Paper trail to prison: After his arrest, Jasiel Correia talked himself into deeper trouble

FALL RIVER — The case against former Fall River mayor Jasiel Correia II led investigators and federal prosecutors from one path that veered off onto another.

That, according to former U.S. Assistant Attorney Zachary Hafer, is how Correia, Fall River’s youngest and likely most notorious mayor, was eventually the subject of an intensive probe that ultimately landed him in federal prison.

"It did not start with marijuana extortion at all. That didn’t even come until after the SnoOwl portion of the case,” said Hafer, who along with Assistant U.S. Attorney David Tobin twice indicted and then convicted Correia after an approximately 2½-year federal investigation.

“But oftentimes, as in most federal cases, they start with somebody walking into the federal government with information, or some agency. Then, many, many times out of 10, that information isn’t corroborated or collapses and goes nowhere,” said Hafer. “But maybe you start to look at other things.”

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Then Jasiel Correia II held a press conference

The feds had heard “rumblings” about possible corruption on the sixth floor at Government Center, said Hafer.

“But nothing remotely provable, if you will. It was ‘I heard this’ or ‘somebody told me somebody gave up $10,000 in a paper bag,’ but they wouldn’t tell you who, they wouldn’t tell you where and they wouldn’t tell you when. Stuff that was simply worthless,” said Hafer.

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After a grand jury handed up the indictment in the SnoOwl case against Correia, he was back on the federal investigators' radar.

And Correia unwittingly shined the spotlight on himself.

The former assistant U.S. attorney referenced a bizarre event orchestrated by Correia and held inside Government Center during business hours.

With a giant American flag as his backdrop, Correia gathered family, supporters and city workers and spoke before throngs of media on Oct. 16, 2018, just five days after his first indictment.

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Where to get vegan cheddar soup

Predictably, Correia eschewed a prepared five-page script written with his attorneys at the time, Mark Berthiaume and Kevin Reddington. (Correia fired Berthiaume’s law firm shortly after the press conference.)

Correia proclaimed his innocence and bragged about his political record in a 34-minute presentation that looked more like a sales pitch for the SnoOwl smartphone app he was accused of using to defraud investors. The conference included a PowerPoint presentation meant to debunk a one-sentence claim by then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling that SnoOwl was merely a "prototype."

In the confusing post-indictment presentation, Correia set out examples to prove that SnoOwl was working and available to consumers. One showed that SnoOwl could point to a restaurant serving vegan cheddar soup.

“Do you know how difficult it is to find cheddar soup that’s vegan? Because vegans don’t eat dairy. This is really cool stuff, a vegan banana split,” said Correia, pointing to a slide on a giant monitor.

“It was extraordinary,” said Hafer recalling the Correia-staged event.

The press conference Correia used to explain himself led to him getting into even deeper trouble.

“It wasn’t until the SnoOwl portion was charged, and, quite frankly, he had that spectacle press conference with his own PowerPoint, that we had a couple of folks provide more tangible information that put us in a position to follow up on it,” said Hafer.

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Who gave the feds the info?

Hafer declined to discuss the grand jury proceedings, which are secret, so it’s unclear exactly who provided the information on the extortions of the marijuana vendors.

However, Correia’s co-defendants in the extortion case — former chief of staff Genoveva Andrade, businessmen and political supporters Tony Costa and David Hebert, along with longtime mentor Hildegar Camara — were charged with lying to the federal government.

All four, it was revealed at Correia’s trial, were initially given offers of immunity for their cooperation and until they lied.

Costa, Hebert and Camara all eventually became cooperating witnesses and pleaded guilty. Andrade, it came out at her sentencing, had declined to testify against her former boss.

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SnoOwl was also not the initial bullseye for Feds

Hafer, who worked with the U.S. Attorney's Office for 14 years before moving on to a private law firm at the end of Correia’s trial last May, said he joined the case around the time Correia hired Berthiaume in March 2017.

“But the case was older than that, though,” said Hafer. “The FBI and HUD [U.S. Housing and Urban Development] investigation pre-dated that.”

