CHARLIE BAKER ENDORSED BY INDICTED FELON!
Fall River mayor abandons fellow Dem to endorse Gov. Baker
FALL RIVER, Mass. (WPRI) - Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia broke with his party on Thursday, announcing that he is endorsing Republican Gov. Charlie Baker over Democratic nominee Jay Gonzalez.
Correia was one of 22 mayors, 10 of them Democrats, whose support for Baker was announced by his campaign on Thursday, two days after he and Gonzalez won their party primaries.
"Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito are leading by example, with the kind of bipartisan leadership our Commonwealth needs for growth and progress," Correia, a 27-year-old currently in his second term, said in a statement issued by Baker's campaign.
CHARLIE BAKER'S RE-ELECTION PROMISE....FIRST HE WAS OPPOSED TO SOUTH COAST RAIL....THEN IN HIS RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN, CHARLIE BAKER FOR FOR THE + $1 BILLION BOONDAGGLE.....
"They have especially demonstrated their commitment to the South Coast, from improvements to our state pier, and taking a significant step towards rail to Boston, after years of promises," he continued. "Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito have championed Fall River and deserve our support for four more years."
Gonzalez's campaign manager, Kevin Ready, declined to comment directly on Correia's decision, but dismissed its importance.
"Big money, endorsements, and pundits don’t decide elections, people do," Ready said in a statement. "Jay is running a strong grassroots campaign fueled by regular people and their desire to make a difference in peoples’ lives and we are confident that will lead us to victory on Nov. 6."
The cross-party mayoral endorsements are part of a larger effort by the Baker campaign to burnish his bipartisan credentials, with polls continuing to show him as the most popular governor in the nation despite being a Republican in a deep-blue state.
And Correia may not be the only one of the four mayors, all Democrats, in relatively conservative Bristol County to back the GOP incumbent this fall.
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell has not backed a candidate for governor yet, but he has previously said he has a productive relationship with Baker and is thought to be open to a potential endorsement.
Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye said he has not yet endorsed a candidate for governor. "I'm still weighing my options," he said. "We'll see what happens."
Asked if he was open to backing Baker, Hoye said, "I am. I want to endorse a candidate that I think is going to provide the best support for the city of Taunton, and that's what it's all about."
One local Democratic mayor has endorsed Gonzalez, according to his spokesman: Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux, a former Democratic state lawmaker. Baker campaigned for the Republican incumbent Heroux ousted, Kevin Dumas, last year.
https://www.wpri.com/politics/fall-river-mayor-abandons-fellow-dem-to-endorse-gov-baker/1423672314Feds: "Shameless and greedy" Fall River mayor charged with fraud
Credit: AP (File)
FILE- In this Jan. 6, 2016, file photo newly elected Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia has a conversation in his city hall office in Fall River, Mass. Correia, who launched a smartphone app, has confirmed he’s the subject of a federal investigation. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
Mere hours after he turned up at a performance by rapper J. Cole at the Seaport District celebrity haunt The Grand, Fall River Mayor Jasiel F. Correia II was arraigned at the federal courthouse next door on charges he squandered nearly a quarter-million dollars of fraudulently obtained cash living the life of a high roller, authorities confirmed.
Correira, 26, took the reins of the hardscrabble seaport of Fall River in 2016, when the U.S. Census Bureau reports 22 percent of his constituents lived in poverty.
Correia knew as early as last year he was under federal investigation. He was arrested at 6:30 this morning at a location in Bridgewater that was not his residence, according to U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling.
Asked if Correia was suspected of trying to burn through what remains of the $231,447 he's accused of stealing from seven investors at a nightclub where one bottle of Belaire Rose sparkling wine will set you back $7,000, Lelling said, "I don't think we have any indications that he was specifically spending down money because he knew we were on to him. Beyond that, I think I'm not going to comment on his social life."
Officials at The Grand declined to share the club's surveillance video from Wednesday night with the Herald.
Harold H. Shaw, special agent in charge of the Boston offices of the FBI, said Correia was safely taken into custody "without incident."
"Today's arrest is a shock to many in the city, which has prided itself on a tradition of honest government, hard work and public service," Shaw said of Fall River. "Yet, it's mayor was far from honest, selling out his friends and associates for his own personal gain. His actions were underhanded, shameless and greedy."
Lelling said Correia was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and four counts of tax fraud, "all arising from an alleged multi-year investment scam."
He said investigators have not uncovered any abuse of public monies.
Still, he said, "Taxpayers expect and deserve more from their elected officials."
Correia faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.
Over the course of four years, beginning in 2013, Lelling said Correia persuaded seven people to invest $363,690 in a startup company he called SnoOwl that was creating an app "to connect local businesses and individuals with a target consumer market. Correia, however, diverted more than $230,000 of that money - about 64 percent - to fund his political career and extravagant lifestyle, and the needs of his other business ventures."
SnoOwl employed less than a handful of employees Lelling said were mainly contracted developers and software engineers. The company is now dormant.
"Essentially what the app would allow users to do is, if they traveled somewhere, for example, is to find local merchants who are selling things that they may need, or local services," he said.
While not named in Correia's Oct. 4 indictment that was unsealed today, the investors are described as an orthodontist and other businessmen.
To date, none of their money has been recovered, Lelling said. Correia, he lamented, "spent pretty much all of it.
"This was not about poor accounting or honest mistakes," he said.
"According to the indictment, Correia used investor money to fund personal travel and entertainment, spending thousands of dollars on airfare, luxury hotels, restaurants, casinos, dating services and adult entertainment."
Lelling said Correia also spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury items such as a 2011 Mercedes C300 all-wheel-drive sport sedan, jewelry for an ex-girlfriend and designer duds.
"It appears he also used $10,000 of investor funds to fund his political campaign and pay down student loans," he said of the 2013 Providence College graduate. "Meanwhile, Correia deceived his investors in SnoOwl on an ongoing basis. He reassured them with fake updates on SnoOwl's progress and finances, but refused to show anyone financial records like bank statements that would have revealed his expenditures."
Lelling declined to go into detail about how the alleged ill-gotten gains were used in Correia's mayoral campaign.
Shaw added that Correia expended $46,000 alone paying down his student loans and "significant credit card debt ... He even went as far as using investor money to make charitable donations in his own name.
"Mayor Correia has brought undeserved shame and embarrassment upon the city of Fall River," Shaw said. "He betrayed the trust of his investors and betrayed the trust of his constituents."
The officials said Correia learned last year during his second year in office that the company was under federal investigation.
"He instructed his accountant to file amended personal tax returns in an effort to account for the diverted investor funds that he had previously failed to report as income," Lelling said. "The company was first and foremost a clever way to defraud well-intentioned investors and fund Correia's lifestyle. To date, no investor has received any return from their investment in SnoOwl."
Lelling and Shaw did not rule out additional arrests.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/10/feds_shameless_and_greedy_fall_river_mayor_charged_with_fraud
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