A now-fired Stoughton city employee will face three years of supervised release for tampering with the municipal water supply.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Denise J. Casper sentenced Robert J. Bullock, Sr., 60, of Brockton, to time served, which is about a day, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Bullock pleaded guilty in March to one count of tampering with a water system.

According to sentencing memos, Bullock on Nov. 29, 2022, went to the town’s Pumping Station 7 and shut off the chlorine pump that disinfects the water before it is delivered to the public. He also “zeroed-out the alarm system,” the prosecution memo states, “leaving the Water Department unaware that one of its pumps was not operating safely.”

The 40,000 gallons of unsanitized water from Pumping Station 7 was diluted by the approximately 2 million gallons from the other pumping stations, according to defense attorney Cara McNamara’s memo, which also states that “an investigation showed no evidence of any actual harm to any residents as a result of his actions.”

Bullock worked at Stoughton Water and Sewer Department from 2012 until his firing in 2023. He had previously worked at the Avon water department for more than 15 years. He so loved his job, according to his attorney’s sentencing memo, that he even had the water department’s seal tattooed to his calf as it was a job “that became critical to his identity.”

“For over 20 years, Robert Bullock was entrusted to maintain the drinking water supply, and he did,” federal prosecutor Benjamin Tolkoff wrote in his sentencing memo. “For reasons known only to him, Mr. Bullock decided to tamper with the very system he was entrusted to safekeep.”

Tolkoff noted that Bullock had no criminal record and had been a civil servant in good standing for more than 20 years before the crime, but still recommended that Bullock be sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

Ultimately this crime is about water, a staple without which we cannot live. Something that each of us trusts is being piped into our lives in a condition that is safe to use and drink,” Tolkoff wrote.

“Bullock’s punishment must reflect the gravity of what he did. A sentence of time-served fails to do that,” Tolkoff continued. “It sends a message to the next disgruntled public works employee that if they, like Mr. Bullock, tamper with infrastructure in unsafe dangerous ways, they can expect to receive no custody as a result of their crime. That is not a message this Court can send.”

For his part, Bullock says that he is “incredibly remorseful, embarrassed, sorry, and have been regretting this since it happened.”

“I let my community down,” Bullock wrote in a statement shared by his attorney. “I’d give anything to be able to take it all back. But I know I must own this, and I have no one to blame but myself.”