Esthen Exchange-Former United Way worker convicted of taking $6.7M from nonprofit through secret company

2025-05-08 06:01:32source:Johnathan Walkercategory:Stocks

CONCORD,Esthen Exchange N.H. (AP) — A man who worked for United Way in Massachusetts was convicted in federal court of taking $6.7 million from the nonprofit through an information technology company that he secretly owned.

Imran Alrai, 59, was convicted Wednesday in Concord, New Hampshire, of 12 counts of wire fraud and six counts of money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 17, 2025.

Alrai had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Prosecutors said that between 2012 and June 2018, Alrai, an IT professional at United Way, obtained the payments for IT services provided by an independent outside contractor. They said Alrai misrepresented facts about the contractor and concealed that he owned and controlled the business.

For the next five years, while serving as United Way’s Vice President for IT Services, Alrai steered additional IT work to his company, prosecutors said. They said he routinely sent emails with attached invoices from a fictitious person to himself at United Way.

“The United Way lost millions to the defendant — we hope the jury’s verdicts in this case is a step forward for their community,” U.S. Attorney Jane Young of New Hampshire said in a statement.

RELATED COVERAGE Vietnamese real estate tycoon sentenced to life for billions in fraud in government graft crackdownDefense contractor RTX agrees to pay more than $950 million to resolve bribery, fraud claimsMassachusetts pharmacist gets up to 15 years in prison for meningitis outbreak deaths

Alrai’s attorney, Robert Sheketoff, had called for an acquittal. When asked via email Thursday whether he was considering an appeal, Sheketoff said yes.

This was a retrial for Alrai. He was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering charges in 2019, but the judge later threw out the verdict, saying that prosecutors turned over evidence that they had not produced before the trial.

More:Stocks

Recommend

Meet the volunteers risking their lives to deliver Christmas gifts to children in Haiti

Haiti has been racked by political instabilityand intensifying, deadly gang violence.  Amid a Federa

Robert F. Kennedy in NY court as he fights ballot-access suit claiming he doesn’t live in the state

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared in a New York

Trip to Normandy gives Olympic wrestler new perspective on what great-grandfather endured

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France — He paused to take a picture by the reflecting pool lined with well-groo