Update, May 12, 2026: Pocono Review has since obtained the complaint (Winot v. Keppler, No. 5988 CV 2025). A correction to the timeline: Winot filed a Writ of Summons on September 16, 2025 — six weeks before the election — not after it. The complaint followed on November 24-25, after Keppler’s attorney filed a motion compelling Winot to file or have the case dismissed. The September letter from Riegel to Keppler was sent after the writ had already been served.

[ The short version: Brian Winot sat on the Pocono Township Board of Commissioners while his construction company and his business partner’s development firm did business with the township. He abstained on votes when the connections were obvious — but voted yes on others where the same conflicts existed. When a resident raised ethics concerns, Winot sued him for defamation. Winot resigned the same night his company won another township contract. Pennsylvania law required written disclosures before any of those votes. The meeting minutes show none.

Long version below ]

Before Brian Winot was appointed to the Pocono Township Board of Commissioners in Monroe County, Pennsylvania in 2024, his construction company had already built his future business partner’s hotel. That relationship — between Winot’s Northeast Site Contractors and developer Dante Trapasso’s Trap Enterprises — would form the foundation of a business partnership that Winot brought with him onto the board that regulated both of their interests.

For nearly two years, Winot voted on development projects tied to Trapasso’s companies, on ordinances that directly benefited Trapasso’s real estate holdings, and on matters involving at least one other developer with whom he later acknowledged a business relationship. He abstained on some votes — the most obvious ones — but cast yes votes on others where the connections ran just as deep.

When a Pocono Township resident named Charles Keppler began raising ethics concerns from the public comment podium, citing Pennsylvania’s conflict of interest law by statute number, Winot filed a civil lawsuit — on September 16, 2025, six weeks before the election. His attorney sent Keppler a letter that same month, after the writ had already been served. Keppler won election to the board in November 2025. The complaint was filed November 24-25.

He resigned from the board four days later, on the same evening his company submitted the winning bid on a township contract it had previously held — and been released from — earlier that year.

The Construction Company and the Developer

Northeast Site Contractors, headquartered at 3006 Route 611 in Tannersville, is a PennDOT-prequalified highway and site work contractor operating across northeastern Pennsylvania. Winot is its president. According to the company’s public website, his son Dalton Winot serves as Assistant Vice President of Operations and his son Nic Winot as Assistant Survey Technician.

Northeast Site’s own website lists The Swiftwater of the Poconos among its completed projects, describing the job as requiring “the installation of a massive, underground stormwater retention system, the first of its kind in our area.” The Swiftwater is Dante Trapasso’s luxury 100-room boutique hotel on Route 611 in Swiftwater. The Scranton Chamber of Commerce reported that site work began in August 2022 and the hotel broke ground on January 5, 2023.

Trapasso, managing partner of Trap Enterprises LLC, confirmed the connection publicly. “We love this area and we love the community mindset that we have here,” Trapasso told WBRE/WYOU in January 2024 as the hotel neared completion. The Trapasso family also owns and operates Desaki Restaurant on Route 611 in Swiftwater, adjacent to the hotel.

By the time Winot joined the board, he and Trapasso were already business partners in Trapasso & Winot Enterprises LLC. Winot’s own campaign website states that through this entity he “helped bring Monroe County’s first Sheetz” to Swiftwater and is “leading the development of 356 townhomes in Swiftwater” — a reference to the Ridge at Swiftwater, a 376-unit townhome project on the former Brookdale Resort property along Route 611 in Tannersville, developed by Trap Enterprises LLC. Northeast Site’s portfolio page also lists the Swiftwater Sheetz project.

The Ridge had been conditionally approved by the board on January 16, 2024 — before Winot’s appointment. WFMZ reported the unanimous vote that night. Winot was appointed to fill the vacancy later in 2024 after Jerrod Belvin, then a sitting commissioner, transitioned to the role of Pocono Township Manager. But the conflict traveled with him: Trapasso & Winot Enterprises LLC was active at the time of the Ridge approval, and once Winot joined the board, he faced votes on ongoing Trapasso-linked matters with mixed results on disclosure. At the March 12, 2025 meeting, he himself moved to exclude the Ridge from the township’s LERTA tax assistance district — a motion that acknowledged the conflict. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, March 12, 2025) Whether he should have disclosed the Trapasso relationship on every vote touching Trap Enterprises projects is the thread that runs through the rest of this investigation.

