New Jersey voided 1,660 Trenton Water Works sampling events after collector Cesar Lugo faked his rounds. The city faces a $235,000 fine, higher rates for 217,000 customers starting October 2, and a suburban lawsuit over who runs the system.
A former Trenton Water Works sample collector was sentenced Friday to three years in state prison for falsifying water-quality records during what prosecutors describe as a six-week job in the fall of 2023. Cesar Lugo, 38, of Trenton, was sentenced under a plea agreement calling for concurrent three-year terms on third-degree tampering with public records and Safe Drinking Water Act violations, with a two-year period of parole ineligibility. On October 2, the utility begins phasing in higher rates for the approximately 217,000 residents it serves across five Mercer County municipalities, under a repair plan for a system under state oversight since October 2022.
Trenton Water Works hired Lugo as a water sample collector on October 1, 2023. According to the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, court filings and in-court statements show he “knowingly submitted fraudulent or falsified water testing results and fraudulent or falsified chain of custody forms,” failed to collect required samples and submitted timesheets claiming payment for work he did not perform. A grand jury indicted him in May 2025 on two counts of second-degree official misconduct, third-degree theft by deception, Safe Drinking Water Act tampering, tampering with public records and fourth-degree falsifying records.
The Attorney General's filings put Lugo's employment at six weeks. The New Jersey Vindicator, reviewing payroll records that were obtained through a public-records request, found he was paid for over 100 hours of overtime during the period he is “believed to have falsified his work.” The utility placed him on administrative leave, notified the DEP on November 14, 2023, and later terminated him; the DEP referred the incident to the Division of Criminal Justice.
In a December 3, 2024 statement, the city announced new sampling safeguards: GPS tracking on its fleet vehicles, pairing of employees with supervisors, mandatory photo documentation of sample sites, tablet-based collection software and additional training. According to Trenton mayor Reed Gusciora, the investigation began after neighbors reported the employee's city-issued car parked at home.
The state voided 1,660 sampling events and fined the city $235,000
An October 2022 unilateral administrative order had put the utility under direct state operational oversight, citing its “failure to properly operate and maintain the System,” its “failure to cover or adequately treat its uncovered reservoir,” the potential for Legionella and lead risks, and its “failure to advance capital improvements.” A state-hired third-party overseer had kept a weekly on-site presence since that November. The DEP asked the utility to show its collection met state regulations, then joined an independent consultant in a forensic evaluation of sampling data from November 2022 through November 2023.
By June 2024 the DEP had what it needed to finish. The evaluation invalidated 1,660 sampling events; the DEP said most of the utility's self-collected samples for the period were invalid, leaving it without complete datasets for “total coliform bacteria, disinfectant byproducts, iron and manganese and water quality parameters.”
The DEP said it does not believe the invalid data posed an immediate health risk: disinfectant residuals “were consistently maintained throughout the distribution system during this time,” based on the utility's low-velocity flushing program and DEP-led sampling. A review of November 2023 compliance samples collected by the utility's other two collectors also came back satisfactory. On August 22, 2024, the DEP cited the utility for its monitoring and reporting failures; on September 30 it issued a “Notice of Administrative Order and Civil Administrative Penalty Assessment” with a $235,000 civil penalty and a remedial action plan due in 30 days. The violations carried a Tier 3 public-notification requirement; the DEP ordered the more timely Tier 2 notice instead, and the utility mailed it to customers on November 27, 2024, a year after the conduct ended.
As of Sunday, the city had issued no statement on the sentence; its on-record position remains the December 3, 2024 statement calling the conduct “a clear violation of public trust.” State officials did the talking: “Safe drinking water is a fundamental need, and it is critical that the people charged with keeping our water supplies safe and clean do their jobs with diligence and professionalism,” state Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in the announcement. Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Edward Potosnak said the falsification “damages public trust in an essential public service.” Deputy Attorney General Dom Stockton-Rossini prosecuted the case.
Ratepayers fund half the rebuild
The city's July 27 newsflash puts the municipal capital plan at $763 million, financed mostly by low-interest state infrastructure-bank loans repaid from customer rates. The money is earmarked for a new reservoir and pumping station, lead-line replacement and filtration plant upgrades. A Raftelis rate study released through a public-records request breaks down the details: Block 2 rates rise 58 percent in fiscal 2026 and 40 percent in fiscal 2027, with $272,645,000 in planned New Jersey Infrastructure Bank loans, and about $18.5 million in bills sat more than 120 days delinquent across more than 19,000 accounts, some possibly uncollectible because of longstanding billing errors, according to an April 13 analysis by Marc Leckington. Officials say the utility “must undertake at least $1 billion in capital upgrades over the next 10 to 15 years,” according to Princeton Info.
