Michael DiMassa, a former city council member for West Haven, Connecticut, is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for stealing more than $1 million from the city.
in November to three counts of wire fraud conspiracy with most of the funds being taken fraudulently from federal coronavirus-related aid to fuel a gambling addiction, according to court documents. At the time, he admitted he and others wrote invoices for the city of West Haven for fraudulent legal, lobbying and consulting services. These services were never provided.
"Mr. DiMassa suffered from a debilitating gambling addiction at the time of the offense and his essentially unfettered access to a deep pool of federal funds and total lack of impulse control facilitated his precipitous downward spiral," he wrote. DiMassa, who was both a state representative and an aide to the West Haven City Council at the time of the thefts, has asked Judge Omar Williams for leniency in the sentencing. He faces more than four years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.The theft began in mid-2020 when serving on the city council, he had the authority to approve coronavirus-related reimbursements.
Federal prosecutors have sought a lengthier prison sentence for Michael DiMassa and have asked for more than $1 million in restitution paid by him to West Haven.
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