A former city official in Mount Vernon and her romantic partner were found guilty of conspiracy and mail fraud charges by a federal jury in White Plains on Monday for diverting about $1.2 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds managed by the city official to her partner”™s businesses.
Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the convictions of Constance Post, formerly the Mount Vernon planning and community development commissioner and executive director of the Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency, and Wayne Charles on one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of mail fraud. Each charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
Charles was convicted at an earlier trial of making false statements to federal agents who interviewed him about the case in 2006 and faces a maximum five-year prison sentence for that felony, according to Bharara”™s office.
Prosecutors said Post and Charles conspired to steer a computer services contract with the Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency to a company secretly owned by Charles, who had no computer expertise, no employees and no ability to perform under the contract. Post hired and directed people to work for Charles”™s company. The contractual arrangement, which continued from 1998 to 2002, cost the city and HUD more than twice the cost of the computer services if the hired employees had worked directly for the city, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Post also steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to Charles beyond what she was authorized to spend by city”™s urban renewal agency board.
In a separate fraud scheme, prosecutors said, Charles concealed his computer services contract with the city to obtain a $500,000 loan of HUD funds through the Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency for renovations to a property in the city. The false names and statements were given with the assistance and approval of Post, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Post in 2003 concealed the existence of the loan and Charles”™s failure to repay $250,000 to the Mount Vernon agency after another lender in 2003 repaid half of the loan as required. Two years later, Post retroactively recorded the unpaid balance with the city agency as federal investigators were examining its financial records. Charles soon after made a few payments on the loan, the bulk of which remains unpaid, according to prosecutors.
Post and Charles are scheduled to be sentenced on March 1, 2016 before U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas.
