WHAT A HEEL: NYC Pol Pockets Non-Profit Funds
After pleading guilty to honest-services fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, former city councilman Miguel Martinez (D-10th District) was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $106,000 in restitution, reports The New York Times:
Mr. Martinez admitted that through much of his time on the Council, beginning in 2002, he approved fake billing invoices to his office and pocketed $51,000. He also admitted misappropriating $55,000 meant for two nonprofit groups in his district, the Washington Heights Art Center and the Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors. …
Mr. Martinez is the first Council member to be charged in a two-year investigation by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the city’s Department of Investigation into the Council’s distribution of discretionary money to favored nonprofit groups.
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