Prosecutors: Ex-Boston Housing Authority Official Pilfered $20K In Program Funds Intended To Benefit Poor, Elderly Tenants; Theft Led To Shutdown Of Division Addressing Issues For Senior Citizen & Disabled Residents In Public Housing Throughout City

From the Office of the Suffolk County, Massachusetts District Attorney:

• Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans, Massachusetts Inspector General Glenn A. Cunha, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General David A. Montoya [] announced that the former head of a Boston elder services program has been indicted for stealing thousands of dollars that were intended to benefit the city’s seniors.
  
  As the result of a multi-agency investigation, a Suffolk County grand jury [] returned indictments charging ALFRED G. DAVIS (D.O.B. 5/20/45) of Lynn with two counts of larceny over $250 and single counts of forgery and uttering.
  
  The investigation revealed that Davis was the director of elder services for the Boston Housing Authority in 2008, when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation named him a “Community Health Leader” and awarded him a grant of $105,000 to help improve the health of Boston seniors living in public housing, along with a $20,000 stipend to be used for his personal development as a community health leader. However, Davis – a 20-year employee of the BHA – never informed the housing agency of the grant funds that were intended to benefit its elderly residents, prosecutors said.
  
  Davis used some of the funds to fulfill the grant’s intended purpose but is alleged to have misused $20,000 for his own personal use, making a series of ATM withdrawals from the grant account totaling $5,400 and receiving approximately $9,900 directly from the foundation after he submitted a forged invoice for a senior fitness program that had already been funded, prosecutors said. [...] Davis allegedly used the siphoned philanthropic funds to pay for personal expenses, including travel expenses in Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Barbados; expensive meals; a mattress; virility supplements; and collectible coins, prosecutors said.
  
  As a result of the theft, the Elder/Disabled Housing Division of the Boston Housing Authority was eliminated and its operations subsumed by other City of Boston offices.

For more, see Former Elder Services Chief Indicted for Theft.