Former Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron pleads guilty to illegally receiving health benefits

The former mayor of Wildwood had pleaded guilty to theft by unlawful taking in connection with an indictment from last year that accused him of fraudulently participating in the New Jersey State Health Benefits Program by lying about working a full-time, 35-hour week in order to receive benefits.

Peter J. Byron entered his plea Friday in New Jersey Superior Court, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General said in a statement Monday. Byron also pleaded guilty Friday to falsifying or tampering with records and filing a fraudulent tax return in connection with an April indictment that accused him of failing to disclose a job he had accepted with a city attorney, and not paying taxes on the earnings from that position.

Byron previously pleaded guilty in March 2023 to federal tax charges in connection with that incident, and was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $21,000 in fines and restitution. He resigned from office in September 2023.

With Byron’s plea, both indictments have now been resolved, the state attorney general’s office said. As part of the agreement, the office recommended a three-year prison sentence. Additionally, Byron must also pay restitution and faces a lifetime ban from holding public office. He is slated to be sentenced in January.

“Illegally obtaining benefits is not what holding public office should be about. Rather, it should be about honorably serving the people you represent,” said Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. “This was a self-serving, nearly decadelong betrayal of the public’s trust that saddled New Jersey residents with a six-figure bill for the defendant’s personal gain.”

An attorney for Byron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the health-benefits case, Byron, Wildwood Mayor Ernest Troiano Jr., and City Commissioner Steve Mikulski were accused of asserting that they worked full time in order to qualify for taxpayer-funded health benefits for which part-time elected officials were not eligible. All three men, the state attorney general’s office alleges, did not maintain regular schedules, and their work hours were not fixed at 35 or more hours a week, so they did not qualify for the benefits.

Byron’s participation in the health benefits program cost taxpayers about $609,000 between July 2011 and October 2021, the office said.

Troiano’s and Mikulski’s cases remain ongoing.

Byron’s other case stems from an April indictment in which state prosecutors alleged that in 2017, he abused his position as Wildwood’s commissioner by taking an unspecified job from a city attorney. Prosecutors said that he failed to properly identify that position in mandatory disclosure forms, and failed to report income earned from the job on his state taxes in 2017 and 2018.

State prosecutors’ allegations were similar to those made by federal prosecutors in an earlier case. In their case, federal prosecutors said that Byron omitted more than $40,000 worth in income from a consulting job he had solicited.

When Byron was sentenced in the federal case in August 2023, he vowed to continue to serve as Wildwood’s mayor amid significant public support. The following month, he resigned, telling The Inquirer in a text message that he was “between a rock and a hard place.”

“People who know me still believe in me,” Byron said.