HICKSVILLE, N.Y. – A former director at NY Team(sters) FCU was banned from working for credit unions and banks last week for his conviction on laundering $1.3 million of bribes paid by Consolidated Edison construction inspectors in Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester for his brother-in-law, a ConEd employee.
In the years following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Con Ed directed or took part in much of the subsurface construction in lower Manhattan, and received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, mainly from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to perform the work. In connection with these projects, Con Ed inspectors solicited bribes in exchange for approving contractor invoices that listed phantom pay items, allowing contractors to perform unnecessary additional work on the projects, and expediting Con Ed payments to the contractors. In the aggregate, these schemes cost Con Ed millions of dollars.
Nathaniel Ham was convicted last year of structuring the bribes in credit union deposits then withdrawing them in cash less than $10,000 at a time to evade federal money laundering laws. Even after NCUA issued an order restricting the cash withdrawals to less than $2,500 Ham, who knew of the new restrictions because of his position on the board, continued the laundering scheme.
Ham and his brother-in-law, William Shannon, were among almost two dozen individuals convicted in an under-cover investigation into the scheme by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Office of the Inspector General, and the Internal Revenue Service.
Ham, 59, was found guilty of the money laundering charges by a federal jury and sentenced to 32 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $1.1 million.