The Contract

In March 2025, Winot voted with the full board to advertise the Learn Road Roundabout project for competitive bidding. The March 12, 2025 meeting minutes contain no abstention and no conflict of interest disclosure on this vote. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, March 12, 2025)

On April 7, 2025, the township engineer reported that bids had come in: Northeast Site Contractors was the low bidder at $335,411.50, followed by Cobalt Construction at $434,241.50, Pioneer Construction at $467,194.85, and Multi-Scape Inc. at $592,384.00. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, April 7, 2025) Northeast Site’s bid was nearly $100,000 below the next competitor.

At the April 21, 2025 meeting, the board awarded the contract to Northeast Site. The minutes record: “R. Wielebinski made a motion, seconded by M. Velardi, to award the Learn Road Roundabout project to Northeast Site Contractors with a winning bid of $335,411.50. B. Winot abstained from the vote.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, April 21, 2025) All other board members approved.

Section 1103(f) of the Pennsylvania Ethics Act prohibits a public official’s associated business from entering into any contract valued at $500 or more with the official’s governmental body “unless the contract has been awarded through an open and public process.” The same section requires that the official “shall not have any supervisory or overall responsibility for the implementation or administration of the contract.”

The contract met the open-and-public threshold — competitive bids were solicited and publicly disclosed. But the question left hanging by the March vote is distinct: voting to advertise a bid your company intends to compete for is itself an official action that could produce a financial benefit. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in Kistler v. State Ethics Comm’n, 610 Pa. 516 (2011), that to violate Section 1103(a), “a public official must be consciously aware of a private pecuniary benefit for himself, his family, or his business, and then must take action in the form of one or more specific steps to attain that benefit.” Whether Winot was consciously aware of the pending benefit when he voted to advertise in March is a question the State Ethics Commission is equipped to examine — Pocono Review is not.

The minutes appear to show that he abstained when the connection was visible and voted yes when it wasn’t.

The Pattern

Between mid-2024 and August 2025, the same pattern repeats across multiple developers and multiple votes.

Ertle Development LLC. Ertle Development, registered at 798 North 9th Street in Stroudsburg, is the developer of a Wawa convenience store at Tax Parcel ID 12.9.1.73 along Route 611 in Bartonsville, within Pocono Township. In August 2025, when the board voted on an indemnification agreement between the township and Ertle for that project, Winot abstained. The August 18, 2025 minutes state: “R. Wielebinski made a motion, N. Leap, to approve the indemnification Agreement between the Township of Pocono and Ertle Development LLC regarding the Wawa to be located at Tax ID No. 12.9.1.73 B. Winot Abstained from the vote due to his business relationship with Ertle Development LLC. C. Keppler asked what the abstention was for.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, August 18, 2025)

Seven months earlier, in January 2025, Winot voted yes on authorizing a release of a sanitary sewer easement between the township and Turtle Walk, Ertle Development LP. The January 6, 2025 minutes record: “R. Wielebinski made a motion, seconded by M. Velardi, to authorize a release of the sanitary sewer easement for right-of-way agreement between Pocono Township and Turtle Walk, Ertle Development LP. All in favor.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, January 6, 2025) No abstention. No disclosure.

Five months after that, the June 16, 2025 minutes show the board approved “Resolution 2025-23 Granting a one-year extension of time for Resolution 2024-08 Ertle Development LLC. They are still working on permits. All in favor.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, June 16, 2025) Winot voted yes. Two months later, he acknowledged a business relationship with the same company and abstained.

The July 1, 2024 vote history shows Winot voted yes to “Authorize the solicitor to advertise a no parking ordinance for parcel number 12.9.1.73 along Route 611 and Bartonsville Ave.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, July 1, 2024) And on November 18, 2024, the board “Adopt[ed] the Wawa Parking Ordinance 2024-06.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, November 18, 2024) Parcel 12.9.1.73 is the exact Ertle Development Wawa site in Bartonsville that Winot would acknowledge a business relationship with eight months later.

