Vernon housing program manager charged with stealing rent checks from tenants

A program manager for the Vernon Housing Authority was arrested in connection with the alteration and theft of rent checks from at least five tenants for months in 2020.

Michael Gentile, 36, of Manchester, was fired from his position at the authority in early December after he overdosed on fentanyl while on the job. Weeks later, a police investigation began after uncashed rental checks were found in his office from individuals that weren’t listed in the housing database, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Gentile is now being charged with first-degree larceny, second and third-degree forgery and third-degree computer crime after the investigation found that he stole rent money from at least five individuals who resided in properties owned by the housing authority from August to December of last year.

Betsy Soto, the housing authority’s executive director, first reached out to Vernon police on Dec. 30 after receiving a complaint from a resident who said they lived on the second floor of a property near Ward Street. The tenant said their family moved into the apartment in August, but the housing authority database had no record of the lease or any payments.

The tenant was able to provide receipts which prompted Soto to search Gentile’s former office, the affidavit said.

Inside his desk, she found the lease of the property, signed only by Gentile and the tenant and missing her signature. Soto told police that she reviewed and signed all leases, so she continued searching the office and inside a personal bag found three uncashed money orders of $1,100, $1,000 and $800 from the Ward Street tenants.

When Soto approached the tenants about some missing payments from the four months they resided in the property, they explained that they paid $2,500 in cash for the first month, security deposit and $300 pet fee, after Gentile said the payment had to be in cash because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The warrant also said that they told police and Soto that one month they paid $550 in cash for rent after Gentile agreed to a deal that if they removed trees from the backyard, it would cover the difference. Email exchanges later corroborated the tenant’s story. Soto told police that the housing authority “lost $3,600 related to this property and directly as a result of Gentile’s actions,” the warrant said.

Another tenant, from a property on Grove Street, made a complaint she never received a receipt from a payment she made. This tenant said she paid $708 each month, and police later learned that Gentile changed her income level to $0, causing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay her full rent while he cashed the checks from the tenant, the arrest warrant affidavit showed.

The tenant denied ever making a payment to Gentile, and after contacting her bank, saw that Gentile changed the order to line from VHA to “MiCHAel Gentile,” adding an “M” before her “V” and changing the “V” into a “iC” before adding “el” after her letter “A”.

HUD confirmed they lost more than $1,400, the warrant said.

The incidents continued with different renters, where Gentile would either change a check to be made out to him, or would receive cash payments, causing the VHA and HUD to lose thousands of dollars.

The investigation remained ongoing and in late March, Gentile was approached by police at his home in Manchester.

Gentile told police that he struggled with substance abuse, had relapsed in August and recently detoxed and went to rehab following his overdose at work. He also told police that “his memory during the months he was using was not very clear to him,” the arrest warrant said. “He added that his drug use and the prior stroke he suffered factored into this.”

With most of the incidents Gentile was asked about, he responded that he didn’t remember, the warrant said. He acknowledged the evidence brought to him regarding the incidents, but made repeated comments that he “didn’t recall doing it,” police wrote in the warrant.

The arrest warrant was signed by Judge Hope Seeley Tuesday and Gentile was taken into custody. He was released on $10,000 bond after appearing in Superior Court in Rockville.

Jessika Harkay can be reached at jharkay@courant.com.