $32,500 in February 2016, two years before Mayor Andre Sayegh took office. By November 2021 he was a zoning inspector making $47,396. By the time state investigators arrested him in February 2023, he had climbed to assistant zoning officer at $59,999. According to investigators, the salary trajectory tracked neatly with the bribery scheme he ran from December 2020 through February 2022.

Fermin pleaded guilty on May 8 to second-degree conspiracy to commit official misconduct. Prosecutors from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office of Public Integrity and Accountability say he sold fraudulent zoning certificates to applicants who never submitted building plans. He also taught co-conspirators to forge the signature of Planning and Zoning Director Michael Deutsch, according to the charging complaint. Deutsch was not charged and his role in the case, if any, was not specified in court records. There is also no evidence in court records that Mayor Sayegh was aware of Fermin's bribery scheme.

Some applicants paid cash for permits that required no inspection, no engineering review, and no proof that their construction met code. Prosecutors did not disclose how many fraudulent permits were issued, how much money Fermin collected, or whether any construction under those permits caused safety incidents.

The state has recommended three years in prison and a lifetime ban from public employment. Fermin will learn his sentence on July 31. Co-conspirators Jose Juan Guerrero-Cruz and Alfonlly Monegro-Camilo also pleaded guilty:  Guerrero-Cruz to third-degree official misconduct, Monegro-Camilo to third-degree forgery.

What the plea papers do not answer is how Fermin operated for more than two years inside a department where employees who reported irregularities faced retaliation, according to administrative findings. 

David Gilmore ran the city's Community Improvements Division. In 2020 he noticed what he later called "non-kosher things" inside the construction code unit: uneven application of regulations, public safety violations, and $152,000 in uncollected fines because construction official Jerry Lobozzo had failed to update violation statuses in the system. 

Gilmore testified that he refused a bribe attempt from a local business owner and that he reported Lobozzo's dereliction to state and federal law enforcement, though the business owner was never charged. The city fired Gilmore in April 2022. The official reason was a sexual harassment complaint filed by Sandra Pavon, a technical assistant in the construction office. Pavon had been hired in February 2021 at $50,000, right when Fermin's bribery scheme was accelerating, though no evidence currently links Pavon to the Fermin case.

The Civil Service Commission reversed Gilmore's termination in May 2023. Administrative Law Judge Gail Cookson found that the city "wholly failed to meet its burden of proof" and that Pavon was "not credible in nearly all respects." Cookson ruled that Pavon's harassment allegations were "orchestrated by then-construction official Jerry Lobozzo" and that Gilmore had been "railroaded" for trying to expose irregularities. The commission ordered back pay and counsel fees. 

Gilmore filed a federal retaliation lawsuit that remained pending as of last year; no subsequent docket update has been reported. Lobozzo's specific authority within the construction office, and whether he supervised Fermin directly could not be determined from available records. Lobozzo did not respond to requests for comment. He was never criminally charged.

In a separate case, interim assistant zoning officer Jesus Castro sued the city in August 2021, alleging he was blocked from promotion after investigating permit irregularities at a Sayegh-allied property. Castro had also supported Sayegh's 2018 opponent, Alex Mendez. Castro says Lobozzo and his staff blocked him from obtaining certificate-of-occupancy documents and engineering reports.

When Castro contacted the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office Public Integrity division, Osner Charles, hired under Sayegh, reprimanded him and instructed him not to reach out to prosecutors again. The Civil Service Commission later found that Castro was working out of title and entitled to a $70,000 salary. The city refused to pay or promote him. Castro's lawsuit remained unresolved as of this writing.

While Gilmore and Castro were being pushed out, the city advanced Fermin twice while the bribery scheme was active: a personnel process that never flagged the criminal activity. State investigators finally caught him through an undercover operation. They told him his car had been damaged and arrested him when he showed up to check.