The LERTA. On November 18, 2024, Winot made the motion to advertise a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance ordinance for a hearing scheduled for January 6, 2025. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, November 18, 2024) On January 6, 2025, the board passed the LERTA ordinance. The roll call vote recorded in the minutes: “R. Wielebinski, aye; B. Winot, aye; M. Velardi, aye; E. Gnandt, nay; N. Leap, aye. Motion carried.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, January 6, 2025)

At the March 12, 2025 meeting, Vincent Trapasso — a member of the Trapasso development family — told the board from public comment that a LERTA “will assist local developers like himself to continue to build and assist in keeping the taxes within the township down for everyone.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, March 12, 2025)

At the same meeting, Winot moved to exclude “the property with the tax ID 12.11.1.3-5, the project known as The Ridge” from the LERTA district — a reference to the Ridge at Swiftwater, his own joint venture with Dante Trapasso. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, March 12, 2025) The exclusion motion acknowledged a conflict that his January vote passing the LERTA had not.

By August 4, 2025, when the board voted to authorize the solicitor to repeal the same LERTA, the picture had changed. The minutes state: “N. Leap made a motion, seconded by M. Velardi, to authorize the solicitor to repeal the existing LERTA. All voting members in favor. Motion carried. E. Gnandt and B. Winot abstained from the vote due to conflict.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, August 4, 2025) Winot now acknowledged a conflict — on the repeal of the ordinance he had championed and passed.

The Trap Event Center. At the June 16, 2025 meeting, the board considered waiver requests for a Trap Event Center — another Trapasso development in Pocono Township. The minutes note that “Commissioner Brian Winot abstained from all votes on this project.” Later in the same meeting, under Commissioner Comments, the minutes record Winot’s own explanation: “Mr. Winot announced that he has abstained from the vote on the Trap Event Center due to fact that his company will be doing the site work.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, June 16, 2025)

His own words established the conflict of interest explicitly. He abstained.

The connection between Northeast Site, Trapasso, and Winot’s board seat was the same across his entire tenure. The projects were different. The relationship was not.

The Trap/Winot Hotel. At the November 17, 2025 meeting — held two weeks after Winot lost his reelection bid — the board considered waiver requests and a full preliminary/final plan approval for a hotel and retail project. The minutes record three separate abstentions: “Richard Wielebinski made a motion, seconded by Mike Velardi, to approve the in lieu of fees for the Hotel Lot1 and retail Winot/Trap @ $8,232.00. Brian Winot Abstained from the vote due to his partnership in this project.” The resolution for preliminary/final approval — Resolution 2025-41 — was titled in the minutes as “Trap/Winot, Lot #1 Hotel & Retail.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, November 17, 2025) The project carried Winot’s own name. He abstained. The other four voting members approved.

Winot’s Resignation

By mid-2025, what had been an internal board matter was becoming a public one in Pocono Township. Keppler — then a candidate for commissioner — was attending meetings as a Tannersville-area resident and raising concerns from the public comment podium. The June 16, 2025 minutes record him stating at the close of the meeting that he felt “an Ethics violation took place during the meeting. Subsection 1103(J).” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, June 16, 2025)

At the August 18, 2025 meeting, when the board voted to release Northeast Site from the Learn Road contract and return the company’s bond, Keppler quoted the Pennsylvania Ethics Act by citation. The minutes state: “N. Leap made a motion, seconded by M. Velardi, to release Northeast Site from their contract and their Bond be returned regarding the Learn Road Round-About project effective August 28, 2025. B. Winot abstained from the vote due to his affiliation with N.E. Site. C. Keppler quoted the PA Ethics Act. A lengthy discussion was had by the board, solicitor, engineer, and C & J Keppler.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, August 18, 2025)

On September 16, 2025 — six weeks before the election — Winot filed a Writ of Summons against Keppler in Monroe County Court of Common Pleas, initiating a civil defamation action while both men were still active candidates for the same two seats. After the writ was served, Winot’s attorney Brett Riegel sent Keppler a letter asking him to “reach an agreement on the language necessary for this suit to be withdrawn.” Keppler received 1,462 votes, Long received 1,431, and Winot finished third with 1,206 in the three-way race for two seats. The complaint was filed November 24-25, 2025, after Keppler’s attorney filed a motion compelling Winot to do so. The suit alleges defamation over Keppler’s comments regarding the Learn Road Roundabout contract awarded to Northeast Site Contractors.

