02/27/2014
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Andrew Dickerman/The Providence Journal
Ex-Central Falls Mayor Charles D. Moreau Leaves federal court in Providence on Feb. 12, 2013, after being sentenced for accepting gratuities related to a no-bid city contract awarded to a friend. At left is William J. Murphy, Moreau's lawyer.
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PROVIDENCE — Ex-Central Falls Mayor Charles D. Moreau is scheduled to walk out of U.S. District Court on Friday a free man after having his two-year prison sentence cut in half.
Despite having his guilty plea on a charge of federal program fraud vacated as a result of a federal appeals court decision in another case, Moreau will have a criminal record and spend the next three years on probation.
Documents filed in federal court on Wednesday show that Moreau has agreed to plead guilty to corruptly soliciting or accepting a bribe by an official of a city receiving federal funds.
In exchange for the new guilty plea, Moreau will get credit for spending the past 13 months in a federal prison in Cumberland, Md., the Adult Correctional Institutions and the Plymouth (Mass.) County House of Correction.
He is scheduled to plead guilty to the new charge before Judge John J. McConnell, the same judge who sentenced him a year ago.
If Moreau fights the charge, he could be indicted on the bribery count and face other criminal charges stemming from the no-bid contract he granted his friend, Michael G. Bouthillette, a local contractor and political supporter. Bouthillette also pleaded guilty to the federal program fraud charge.
Bouthillette, and his company, Certified Disaster Restoration, of Providence, boarded up more than 160 abandoned houses and buildings in Central Falls from September 2007 through November 2010. He charged exorbitant rates, often more than $12,000, to board up the windows and doorways with plywood. He collected about $1 million from property owners, and sometimes the city.
He was spared a prison sentence and ordered to perform 2,000 hours of community service and remain on probation for three years.
Moreau and his lawyer, Anthony M. Traini, of Providence, worked out the deal with federal prosecutors.
Other terms of Moreau’s sentence on Feb. 12, 2013, will remain the same. He was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine — which has been paid — perform 300 hours of community service and spend the next three years on probation.
At sentencing last year, McConnell said that Moreau’s community service must “redress the harm caused by the defendant’s criminal conduct in Central Falls.”
Moreau, 50, is the third Rhode Island mayor in the past two decades to be found guilty of a federal crime and sent to prison. The others are Brian J. Sarault, the former mayor of Pawtucket, and ex-Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., now a radio talk show host on WPRO.
In September 2012, Moreau resigned and entered the guilty plea. He admitted that he accepted about $20,000 in gratuities from Bouthillette in connection with the city ordering the board-ups in the name of public safety. The payoffs included a new furnace in a house that Moreau once owned in Central Falls and thousands of dollars in work at a second home he owned in Serenity Acres in Lincoln.
Moreau, his wife and two young sons lived in the house in Lincoln.
In recent months, Traini, Moreau’s lawyer, sought to have Moreau’s sentence vacated and an early release for the former mayor based on a ruling from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. That case involved a legislator and businessman in Puerto Rico. The two men, Juan Bravo Fernandez and Hector Martinez Maldonado, were charged and convicted of accepting a trip to attend a prize fight in Las Vegas in exchange for favorable action on legislation.
The appeals court ruled last June that federal law does not “criminalize gratuities,” and both convictions must be vacated. That led to the appeal of Moreau’s sentence.
Moreau served nine years as mayor and had the dubious distinction of being in charge when the city went into state receivership and federal bankruptcy. His salary was reduced from about $71,000 to $26,000 and he was stripped of his elected powers.
After his resignation, Councilman James A. Diossa was elected mayor in a special election in December 2012, becoming the first Latino mayor in the city’s history. He was just 27 years old, possibly the youngest mayor ever elected in Rhode Island.
Last fall, Diossa was elected to a second term, this time for three years.
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