By LYNDA COHEN, BreakingAC
A Somers Point businessman accused in a fire set to cover up an armed home invasion had the charges against him dismissed after he was retroactively admitted into pretrial intervention.
Gregory Sykora, who previously served as chairman of the Somers Point Economic Development Commission, was charged in 2021, with obstruction of justice, hindering apprehension or prosecution, and witness tampering, in a fire that February at the Sure Storage business he owns on Chestnut Avenue.
The blaze burned evidence and property from what police at the time described as a violent home invasion the day before in Philadelphia. Sykora was never charged in the original crime.
He was accused of hiding the arsonist in his place of business when police came there, as well as withholding surveillance video of the crime and those involved, according to the charges and affidavit of probable cause.
Sykora previously insisted that he did not know the accused was at the facility. He also claimed he could not obtain the video due to a new surveillance system.
The case was on track to go to trial, but instead both sides agreed to allow him to enter the pretrial intervention program that lets those without a criminal record avoid prosecution.
Sykora did not have to plead guilty as a condition of his entrance.
In fact, he was given more than four months’ credit when the agreement was made during a pretrial hearing on July 11 of this year.
The pretrial intervention was marked completed in an order signed by Judge Bernard DeLury on Sept. 9, BreakingAC has confirmed.
“Our justice system truly works,” Sykora told BreakingAC, declining any further comment.
Sykora is the owner of ERCO Ceiling, Blinds and Floors and has continued to serve as a commissioner on the Atlantic County Board of Taxation throughout the case.
He was one of 18 people the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office named in January as being in positions of public trust when arrested.
