What the federal indictment says about the charges against former Utica mayor LaPolla

After five decades of public service —as a teacher, Utica mayor, housing authority head, school board member — Louis LaPolla’s retirement has been upended over $38,000.

That’s how much federal authorities say LaPolla, 78, took from donations that were supposed to go to a scholarship fund in his wife Andrea’s memory, according to his indictment.

A grand jury indicted him on six counts of mail fraud on Sept. 20. Mail fraud is a felony that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

LaPolla was arrested and arraigned on Sept. 22, the video arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Baxter in Syracuse.

LaPolla has been appointed a federal public defender because he said he couldn’t pay for a defense attorney, according to court documents.

Reached by telephone, LaPolla just gave one brief comment, “At this point in time, I cannot discuss the matter.”

During his arraignment, LaPolla pleaded not guilty to each of the six counts, court documents show.

LaPolla served as city mayor from 1984 to 1995, the longest term in city history, and on the city school board for 21 years, his last four years as president, ending with his retirement last year.

Leading to indictment

Here’s the series of events that led up to the arrest of LaPolla, according to the indictment:

• LaPolla’s wife, Andrea Peni LaPolla, died on March 9, 2018.

• Shortly afterward, LaPolla and others who helped him began sending out flyers in the mail to both individuals and businesses asking for donations to a scholarship fund in his wife’s name, donations that began to come in.

• On May 22, The Utica City school board authorized its treasurer to open an interest-bearing account for the scholarship funds in the expectation that a scholarship would be given each year to a recent graduate studying a health-related field.

• LaPolla, who was board vice president at the time, then sent in the first donation check for $1,000.

• In July, he was elected school board president, a position he held for four years.

• Between March 2018 and May 2022, LaPolla allegedly “devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money and property” through pretense and fraud, the indictment said.

• LaPolla and others then mailed out thousands of flyers and requests for scholarship fund donations, encouraging donors to make out checks to LaPolla, and many of the donations were mailed to LaPolla as personal checks, the indictment alleged.

• Instead of putting them in the fund, though, LaPolla allegedly used most of the money himself, part of an intentional plan, according to the indictment.

• The six charges relate to six documents listed in the indictment: four checks (for $40, $50, $50 and $500) allegedly mailed by donors to  LaPolla’s home between Feb. 1, 2019 and March 29, 2021; and two flyers for a retirement fundraiser dinner that were allegedly mailed from his home to two individuals in March, 2022. The indictment only lists initials, not names, for the donors and the recipients of the flyers.

The indictment calls for LaPolla to forfeit the money and any property he allegedly received from the scholarship fund and, if he can’t return it, to forfeit property to cover the cost.

A jury trial is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 20 in Syracuse before U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby.

The case has been investigated by the FBI with assistance from the New York State Police, the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Perry.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Former Utica mayor Louis LaPolla indicted: Details of mail fraud case