Real Estate Agent Sentenced in Corruption Case
A federal formal who sold houses for a Duxbury brokerage will spend four months in jail and pay out virtually $18,000 immediately after pleading responsible in a public corruption case.
Hanover resident Kevin Richards, 52, pleaded responsible to one rely of acquiring an illegal gratuity as a community official and two counts of producing bogus statements to a federal company in March. He was sentenced previous week.
Richards worked as the New England leasing director for a division of the federal Common Expert services Administration, which is responsible for creating, maintaining and managing most civilian federal government property according to the place of work of U.S. Lawyer for Boston Rachel Rollins. He also labored as a true estate agent for a Duxbury genuine estate organization setting up in 2017. It was this facet task that led him to operate afoul of the regulation. Prosecutors did not establish the brokerage.
Prosecutors say he was permitted to have the side job supplied that he disclosed it, and whether or not or not he received any payment, in an once-a-year monetary disclosure report required by GSA’s ethics place of work. However, on his 2020 disclosure report, he claimed he no for a longer time marketed residences for the Duxbury brokerage and then lied about it to a GSA ethics officer regardless of filing a federal tax return where he claimed a internet decline of $14,592 working for the Duxbury business in that 12 months.
He also assisted the unknown brokerage’s proprietor get a occupation functioning for him at the GSA in November 2019, prosecutors explained, emailing the individual about the task posting, substantively enhancing their resume and offering them confidential interview concerns forward of time, all with no telling the GSA or disclosing that he was an agent at the person’s brokerage. Richards then picked the brokerage owner for the job about 65 other certified candidates and successfully lobbied to get the broker a $102,517 income alternatively of the ordinary $85,428.
Soon soon after the brokerage proprietor commenced at the GSA and practically two years soon after Richards experienced last gained a fee from the business, Richards texted the brokerage owner, “If you have to have any support on your new listing allow me know.” A handful of times later the brokerage proprietor marketed Richards as a listing agent for a $1.1 million home in Duxbury. Richards did not earn a commission on that listing but earned a $10,250 fee when a next home he stated for the brokerage in Marshfield bought, charging files point out. Charging paperwork provide no added facts about the Marshfield house, which include address or rate.
A memo from Richards’ lawyer to the choose in the circumstance said that Richards has resigned his federal occupation and taken a posture as a truck driver to make ends fulfill. Paul Hughes, spokesperson for the GSA’s New England area, reported the Duxbury broker Richards hired no more time functions for the GSA.