On November 17, 2025, the outgoing board — with Winot voting aye — authorized putting the Learn Road Roundabout back out to bid, with bids due December 10 and an award scheduled for December 15. The roll call vote: “Ellen Gnandt, nay; Natasha Leap, aye; Brian Winot, aye; Mike Velardi, aye; Richard Wielebinski, aye.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, November 17, 2025) Keppler, then commissioner-elect, “criticized the decision to put the roundabout project out for bid and vote on it just before the board transitions, saying it is rushed and damages public trust.”

Then came December 15, 2025.

Nine bids had been received through PennBid by the December 10 deadline. The minutes record Township Engineer Jon Tressler’s report: “9 bids were received through PennBid. Northeast site contractors were low bidder. Jon Tressler went through the numbers of each bidder.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, December 15, 2025) Commissioner Ellen Gnandt moved to table the award; three board members supported tabling.

Also at that meeting, the minutes note: “Commissioner Natasha Leap announced: Commissioner Brian Winot has resigned from his position on the Board of Commissioners effective immediately.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, December 15, 2025) No explanation was given. No statement from Winot appears in the record.

The new board — with Keppler now seated as a Pocono Township commissioner — took up the Learn Road award at its January 20, 2026 meeting. The minutes state: “Discussion was had regarding ethics and awarding the bid. Charles Keppler made a motion, seconded by Mike Velardi, to award the Roundabout Bid Winner through Penn Bid to Northeast Site Contractors. All in favor. Motion carried.” (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, January 20, 2026) The minutes do not describe what the ethics discussion entailed.

What the Law Says

Under Pennsylvania’s Ethics Act, a public official with a financial stake in a vote is required to do two things: abstain, and file a written disclosure with the person who keeps the meeting minutes. Not after the vote. Not verbally. In writing, before the vote happens. That’s Section 1103(j).

A review of Pocono Township meeting minutes from mid-2024 through December 2025 found no written conflict disclosures filed by Winot at any meeting. Every abstention in the record is verbal only — sometimes made in the presence of Township Solicitor Leo DeVito. Whether written memoranda exist in township files but weren’t reflected in the published minutes is an open question Pocono Review intends to pursue through a Right-to-Know request.

The law also says that a public official’s company can do business with the official’s own government — but only if the contract was awarded through an open, public process, and only if the official has no role overseeing the work (Section 1103(f)). The Learn Road Roundabout contract was competitively bid. Whether Winot’s role as commissioner — with authority over public works and the township engineer — gave him oversight of the contract is a question for investigators, not this publication.

The penalties depend on the type of violation. Voting on matters that benefit your own business when you know about the conflict is a felony — up to $10,000 in fines and five years in prison (Section 1103(a)). Failing to file the required written disclosures, or contracting violations, are misdemeanors — up to $1,000 and one year (Sections 1103(f) and (j)). The State Ethics Commission can also order restitution and refer cases for criminal prosecution. The statute of limitations is five years.

The Ethics Commission accepts public complaints at ethics.pa.gov.

What Winot Has Said

Pocono Review has not yet contacted Winot, his attorney Brett Riegel, Dante Trapasso, or Ertle Development LLC for comment. This story will be updated with any responses received.

Winot’s own statements in the public record establish his awareness of the conflicts when he chose to disclose them. At the June 2025 meeting, he volunteered that Northeast Site was doing site work for Trapasso. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, June 16, 2025) In August 2025, he acknowledged a business relationship with Ertle Development. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, August 18, 2025) In November 2025, he disclosed his partnership in the Trap/Winot hotel project before each of three related votes. (Pocono Township BOC Minutes, November 17, 2025)

The record does not appear to show a consistent application of those standards across his full tenure.

The defamation suit against Keppler is a public record in Monroe County Court of Common Pleas and available through the UJS portal at ujsportal.pacourts.us.

Source Note: All votes, abstentions, and statements attributed to public officials in this article are drawn from official meeting minutes of a public governing body, published as public records under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law. This investigation is based on Pocono Township Board of Commissioners meeting minutes from January 2024 through February 2026, obtained directly from poconopa.gov and its content delivery network. Additional sources include corporate filings from the Pennsylvania Department of State, Northeast Site Contractors’ public project records at nesitecontractors.com, Brian Winot’s campaign website at brianforpocono.com, reporting by WFMZ, WBRE/WYOU, and the Pocono Record, the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, and Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission guidance documents and statutory text at ethics.pa.gov and legis.state.pa.us.

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