Highland Falls mayor admits fraud on 2021 petition in disorderly conduct guilty plea
HIGHLAND FALLS - Mayor Joe D'Onofrio paid a $250 fine and must perform 40 hours of community service as part of a guilty plea this week to resolve two separate allegations prosecutors had lodged against him
D'Onofrio, in a plea agreement signed on Tuesday, admitted committing fraud on his 2021 re-election petition by signing its pages as the witness for voter signatures that another candidate collected on his behalf, without D'Onofrio there. He also admitted photocopying a page of signatures from that other candidate's petition and passing it off as his own.
In a separate offense, the longtime Highland Falls mayor also acknowledged he bought a pair of hibiscus trees with $159 in village funds and planted them at his home, later lying that he had planted them in a village park. He already has repaid the village for that purchase as part of his deal with the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
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D'Onofrio, 73, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct in Highlands town court on Tuesday, quickly resolving the case brought against him less than three weeks earlier. He had been charged on April 27 with two low-level misdemeanors: petit larceny for his tree purchase, and offering a false instrument for the petition fraud.
Disorderly conduct is an even lower offense known as a violation, which isn't classified as a crime. His conviction doesn't disqualify him from holding office.
D'Onofrio was first elected mayor of the village of 3,800 in 1993 and has held that post for much of the last three decades. He won his current four-year term by five votes in a five-way race in March 2021, one month after filing the petition with signatures he falsely claimed he had witnessed.
The actual witness was Mervin Livsey Jr., a former village trustee who collected signatures for D'Onofrio while also asking voters to sign his own petition, according to the District Attorney's Office. Livsey was not accused of any wrongdoing.
D'Onofrio entered his guilty plea and was sentenced in a single appearance before Highlands Town Justice Barbara Mennite on Tuesday. Mennite imposed the $250 fine and 40 hours of community service, the details of which weren't spelled out in the plea agreement.
D'Onofrio's lawyer, Ryan Caron, couldn't be reached for comment on Thursday.
In the plea agreement, D'Onofrio admitted stealing village property by taking home two hibiscus trees that the village had bought for municipal property in May 2020. He later claimed he had planted them near a gazebo, and then uprooted them from his yard and dumped them in a village park after learning he was being investigated.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for the Times Herald-Record and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@th-record.com.
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Highland Falls Mayor D'Onofrio admits petition fraud