The Department of Community Affairs seized control of Paterson's construction office in September 2024, six months after Fermin's indictment. DCA administrators found "many discrepancies and missing files." DCA spokesperson Lisa Ryan said the monitoring was "not connected to the bribery case," though the timing and scope raised questions that the city has not answered. 

Developer Charles Florio, who has built multiple projects in Paterson, said the office's problems stemmed from having only two plan reviewers for a city of 150,000 residents, not from corruption. Councilman Councilman Michael Jackson, who represents the ward where several disputed projects are located, countered that "corruption was rampant at the city building office."

Pavon herself became a problem after Gilmore's firing. In March 2025 the city moved to terminate her, accusing her of putting "Paterson under extreme risk at the expense of its citizens and employees by allowing illegal unchecked permits." Mayor Sayegh refused to answer how many housing units were involved. 

The Sayegh administration did not respond to requests for comment on whether the mayor was briefed on the Fermin investigation. New construction official Ahmed Sileem, appointed in January 2025 after the state takeover, inherited an office where employees who reported problems had been fired or blocked, the records were still missing, and the permits were still being investigated.

The Attorney General's Office has held up the Fermin pleas as proof that it enforces ethics standards. "Public officials must be held to the highest standards," Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in the May 8 announcement. Her office has touted more than 150 successful corruption dispositions since 2018.

Davenport's statement comes as OPIA faces documented setbacks in other cases. A Rutgers Policy Lab study published in March found that the bureau has never charged one of its own prosecutors with misconduct despite documented Brady violations in the Osher Eisemann case, a nine-year prosecution that collapsed after a conviction was overturned and a retrial dismissed. A Saddle Brook police chief's indictment was thrown out in 2022 after a judge found a prosecutor had "left out critical information" to the grand jury. Paterson Councilmen Alex Mendez and Michael Jackson have been awaiting trial on election fraud charges for more than four years while serving in office.

State Senator Nicholas Scutari introduced legislation last October to weaken the State Comptroller's oversight of OPIA, a move that would reduce external accountability for the bureau at a moment when its own track record is under scrutiny.

Fermin is scheduled for sentencing on July 31. The Department of Community Affairs continues to monitor Paterson's construction office. Gilmore's federal lawsuit and Castro's federal lawsuit both remain unresolved.

Sources

• NJ Office of Attorney General, press release, "Three Defendants Plead Guilty in Connection with Scheme Involving Forged Paterson Zoning Certificates in Exchange for Illegal Payments" (May 8, 2026)

• NJ Office of Attorney General, press release, "Paterson Housing and Zoning Inspector Charged with Issuing Fraudulent Building Permits" (February 17, 2023)

• NJ Office of Attorney General, press release, "AG Platkin Announces Seven-Count Indictment Against Paterson Zoning Inspector and Co-Conspirator" (February 28, 2024)

• New Jersey Civil Service Commission, "In the Matter of David Gilmore" (May 3, 2023)

• NorthJersey.com / Paterson Press, "Former Paterson zoning officer faces prison after guilty plea" (May 10, 2026)

• NorthJersey.com / Paterson Press, "NJ will oversee Paterson troubled building code agency" (September 24, 2024)

• NorthJersey.com / Paterson Press, "Paterson seeks to fire worker who allegedly issued building permits without inspections" (March 28, 2025)

• Paterson Times, "Corrupt Paterson zoning official pleads guilty, faces three years" (May 11, 2026)

• Paterson Times, "Paterson official files federal lawsuit alleging retaliation" (June 12, 2020)

• Paterson Times, "Paterson zoning official files federal lawsuit alleging retaliation" (August 27, 2021)

• Rutgers Policy Lab, "Overseeing Official Misconduct: Does the New Jersey Solution Engender Integrity and Accountability?" (March 30, 2026)

• NJ Globe, "Embattled N.J. public corruption unit acts tough, but can they win a conviction?" (August 7, 2024)

• NJ Monitor, "NJ Senate president calls for oversight of state anti-corruption unit" (October 10, 2025)