Robert Keith Williams pleaded guilty in 2011 to performing private work to a home while being paid by the city.
TRENTON -- A former Trenton Water Works employee was sentenced today to five years of probation for performing private work on a home he partly owned while being paid by the city.
Robert Keith Williams, 52, pleaded guilty in October 2011 to performing work to the Webster Street home with other employees under the direction of his supervisor, Stanley “Muscles” Davis, who is the brother of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack.
“Maybe I should have rebelled and refused to work or whatever the case may have been, but I didn’t,” Williams said before his sentencing. “Every day I wake up and think I should have rebelled against what was going on, but didn’t.”
Under the terms of the plea deal, Williams faced a three-year prison sentence, but Superior Court Judge Mark Fleming reduced the sentence to probation with a possibility of 364 days in county jail if the requirements of his probation are not met. He also forfeited his right to hold public employment in the future.
Davis, 53, is serving six years in prison for corruption. A third defendant, Wally Nance, 47, was admitted in October into a pretrial intervention program on a separate unemployment fraud case in a deal with prosecutors that will lead to the official misconduct charges being dropped.
Fleming today acknowledged that Williams was not the first or only city employee to abuse his power.
“There are more than a few government employees who wish to take advantage of the access or privileges they wish to achieve, always at the expense of the taxpayer,” Fleming said. “He should have refused to participate, although many others were doing the same.”
Assistant Prosecutor Jim Scott has said the work was done on a holiday and the crew received holiday pay.
“Mr. Williams abused the trust as a public employee,” Scott said. “He understood that what he was doing was wrong.”
Williams has served time in prison for drug charges, but has been sober and out of jail for more than 10 years, he said. Since his plea in 2011, he has started a home repair business and has taken care of his two grandchildren, he said.
“I know when I got out of prison in 2001 I said I’d do anything, I’d sell balloons on the corner to not go back to prison,” Williams said. “I should have just stood up on that particular day.”
Williams and his attorney Travis Harrell declined to comment after the sentencing.
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