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Mayor Jasiel Correia of Fall River, Mass., Speaks to the media after leaving federal court in Boston on Thursday. (Jonathan Wiggs / The Boston Globe via AP)
Jasiel F. Correia II had all the qualities of a rising Democratic star.
While he was still a student at Providence College, he had been appointed to the city council of his hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts, in 2013, and had begun attending meetings between his political science classes. Fall River had long been abandoned by textile manufacturers, leaving behind empty mills and ruined fireplaces that most people quickly travel to Cape Cod. Highlighting his own experience as a founder of a technology start-up, Correia said he could convince young people to move to the city and start their own business. At 23, he beat a much better funded candidate to become the youngest mayor in the city.
On Thursday morning, when Correia was arrested by federal agents, he stole almost a quarter of a million dollars from seven people who had invested in his start-up and spent that money on adult entertainment. plane, dating service. designer clothes, hotels, jewelery, trips to casinos and Mercedes-Benz. A few hours later, he pleaded not guilty under 13 counts of cable fraud and tax evasion.
C & # 39; was told reporters, "not my best Thursday."
Correia had previously touted his experience as the founder of a start-up named SnoOwl, a smartphone app that would connect businesses to consumers. This was proof that, despite his age, he possessed the leadership skills needed to run the city. Now 26 years old, Correia is accused of using the company as her "personal ATM" and defrauding investors who unwittingly ended up financing her lavish lifestyle and career. nascent policy. In an unsealed indictment on Thursday, prosecutors alleged that Correia had stolen more than $ 231,000, which he had also used to pay off his student loans, finance his political campaigns and make charitable donations on his own behalf.
As the Boston Globe pointed out, the sum represents about six times the median household income in Fall River.
Prosecutors allege that Correia systematically lied to potential investors, telling them that he had already sold another smartphone app for a large profit. According to the indictment, a month after receiving his first check of $ 50,000 in January 2013, Correia bought a 2011 Mercedes C300 sport sedan black. According to prosecutors, he would continue to use the same model. Investors money to pay his credit cards, to stay in luxury hotels and to spend tens of thousands of dollars for his girlfriend of the time.
Then, in 2015, when the company was founded, Correia announced that he would run for mayor. After winning the race, he became "less and less sensitive" to investors and software developers, says the indictment. He also reportedly filed fraudulent tax returns to conceal the ploy at the IRS.
"To date, no SnoOwl investor has received any return or interest on its investment and SnoOwl's business is essentially worthless," concluded the attorneys.
"Today's arrest is a shock to many residents of the city, who prides themselves on a tradition of honest government, hard work and public service," said FBI agent Hank Shaw. , at a press conference held Thursday. "Yet his mayor was far from being honest, selling his friends and associates to his personal advantage."
Correia has denied all allegations and stated that he would not "resign absolutely".
"You will see when we get a trial that I will be justified," he told reporters after being released on bail Thursday.
Correia grew up in a popular neighborhood of Portuguese bakeries and fish markets selling salt cod. Like many in Fall River, a town of nearly 90,000 inhabitants, his parents are from the small Portuguese-speaking islands of the Atlantic. His father had immigrated from the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde; his mother from the Azores. Although immigrants from Cape Verde have been living in southeastern Massachusetts since the 19th century, attracted first by jobs in the whaling industry, then by textile mills, none of them is high in the political ranks of the city.
Correia became the first to cross this barrier in November 2015 after two years on the city council. Some observers attributed his ascent to an unforgettable moment. In August 2014, a petition was circulating to remind the mayor of the time, Will Flanagan. Although perceived as an ally by the mayor's chief of staff, Correia signed it. A few days later, Flanagan asked Correia to join him at the water's edge after midnight. Correia later told the police that, during their interview, the Mayor had taken a weapon out of the center console of his SUV, placed it on the dashboard and asked him to remove his name from the petition. Flanagan denied the allegations and the prosecutors refused to lay charges against him, but the recall efforts resulted in a positive result.nd Correia, whom the investigators had found credible, suddenly found themselves on the map.
A few weeks after celebrating her 24th birthday, Correia moved into the mayor's office in January 2016. Her youth and enthusiasm drew new attention to a long-ignored city. "In a struggling industrial city, the 24-year-old mayor is looking for a turnaround," read an Associated Press headline in newspapers across the country. A WBUR Morning Edition reporter spent a day traveling through downtown Fall River aboard the Correia Class C black Mercedes. The young mayor pointed to the once grandiose buildings that had been closed and abandoned. .
At Fall River, there was little optimism. The streets were littered with potholes, the once majestic Victorian had fallen into decline and the depressed city had been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. In 2014, the FBI's crime statistics showed that Fall River was the second most violent city in Massachusetts. But Correia described the city as full of potential, with cheap rents and easy proximity to Providence and Boston.
"I'm the biggest cheerleader in Fall River," he told the Providence Journal in 2016. "I'm the Fall River salesman."
In March 2017, Amazon opened a 1.3 million square foot distribution center in the city. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, also owns the Washington Post). The development was announced locally as a major event: it was the first time in decades that anyone could remember a large company that was settling in the city rather than leaving it. Correia was re-elected with a margin of 20 points in November.
When Correia took office, Fall River's motto was "We'll try." In 2017, he announced a new slogan: "Do it here."
Correia now joins the list of mayors of troubled post-industrial cities in New England who have been criminally charged in the performance of their duties. Some of the most notable examples include Buddy Cianci, former mayor of Providence and first Italian-American mayor before being charged with racketeering and extortion in 2001, and Mayor Joe Ganim of Bridgeport, Connecticut, re-elected in 2015 after six years of 39, imprisonment charges of corruption from his first visit as mayor. They had been elected very young and, at the time of their respective accusations, both declared their innocence relentlessly, like Correia.
Dressed in a navy blue suit and a red tie, Correia was in the rain while he was being invaded by reporters outside the federal courthouse in Boston on Thursday.
"If you look at my career as mayor, you will only see positive results," he told the click of the camera shutters. "I was elected and re-elected with 65% of the votes in Fall River. And if you look at these fake accusations, or whatever their nickname, there is not a single thing [ . . .] that the US Attorney 's Office stated in its 19 – page indictment that I was mistaken as mayor of the city of Fall River. "
Before going on, he added, "I love the city of Fall River."
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