Every driver knows that one of the differences between a good job and a bad job is having either a good dispatcher or a bad dispatcher.
A New Jersey dispatcher– who is also an illegal immigrant– is accused of accepting cash bribes from drivers and then not fulfilling the promises he made to provide the men with better, more lucrative loads.
Now, we’re not dumb, we know this is going on at carriers across the country. I know dispatchers who’ve gotten new top-of-the-line mattresses and vacations from drivers, but what makes this dispatcher so special is that he was openly accepting monetary bribes AND he is an illegal immigrant.
By Seth Augenstein/The Star-Ledger
An illegal resident of the United States was the dispatcher for a local warehouse who accepted bribes from independent truckers in exchange for the most lucrative delivery routes over a period of years, local police say.
Jorge Martinez-Lopez, a 46-year-old from New Brunswick, used the name Martin “George” Serrano in his years as a dispatcher for the Propak Distribution warehouse in Dayton.
Two drivers complained to the police of handing over $18,000 to Martinez-Lopez during the last eight years. When the two independent truck contractors first started with Propak, they were not getting any routes — and other drivers told them they needed to pay the dispatcher.
Martinez-Lopez had recently raised the payment rates and the two drivers could no longer afford to pay him to keep the routes coming – so they reported him, the police said.
“They were very hesitant to report the incident,” said Det. Sgt. James Ryan of the South Brunswick Police.
Propak Distribution had looked into the allegations of bribery — but had believed the dispatcher’s explanation that the money was repayment for previous loans to drivers, Ryan added.
But when Martinez-Lopez was processed at the police station after being arrested August 10, his fingerprints showed that the man who went by the name Serrano at the warehouse was really Jorge Martinez-Lopez, according to the records. Martinez-Lopez had been convicted for illegally entering the United State in 1993, and had been deported, the police say the records showed.
Propak Distribution, when reached by phone, had no comment.
The man now being identified as Martinez-Lopez was charged with theft by deception and providing false information to police. He was taken to the Middlesex County Corrections Center with a detainer from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.