(Source: Jerseyshoreonline.com)

OCEAN COUNTY – A Seaside Heights man will spend a decade in prison after he admitted to stealing from a Superstorm Sandy fraud grant.

45-year-old Robert Brower was sentenced Friday to stealing from a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant in the amount of $225,000, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.

Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said Brower had pleaded guilty in January to second-degree financial facilitation of criminal activity.

He admitted that he stole over $225,000 from a grant he received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and transferred the funds to a bank account he created using his deceased father’s social security number and date of birth in order to conceal the proceeds of the theft. An investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigations Unit and Agents from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development revealed that in August 2015, Brower received a grant under the department’s Land Lord Repair Program, in order to repair 33 Sampson Avenue in Seaside Heights. On February 19, 2016, Brower received a payment of $229,395.22 from the program as part of a construction advance.