The longtime mayor of struggling Central Falls resigned and has agreed to plead guilty to a federal corruption charge of accepting gifts in exchange for handing out a lucrative contract to board up city houses, according to papers filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors.
Charles Moreau and his friend, businessman Michael Bouthillette, were charged. Bouthillette was charged with one count of giving gifts, according to the documents.
Moreau and Bouthillette acknowledge in a plea agreement that Bouthillette paid at least in part for a furnace installed at Moreau's former Central Falls home and for renovations at a home Moreau owned in Lincoln.
In exchange, Moreau used his emergency powers to order homes that were foreclosed be boarded up by Bouthillette's business.
Court papers say Bouthillette boarded up at least 167 houses from 2007 to 2009 and made "unreasonable profits" of hundreds of thousands of dollars. When city employees questioned the amounts Bouthillette was charging for the work, the documents show, Moreau dismissed the concerns, on one occasion telling an employee to "mind his own ... business."
Moreau, who resigned as mayor effective at noon Wednesday, did not answer calls placed to his phone and a message could not be left. His lawyer, William J. Murphy, and Bouthillette's lawyer, C. Leonard O'Brien, did not immediately return calls for comment.
Central Falls had a deficit of more than $6 million on an annual budget of about $16 million by the time a state-appointed received filed for bankruptcy on its behalf, the first time ever in Rhode Island, in August 2011. Moreau was stripped of his duties — along with his key to City Hall — about a year earlier when the state stepped in.
About a quarter of the city's 19,000 residents live below the poverty level, according to census data, and the city has one of the state's highest foreclosure rates.
Moreau has been the target of a yearslong investigation by federal and state authorities into whether he improperly accepted gifts from Bouthillette.
City Council President William Benson Jr. told the AP on Wednesday he is disappointed and that he's "sorry that it's come to this."
"It's terrible for the city," he said. "I feel real bad. The city's going through enough problems as it is."
He said he is waiting to hear from the receiver, John McJennett III, and City Hall on next steps.
Under the city charter, the president of the City Council would serve as the acting mayor. But the receiver, under state law, has the powers of both the mayor and City Council.
Moreau was first elected to lead the state's smallest city in 2003. He would have been up for election next year and planned to run again.
Moreau, who sold his house in Central Falls last year but said he was staying with a friend, often referred to the receivership as a "dictatorship." Along with several City Council members, he took a challenge of the state receivership law all the way to the state Supreme Court, arguing unsuccessfully that it violated their rights as elected leaders and infringed on the city's constitutionally-protected sovereignty.
20 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=eb69b7577984693a5838cb1f3cf54237
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