Ex-mayor in Georgia gets nearly 5 years in prison for defrauding city's COVID relief funds

Federal officials sentenced the former mayor of a Georgia city to almost five years in prison Wednesday on charges that he used pandemic relief funds to pay multiple personal expenses, including his lakefront home’s mortgage and an associate’s political advertising costs.

Jason Lary – the first mayor of Stonecrest, a small city of about 60,000 people east of Atlanta founded through a 2016 DeKalb County ballot initiative – pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud, stealing federal program money and conspiracy, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.

“Lary betrayed the trust placed in him by the citizens of Stonecrest by stealing the very funds meant to help his constituents weather the COVID-19 pandemic,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in the release. “The people of Stonecrest deserved better, and corrupt officials can expect severe consequences for using their offices to commit crimes.”

The stolen funds came from the CARES Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in March 2020. DeKalb County distributed a $6.2 million grant to Stonecrest, which could be used to finance public health expenses and small business aid.

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According to the release, Lary signed a resolution designating the funds for two programs: a public health investment in COVID-19 masking and testing, and small business relief grants. Hundreds of small businesses applied for grants, but most were rejected.

Rather than wiring the money to the two programs, officials said he routed it through a private corporation he’d formed named Municipal Resource Partners Corp.. He hired Lania Boone, who has been convicted as a co-conspirator, to be company's bookkeeper.

Lary stole funds in three different ways, the release said: by wiring about $108,000 directly from Municipal Resource Partners's bank accounts to a mortgage servicing company that financed the mortgage on his lakefront home and $7,600 that paid for Boone’s son’s college tuition and rent; by directing churches that received relief funds to contribute a portion of them back to him, which he in turn used to pay off federal, state and local tax liabilities; and lastly, by asking small business grant recipients to give money back to the city for “marketing and advertising.”

He used the latter method to benefit himself and his associates, the release said, including financing an associate’s political advertising.

“In total, businesses were defrauded out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of relief funds,” the release said.

Lary is “completely remorseful” for his conduct, his attorney Dwight Thomas said.

“He looks forward to redeeming himself to the citizens, to the people of Stonecrest. He worked so hard to create that city. He looks forward to redeeming himself to his family, friends and loved ones,” Thomas said.

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Jenna Sellitto, spokesperson for the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office, said she believes Lary’s sentencing is the office’s first case involving an elected official defrauding pandemic aid.

Jazzmin Cobble, a former city councilwoman for the fledgling city, was sworn in as Stonecrest's second mayor on June 17, according to the city’s website.