Facilities Director Sentenced for Bribery in Connection with Building Contracts

BOSTON – The facilities director of two non-profits which provide support services for developmentally disabled adults and their families was sentenced today in connection with soliciting bribes.

Charles Feeney, 60, of Billerica, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Judge Mark L. Wolf to six months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $142,927 in restitution.  In May 2012, Feeney pleaded guilty to two counts of soliciting bribes.

Feeney was the facilities director for Community Alternative Residential Environments, Inc. (CARE) and Walnut Street Center (WSC), two Massachusetts based non-profits which provide support services for developmentally disabled adults and their families.   When CARE/WSC purchased a building which was to be renovated and turned into administrative offices and a day facility, it was Feeney’s job to solicit bids for the general contract and oversee the renovation process.  Instead, Feeney made an agreement with a general contractor he knew to get the contract and in exchange, Feeney would get the electrical subcontract for his business, C.T. Feeney & Sons Electrical Services.  In so doing, Feeney falsely assured both the then-executive director and the finance director of CARE/WSC that he had received three bids for the project when, in fact, there were no bids.

In 2006 and 2007, the renovations were done in two phases.  During the second phase, Feeney told the general contractor that he wanted a bucket truck for use in his own business and the two agreed that the contractor would pay for Feeney’s bucket truck in purported project rental fees to reimburse Feeney for the truck.  Feeney’s net benefit from the electrical subcontract was more than $139,000.  After Feeney’s role in the renovation was discovered, the non-profit also incurred more than $142,000 in attorney’s fees in the effort to determine whether the renovations had been properly performed and in assisting the government in the investigation of the offense.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Christina Scaringi, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General, Northeast Regional Office; and Glenn A. Cunha, Inspector General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts made the announcement.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra S. Bower of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit.