Former Finance Chair Gallison Pleading Guilty To Federal Fraud Charges

[TexasTowelie]

Ray Gallison, the Bristol Democrat who formerly chaired the powerful House Finance Committee, has agreed to plead guilty to nine federal charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and filing false tax returns, investigators announced Monday.

US Attorney Peter Neronha said the common thread is how Gallison was taking money -- a total of about $660,000 -- from other people, for his own benefit.

"Mr. Gallison was essentially, as alleged, stealing from wherever he could," Neronha said. "Didn’t matter if the person was deceased, it didn’t matter if it was public money that he needed to shift around to meet his purposes, it didn’t matter if it was someone who was disabled and he was the sole trustee."

Gallison, a 16-year lawmaker, abruptly resigned last May in the face of a wide-ranging law enforcement investigation.

Read more: http://ripr.org/post/former-finance-chair-gallison-pleading-guilty-federal-fraud-charges

[nitpicker]

1. From the DoJ PR: Guilty plea

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ri/pr/former-rhode-house-finance-chairman-raymond-gallison-pleads-guilty-federal-fraud

At the time of his guilty plea, Gallison admitted to the court that:

As executor of an estate of an individual from Barrington, R.I., who passed away in February 2012, he devised and executed various schemes to steal or transfer to his own name and bank accounts, cash, checks, stocks and real property belonging to the deceased person and/or his estate, valued at a total of $677,454,10. Gallison will admit that he fraudulently used the name and social security number of the deceased person to execute a scheme to cause the liquidation of certain stocks belonging to the deceased person;

He caused the filing of a false tax document on behalf of Alternative Education Programming (AEP), a non-profit organization which provided educational programs to students who may need assistance with course work, and/or minority and/or disadvantaged students who may need financial or other assistance to gain an education, and of which Gallison was listed as Assistant Director. The tax document listed that $77,957 in tuition and related fees and expenses were paid for 47 students from July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013. In fact, on behalf of AEP, Gallison paid only $3,137.29 to assist 2 students during that year and paid approximately $64,575 to himself and another person in wages and consulting fees for no work undertaken on AEP’s behalf;

As trustee for a disabled person’s Special Needs Trust, he defrauded the Trust by writing a check from the Trust account for $8,900, which he deposited into an AEP account. Gallison then wrote a check for $8,800 from the AEP account to pay an outstanding bill at the Community College of Rhode Island; and

He failed to claim a total of $622,286.17 in income on joint IRS tax returns for tax years 2012 and 2013, and, as a result of his relevant conduct from 2012-2015, Gallison failed to pay a total of $226,332.31 in taxes.

Gallison is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16, 2017. Based on statutory penalties, Gallison will serve, at a minimum, two years in federal prison.
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