The chairman of the Rochester Housing Authority Board has been charged with lying to the FBI.
George Moses of Rochester is accused by federal prosecutors of not telling the truth on several occasions when he was being questioned about Rochester City Councilman Adam McFadden’s financial connections to the housing authority. The charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Moses was being questioned essentially about the RHA being used as a pass-through agency. Federal funds were sent through a housing charity to a lobbyist in Washington, which then sent 75 percent of those funds to a company called Ceasar Development LLC, owned by Councilman McFadden. The amount Ceasar received was about $33,000.
U.S. Attorney James Kennedy says the FBI questioned Moses about this one-year contract agreement. Moses is accused of lying to the FBI about what he knew on four different occasions.
Moses made an initial appearance in federal court and was released.
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said in a statement after the Moses arrest that “impropriety at any level of government cannot be tolerated.”
The mayor says she was surprised to learn of the charges against Moses and says she’ll be highly disappointed if they’re true. The RHA is not a department of city government, but the mayor appoints five of the seven members to the RHA Board. Mayor Warren stresses that the authority is entirely supported by federal funding and doesn’t get funds from city hall.
The mayor also says Moses is taking a leave of absence from the Housing Authority Board.