Jasiel Correia, the former mayor of Fall River, has been ordered to turn himself into a federal prison on Friday after exhausting his legal options to remain free on bail while appealing numerous corruption and fraud convictions.
His deadline to report to prison is arriving nearly a year after a jury found the 30-year-old Correia, once the youngest mayor in Fall River’s history, guilty of 21 crimes.
During a four-week trial that ended last May, witnesses described an extortion racket where business owners seeking to open marijuana dispensaries in Fall River paid Correia bribes worth tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for mayoral approval. Correia was also found guilty of defrauding investors in a start-up he founded before taking office.
U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock sentenced Correia to six years in federal prison, initially ordering him to turn himself into prison last December.
Woodlock has also overturned several of Correia’s convictions, finding technical errors in the government’s case that Correia committed wire fraud, despite testimony from former investors and federal investigators who said Correia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company’s accounts on luxury goods for himself.
Correia is appealing his remaining convictions in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The former mayor has not spent any time incarcerated for his crimes. During the 11 months Correia has been free on bail since his conviction, he has gotten married and helped manage a restaurant in downtown Fall River partly owned by his wife’s family.
During that time, Judge Woodlock delayed the date Correia was due to report to prison six times, giving the former mayor and his new team of lawyers time to prepare an opening appellate brief.
On Wednesday, after reviewing the brief, judges from the appeals court issued a ruling that is expected to end that period of leniency. Correia has been ordered to self-report to a federal prison in Berlin, New Hampshire on Friday before noon.
U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins, whose office will continue prosecuting Correia’s case as it moves through the federal justice system, said the decision should provide a sense of closure in Fall River, a city where Correia’s crimes could leave a lasting impact on public trust in local government.
“After six delays, today’s order from the First Circuit declares what so many have longed to hear in the case against former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia,” Rollins said Wednesday. “He will begin his prison sentence in the coming days.”
Neither Correia nor his lawyers could be reached for comment on Thursday.
Ben Berke is the South Coast Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio. He can be reached at bberke@thepublicsradio.org. Follow him on Twitter @BenBerke6.
