Norwood News

Former State Senator Efrain Gonzalez, who represented the entire Norwood News coverage area, pleaded guilty last Friday to defrauding three Bronx nonprofit groups and using more than $500,000 worth of state funds for his own personal use.

In total, Gonzalez, 60, pleaded guilty to four federal fraud charges — two charges of mail fraud and two charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. In response, the U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped five additional charges for fraud, money laundering and abuse of office.

The mail fraud charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years and the two conspiracy charges come with a maximum of eight years.
Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan federal court on Aug. 7.

The guilty plea culminates a federal investigation that began five years ago. In the fall of 2006 Gonzalez was indicted on fraud charges, but still easily won re-election to his senate seat, which he had held since 1989.

In December 2006, prosecutors filed additional charges and outlined a broad conspiracy ensnaring three other people — former Gonzalez staffer Miguel Castanos, his former secretary Lucia Sanchez and Pathways for Youth Executive Director Neil Berger.

Berger and Castanos pleaded guilty to lesser charges last month. Sanchez pleaded guilty on Monday.

Gonzalez’s trial was originally supposed to begin last May. It was then was postponed until November, then again until Monday, May 11. He pleaded guilty in federal court on May 9.

According to the indictment and statements made at the guilty plea proceedings, Gonzalez admitted to concocting a scheme to funnel state grant money through Pathways for Youth, an established Bronx nonprofit group that received millions of dollars annually in city funding, into two nonprofit groups that he had a hand in creating – United Latin American Federation and the West Bronx Neighborhood Association.

Gonzalez’s district office in Tremont was connected to the offices of the West Bronx Neighborhood Association, which was littered with the former senator’s memorabilia, including a portrait of himself and framed labels for his own personal brand of cigars.

In pleading guilty, Gonzalez admitted that the West Bronx Neighborhood Association did not do any substantial not-for-profit work and that he directed the organization to pay for a long list of personal expenses, including Yankee tickets, jewelry, college tuition for his daughter, membership fees in a vacation club, rent on an apartment in the Dominican Republic and fees related to his own personal cigar company.

Last fall, Gonzalez lost his re-election bid to Pedro Espada, Jr., who is making headlines of his own for abusing the campaign finance system, allegedly not living the district, failing to promptly set up a district office and threatening to vote with Republicans on a number of issues.