City accountant steered HUD grants to favored grantee in exchange for kickbacks.
DATE PUBLISHED:
March 1, 2017
NEWS TYPE:
News
PROGRAM AREA(S):
Community Development Block Grant
(Source: nj.com) A former accountant for the City of Bayonne was sentenced to 21 months in prison today for accepting bribes in return for funneling hundreds of thousands in federal grant money to a local contractor.
Anselmo “Rocky” Crisonino, 56, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $439,000 in restitution, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman announced.
Crisonino’s sentencing comes three years after he appeared in Trenton federal court in February 2014 and pleaded guilty to one count of accepting approximately $65,000 in bribe payments and one count of theft and conversion of federal funds. He also pleaded guilty to one count of conducting an illegal gambling business and one count of submitting a false tax return for the 2011 tax year.
According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court, Crisonino worked for the Bayonne Department of Community Development (CBDCD), an agency that received federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development….