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Sudhan M. Thomas, 45, had previously been the acting executive director of the Jersey City Employment and Training Program (JCETP), which “received substantial amounts of funding from federal grants from the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Thomas -- known as "Tommy" -- paid personal debts and expenses with $45,000 that he embezzled from the nonprofit company by collecting the cash from JCETP checks that he had written to others, an indictment returned Monday charges.
Those people included attorney Paul H. Appel, 78, of Point Pleasant, the indictment returned in U.S. District Court Newark alleges.
Thomas also had company checks made out to cash or to a company called Next Glocal, which were deposited into a bank account for his personal use, it says.
Thomas -- who's also facing state bribery charges in a separate case -- became the first Indian-American elected to a seat on the city Board of Education in 2016, ultimately serving as vice president and then president. Appel was the treasurer for that campaign.
Both men “collected campaign contributions and deposited them into a bank account opened for the 2016 campaign that they both controlled,” said Carpenito, the U.S. attorney.
“Under the guise of collecting repayments for loans to the campaign or reimbursement for other purported campaign-related expenses, Thomas and Appel embezzled more than $8,000 from Thomas’s 2016 campaign for their own personal use,” Carpenito said.
Thomas, a Democrat, dipped into the kitty again, this time for $6,000, during a 2019 re-election campaign, the indictment charges.
Among other schemes alleged in the indictment:
- Thomas is charged with soliciting and then pocketing $800 in campaign checks from a candidate whom he informally advised in the 2018 JCBOED election by claiming the money was for campaign workers;
- He also allegedly banked a $1,000 check contributed to the candidate’s campaign committee;
- Thomas and Appel are both charged with collecting $48,500 from a Florida-based technology company -- to purportedly expand its business -- then using the money for personal expenses instead;
- Both men allegedly did it again, this time collecting $10,000 and then reneging on a promise to help another Florida-based company lease modular homes to veterans and the homeless.
The 26-count indictment charges Thomas with various embezzlement, money laundering and fraud offenses, Carpenito said. Appel is charged as his accomplice in 17 counts, he said.
Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General’s New York Region with the investigation leading to the charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tazneen Shahabuddin of his Special Prosecutions Division in Newark is handling the case for the government.
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