Former New York State Senator Shirley Huntley pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
Huntley served in the New York State Senate, representing the 10th District in Queens, from 2007 to 2012. During part of the time of the charged conspiracy, Huntley was a sitting State Senator.
As charged in the Information, Huntley ran a Queens non-profit organization known as Parents Information Network, Inc. (PIN) that received public funds to help educate parents about the New York City public school system. From October 2005 through October 2008, Huntley embezzled approximately $87,700 from PIN. In furtherance of this scheme, Huntley falsely certified to New York State that these funds would be used, and had been used, to support PIN’s charitable mission. Instead, Huntley used the money for her own personal benefit and for the benefit of her family members and associates. During this time period, PIN received nearly all of its funding from New York State.
Huntley controlled PIN’s finances through a bank account which held PIN funds. Huntley stole from PIN by writing over $21,000 in checks from the PIN account to herself and a family member. Huntley used $500 of PIN funds to pay her personal credit card bill and embezzled more than $34,000 from PIN through ATM withdrawals. Huntley also embezzled funds from PIN by using straw recipients, who posed as legitimate recipients of payments from PIN. She wrote checks for $24,500 to the straw recipients, who cashed the checks and returned substantially all of the funds to Huntley in cash.
In her plea agreement with the government, Huntley agreed to make restitution of $87,700 to the New York State Department of Education for the funds she embezzled. In addition, Huntley also agreed to make restitution of $1,000 in connection with an unrelated bribery scheme involving a cargo-handling business at JFK.
“Huntley’s experience and influence were supposed to be used for the benefit of her constituents,” said US Attorney Loretta Lynch. ” Instead, she used her knowledge of the system to steal funds intended to help some of her neediest constituents, stated United States Attorney Lynch.
When she faces sentencing, the former senator could getup to five years of imprisonment and a fine of $250,000, in addition to restitution.
