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Greene County resident Kory O’Hara, age 45, formerly the town supervisor of Prattsville, was sentenced to one year of probation in federal court in Albany on Thursday, Dec. 8.
It followed his July 2022 guilty plea to a single charge of wire fraud stemming from various grant agreements O’Hara entered into that were meant to help Prattsville recover from the significant damage left in the storm’s wake in August 2011.
The storm caused record flooding in the town and left more than 100 homes damaged so badly they were condemned. All 22 of the town's businesses were either heavily damaged or destroyed.
Millions of dollars in rehabilitation grants were later issued to Prattsville and its residents.
According to prosecutors, O’Hara admitted that between 2013 and 2015, he obtained false invoices from a Prattsville-based modular home business that claimed to reflect construction work that was performed on his automotive garage, O’Hara’s Service Station.
Even though the work was never performed, O’Hara issued checks to the modular home business reflecting payment on the invoices, but the company returned all the money, prosecutors said.
O'Hara admitted to later submitting false invoices and checks to Prattsville and the New York State Housing Trust Fund Corporation to fraudulently obtain nearly $25,000 in grant proceeds under the New York Main Street Program.
“Kory O’Hara unconscionably used grant money intended to help his town recover from the destruction of Hurricane Irene to pay his own back taxes, debts and the operating expenses of his service station, among other things,” State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement.
“Thanks to the work of my Division of Investigations, United States Attorney Carla Freedman and our partners in law enforcement, the town is getting its rightfully deserved money and O’Hara has been made to answer for his misdeeds.”
In addition to probation, a judge ordered O’Hara to pay a $5,000 fine and pay $24,915 in restitution to the state of New York.
A 71-year-old co-defendant, Stephen Baker, of Prattsville, previously pleaded guilty to offering a false instrument for filing, a misdemeanor, in Prattsville Town Court. The federal charges against him were dismissed.
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