The City Council adopted the new rate structure in February 2026; the mayor announced a July 1 start in a March 11 op-ed; the city said on July 27 that billing begins October 2, at $2.22 for each quarter's first 15 hundred cubic feet and $3.33 for everything above that. Census Bureau figures show 62 percent of Trenton households rent; renter households earned a median of $31,593 in the 2022 American Community Survey five-year estimates.
Whether the city has paid or appealed the $235,000 penalty is not clear from the public record. TWW spokesman Michael Walker said in August 2025 that he did not know.
Four townships are suing over who runs the water system
Four suburban townships (Hopewell, Hamilton, Ewing and Lawrence) have sued over the system's management, a case now on hold. Two independent assessments finalized in January 2025 examined the utility's technical, managerial and financial capacity and weighed alternative governance structures, including a new publicly owned utility independent of city government. That month the DEP put the utility at “extremely high risk of systemic failure,” and on January 27, 2025, Commissioner Shawn LaTourette called for restructuring the system.
Gusciora pushed back in an August 4, 2025 statement: “A study of regionalization? Absolutely. But a forced transfer of Trenton's water assets and authority without guarantees or meaningful local input? That's not governance—that's coercion.” In the Statehouse, the Citizen's Fund Act — reintroduced this session as S1283 and A1067 by Senator Linda Greenstein (D, 14th District) and Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo (D, 14th District) — sits in committee with no vote scheduled.
The new rates begin phasing in October 2. The docket and the fine payment should surface in the coming weeks. The collections are still the utility's own, now under the safeguards announced in December 2024.
Related Articles
Trenton Raises Water Rates as Wealthy Suburbs Sue to Take the System
NJ American Water Seeks $146M Hike as BPU Deadline Looms
Trenton Roebling Demolition to Cost $620K, City Seeks State Funds
Sources
• City of Trenton, newsflash: "Mayor Gusciora's Preliminary Response to the DEP's Letter Regarding Trenton Water Works" (August 4, 2025)
• City of Trenton, newsflash: "Statement from Mayor W. Reed Gusciora on Trenton Water Works" (December 3, 2024)
• City of Trenton, newsflash: "Trenton Water Works Launches New Phases of Lead Service Line Replacements" (January 20, 2026)
• City of Trenton, newsflash: "Trenton Water Works to Begin Implementing New Water Rates October 2" (July 27, 2026)
• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, FY2027 Budget Discussion Points — Response on Trenton Water Works Capital Improvement Plan (accessed September 20, 2026)
• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, "Trenton Water Works — Direct Operational Oversight" incl. Data Integrity Investigation FAQ (accessed September 20, 2026)
• New Jersey Legislature, Senate Bill S1283 / Assembly Bill A1067, "Citizen's Fund Act" (2026–2027 session)
• New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, "Former Trenton Water Works Employee Charged with Falsifying Water Quality Sampling Records" (May 12, 2025)
• New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, "Former Trenton Water Works Employee Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Failing to Collect Samples and Submitting False Test Data" (September 18, 2026)
• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey and QuickFacts, Trenton city, New Jersey (accessed September 20, 2026)
• Delaware Currents, "State warns of looming 'systemic failure' at Trenton Water Works" (January 31, 2025)
• Jersey Vindicator, "State voided TWW tests, levied $235K fine" (August 5, 2025)
• Jersey Vindicator, "State vs. Trenton: Water system on brink sparks clash over control, race, responsibility" (August 19, 2025)
• New Jersey Monitor, "Worker collected OT while home faking water samples for testing, records show" (December 6, 2024)
• Princeton Info, "Debate Rages Over Control of Trenton Water Works" (May 19, 2026)
• WHYY, "N.J. environmental regulators call for overhaul of Trenton Water Works" (January 27, 2025)
• Gusciora, Reed, Mayor of Trenton, "Building a better Trenton Water Works," Jersey Vindicator (March 11, 2026)
• Leckington, Marc, From the Mains of Trenton, "Trenton's New Water Rates Fund Half the Rebuild" (April 13, 2026)
Photo: Famartin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (modified for display)