Michael DiMassa, a former Democratic state consultant and West Haven, Connecticut, political insider who stole about $1.2 million of town’s pandemic aid cash and blew a lot of it playing, was sentenced to 27 months in jail Wednesday.
He additionally was ordered to pay $866,000 in restitution.
As the pandemic reached Connecticut in late 2020, DiMassa was empowered by West Haven’s mayor to approve spending for prevention measures and different sudden prices and had signature authority over the cash.
He admitted conspiring along with his spouse and two others — together with John Trasacco, a convicted felon who launched him to a playing ring — to embezzle the federal grant cash by creating dummy invoices and directing funds to sham corporations.
In a brief assertion earlier than U.S. District Judge Omar Williams imposed an admittedly “lenient” sentence, DiMassa acknowledged that his crimes have contributed to the erosion of religion in politics and authorities.
“I gave them another reason not to trust the government — another corrupt politician,” he mentioned. “It’s hard to find words to express how I feel — embarrassed, ashamed, mortified.”
West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi, who put DiMassa answerable for doling out town’s share of federal pandemic aid cash, informed Williams earlier than sentence was imposed that DiMassa deserved the utmost below the legislation — which might have been a long time in jail. As a part of his neighborhood service to be fulfilled after launch, Rossi mentioned town would think about using him to “clean toilets and pick up trash.”
“Our trust was misplaced,” Rossi mentioned. “He’s a liar, a con artist and a degenerate gambler.”
Rossi mentioned efforts to revive religion in West Haven, which has been fiscally challenged for years and below the supervision of state budge officers for many years, have been set again “for a generation” by the “cascade of negative media” that adopted DiMassa’s arrest.
DiMassa’s lawyer, John Gulash, argued to Williams that the embezzlements have been largely attributable to his shopper’s out-of-control playing dependancy.
“Mr. DiMassa suffered from a debilitating gambling addiction at the time of the offense,” Gulash, wrote in an extended sentencing memorandum, “and his essentially unfettered access to a deep pool of federal funds and total lack of impulse control facilitated his precipitous downward spiral. The amount of money a gambler can waste is only limitedby the amount of money that he has or has access to.”
Williams mentioned the size of time DiMassa will serve in jail is shorter than it’d in any other case have been due to the quantity of restitution he was ordered to make and his cooperation with FBI brokers.
He pleaded responsible to 3 counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and agreed to testify in opposition to Trasacco, the one one of many 4 who claimed he was harmless and who was convicted after a trial. Trasacco, sentenced to eight years in jail in April, obtained about $430,000 of the stolen cash.
DiiMassa testified that he met Trasacco via one other of the conspirators, John Bernardo, on the cigar bar Mickey Blakes. Before lengthy, DiMassa was betting at what federal prosecutors alleged in a courtroom submitting was an “illegal gambling operation” at a restaurant in Branford, the place he additionally was handing Trasacco metropolis checks for pandemic-related companies that town by no means obtained.
Of their first assembly, DiMassa testified, “We talked. We got to know each other. We smoked. I believe we had a beer … He told me that he had been in prison in the past.”
DiMassa was permitted to testify that Trasacco acknowledged having been in jail, however prosecutors have been forbidden by courtroom order from asking him about “organized crime” or Trasacco’s legal historical past, which features a half dozen prior convictions for crimes that embrace theft and assault. When prosecutors instructed DiMassa could have conspired with Trasacco out of worry, U.S. District Judge Omar Williams closed the courtroom and ejected the general public from what he mentioned could be “a matter that is under seal.”
DiMassa admitted arranging three, separate conspiracies to steal COVID aid cash – one every with Trasacco, Bernardo and his spouse, Lauren Knox DiMassa. DiMassa saved all the cash he stole along with his spouse, many of the cash he stole with Bernardo and hardly any he stole with Trasacco.
Bernardo was sentenced prerviously to 13 months in jail. DiMassa’s spouse was sentenced to 6 months.
All these convicted are ordered to make restitution for the stolen cash.
DiMassa was allowed to accompany his pregnant spouse to Texas, the place she turned herself in to start serving her sentence on May 23. He will stay free on bond unit ordered to report back to jail himself at a date to be decided.
Before he was arrested and compelled out of the state legislature, DiMassa held a wide range of positions in West Haven’s authorities. He was arrested in October 2021. The others have been charged later.
The embezzlement got here to the eye of federal legislation enforcement officers via Democratic infighting for management of West Haven’s authorities. It resulted in better state overview of metropolis spending by West Haven, a metropolis that has flirted with insolvency and been topic to state oversight for many years.
DiMassa and Bernardo have been accused of making a phony partnership, Compass Investment Group, and utilizing it as a automobile to steal about $637,000.
Federal prosecutors mentioned the 2 billed town for an extended listing of companies that included “as COVID-19 Legal + Lobbying + Site work for COVID-19 Clinic, Consulting Service-Legislative Review Executive Orders — COVID-19, Consulting Service-Suppo1i Staff Services, Monitors/Security Site (April 2021-May 2021), and Consulting Service Lobbying Service — COVID-19 Federal.” In actuality, the indictment costs, the 2 did nothing for town.
Bernardo is accused of getting about $50,000. When he pleaded responsible to a fraud cost earlier this 12 months, Bernardo blamed DiMassa and complained he didn’t understand the extent of the theft till studying about it within the newspaper after his arrest.
“I had no idea what Mr. DiMassa was doing, how he was getting the money,” Bernardo mentioned when he pleaded responsible. “When I heard it was between $500,000 and $800,000, I said, ‘What is going on here? Where is the money?’ ”
DiMassa misplaced a lot of the cash he stole with Bernardo on the Mohegan Sun Casino, the place his purchases of tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in playing chips correspond with unlawful diversions from the COVID grants.
DiMassa’s spouse — they have been married days earlier than his arrest — handed virtually all the cash she is accused of amassing, $147,776.10, to her husband, in keeping with her lawyer.
Federal prosecutors mentioned the checks issued to Lauren DiMassa below the heading “Youth Violence COVID-19 Associated Expenses,” included costs for “in-home counseling, cleaning supplies, special needs hourly service, WIFI assistance for low/moderate income families, counseling services, license fees, a fall youth clinic, meals, support group supplies, equipment rental, and youth clinic support group.”
Lauren DiMassa is accused of cashing 16 checks, preserving a portion of the funds and depositing the remaining in an account she managed. During the interval by which the fraud occurred, July 2020 to October 2021, prosecutors mentioned she did nothing in return for the cash.
Trasacco, is accused of making two dummy firms, L&H firm and JIL Sanitation Services, that he and DiMassa allegedly used to invoice West Haven for fictitious COVID-related provides and companies. Among different issues, federal prosecutors mentioned the 2 billed town for cleansing a faculty constructing that the indictment mentioned “had been vacant and abandoned for years.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”