Pedro Gautier Espada, Former Councilman, Sentenced to Six Months’ Imprisonment

Yesterday, Pedro Gautier Espada was sentenced before Judge Frederic Block in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, to six months’ imprisonment, to be followed by six months’ home confinement and one year of supervised release, for theft of federal funds from Bronx-based non-profit healthcare clinics, Soundview Healthcare Network (“Soundview”) and for failing to file a tax return for tax year 2009. As part of that sentence, Judge Block ordered Gautier Espada to serve 100 hours of community service, restitution to the Internal Revenue Service in the amount of $15,628, and additional restitution to the victims of his thefts in an amount to be determined by the court. Gautier Espada served the South Bronx as a New York City Councilman from 1997 to 2001 and as a New York State Assemblyman in 1996.

On June 14, 2013, Judge Block sentenced Gautier Espada’s father, former New York State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, Jr. to five years’ imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for theft of federal funds from Soundview and lying on his 2005 personal tax return. As part of that sentence, Judge Block ordered Espada to serve 100 hours of community service, restitution to the Internal Revenue Service in the amount of $118,531, restitution to the victims of his thefts in an amount to be determined, and forfeiture of $368,088. The court remanded Espada to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.

The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; George Venizelos, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI); and Toni Weirauch, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, New York (IRS).

On October 12, 2012, Gautier Espada pled guilty to one count of stealing federal funding from Soundview and one count of failing to file a tax return for 2009. Gautier Espada was Soundview’s Director of Environmental Care and headed Soundview’s Compliance Committee.

The government’s case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Todd Kaminsky, Carolyn Pokorny, and Claire Kedeshian.