Hafer was hesitant to delve into exactly what caught the initial attention of federal investigators, but he said there was "a HUD component" related to concerns about HUD funding in Fall River.

At trial, HUD's involvement was mentioned by Correia’s second defense lawyer, Kevin Reddington, in connection to the city’s Community Development Agency and its executive director, Michael Dion, although the veteran defense attorney offered no details.

In April 2016, Correia and the CDA entered into an ambitious project to upgrade the city’s aging fire department fleet with a $5 million HUD loan. But as Hafer emphasized, none of that or any other allegations of wrongdoing with HUD funds by Correia were ever entered at trial.

As agents from the FBI and the IRS continued to poke around Fall River, they began to peel back the onion that led them to Correia’s conviction.

“Nothing like that was ever alleged or charged in any way,” said Hafer of the alleged HUD investigation. “But when you start asking percipient witnesses certain questions, other people start talking to you. Good investigators like to get involved wherever the investigation takes them. If you start on a working theory on one thing, you can end up somewhere else.”

It took teamwork to prosecute the mayor

The most productive investigation, said Hafer, "is when you're functioning like a team.”

"Everybody had their lane and their piece that they own,” said Hafer.

Trial strategy, for instance, would not be the FBI’s or the IRS’s call. When to approach a witness in an investigation, like how, what, why and where, would not be an Assistant U.S. Attorney’s call, said Hafer.

“It really is very collaborative. It’s daily contact, updates, you're meeting in person, you're talking on the phone. You're kicking this stuff around,” said Hafer. “You need everyone on the same page for things to function properly.”

Hafer said that corruption is very hard to prove in federal court and that the law has been narrowed over the years.

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“These cases are hard, hard, hard to prove,” said Hafer.

Despite Berthiaume's contention that the investigation into SnoOwl was about a private business dispute that should not have been taken up by the federal government, the feds didn’t see it that way.

Federal prosecutors, with the help of IRS special agent Sandra Lemanski, discovered that Correia squandered over 60% of the investors' money on expenses for upkeep of a “lavish lifestyle,” including the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz and paying off college debt.

According to sources at the time, SnoOwl investors testified they’d invested a total of $330,000.

“It was like, ‘Oh wow, this is a non-trivial amount of money, and he actually stole it,' and he’s a sitting elected official at the time that we are looking at this. So, while the SnoOwl activity predates him being mayor, there is a different calculus when you're a fed with a discretionary docket,” said Hafer. “Here, it's considered a plus factor as to when you should exercise federal resources, when you have a sitting elected official.”

And so, they turned their attention to Correia’s company, SnoOwl, which he created after college and maintained while he was a one-term city councilor.

“The amount of legwork that goes into these types of financial fraud investigations, on the front end, is incredible. I don’t know how much you could tell this, but even at the beginning of this thing, these quote-unquote investors and people involved … nobody wants to be a witness in a federal case. Nobody wants to get wrapped up in this stuff. No one wants to get sideways with a sitting mayor who’s perceived as vindictive,” said Hafer.

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Feds followed the paper trail

Federal investigators needed a paper trail, the “stuff that just can’t be denied, and gathering the relevant bank accounts, figuring out the relevant credit card records,” said Hafer.

“The other major component in this thing was, 'What did he tell the investors? What did the documents say? What did the business plan say?' As crazy as the spending is, the strip clubs and sex toys and cars and student loans and all this other sort of stuff — if everyone said it was OK for him to pay himself a hundred grand a year, then regardless of how he spends it, you don’t have a fraud case,” said Hafer.

So as the paper-intensive SnoOwl case developed into a grand jury indictment, the case morphed into high-profile marijuana corruption charges and ultimately Correia’s conviction and a six-year federal prison sentence and a pending appeal.

“We charged what we had, and Part II kind of developed after that,” said Hafer.

Jo C. Goode may be reached at jgoode@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism and subscribe to The Herald News today!

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Jasiel Correia prosecutor Hafer details the corruption investigation