Former Mayor Jasiel F. Correia II is now in jail, according to the Bureau of Prisons. As an inmate of a federal prison in Berlin, New Hampshire, he is serving his six-year sentence for fraud and corruption. Jasiel F. Correia reported to the federal prison facility in Berlin after getting his GPS monitor removed by the probation department.
Initially due to report to prison in early December, Correia asked for and received several delays – first on the grounds that he was allowed to help run his in-laws’ restaurant during the holiday season. Then, there were several other delays due to the ongoing pandemic and parallel extensions so that Judge Douglas Woodlock could read his appeal brief.
Jasiel Correia and his attorneys, William Fick and Daniel Marx, had hoped to postpone his sentencing until the outcome of an appeal of his case, which is pending. Several motions have been denied by both Woodlock and the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to testimony at his trial, Correia has spent years coaxing hundreds of thousands of dollars from SnoOwl’s investors, using made-up claims about past business success and promising that SnoOwl will become, as he wrote in a 2015 LinkedIn post, “the next Google.” Rather than using their funds for business purposes, prosecutors stated, Correia wasted most of it, on items ranging from luxury clothes and cars to student loan repayments and adult entertainment.
Jasiel Correia got into Fall River politics as a city councilman in 2013, then rode a surge of voter discontent to become mayor in 2015, at age 23 the youngest person to hold the office. But prosecutors said he quickly took advantage of his position for personal gain. Correia was arrested two times and removed from office in 2019.
Correia has maintained his innocence and was featured in a one-hour documentary series in 2020 called “Run This City.” Correia was convicted of defrauding investors in his private business from before he was in office. While a judge later dismissed multiple wire fraud and all tax fraud convictions, Correia was still found guilty of 11 counts of extortion, wire fraud and extortion conspiracy. He was sentenced in September to six years in prison, to begin last December.
Two of his co-conspirators, Tony Costa and Hildegar Camara, have previously pleaded guilty and been sentenced. Another one, David Hebert, has pleaded guilty to extortion and lying to federal investigators, and is scheduled to be sentenced shortly. Genoveva Andrade, which is Correia’s former chief of staff and campaign manager, agreed to a deal with prosecutors that resulted in her pleading guilty to a single count of making false statements. She was sentenced to time served, one year of probation and a $50,000 fine.
Correia must also repay more than $300,000 in restitution to his investors. Under the First Step Act of 2018, Correia can gain up to 54 days of early release credit for each year of his imposed sentence. After being released, Correia will also be required to serve three years of probation.