By: Richard L. Smith
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger reported that an Elizabeth man who previously served as a staff member in the New Jersey Senate was sentenced today to eight months of home confinement and three years of probation for his role in a conspiracy to falsely inflate the invoices that a political consultant submitted to various campaigns, political action committees, and IRS 501(c)(4) organizations.
Federal officials Antonio Teixeira, 44, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of tax evasion. Judge Vazquez imposed the sentence today in Newark federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
From 2014 to 2018, Teixeira conspired with Sean Caddle, and Caddle’s political consulting firms, to defraud various campaigns, political action committees, and 501(c)(4) organizations.
Teixeira then failed to report this illicit income on tax forms that he filed with the IRS during those same years.
Caddle was hired by a former New Jersey state senator to create the PACs and 501(c)(4)s so that they could raise and spend money to advocate on a variety of issues, including supporting particular candidates in local races around New Jersey. Teixeira served as the senator’s chief of staff and wielded influence over the consultants that the campaigns and organizations hired and the budgets that each of these organizations would receive.
Teixeira and Caddle conspired to falsely inflate the invoices that Caddle’s consulting firms submitted to the campaigns, PACs and 501(c)(4)s with phony campaign-related expenditures.
Caddle and Teixeira were fraudulently padding the invoices because they agreed to split the difference between Caddle’s actual campaign expenditures and the overage charged to the organizations. Caddle paid a portion of Teixeira’s share to him in cash and funneled the remainder to Teixeira via checks made out to Teixeira’s relatives in order to conceal that campaign money was being kicked back to Teixeira. In total, Teixeira received more than $100,000. Although Teixeira pocketed these fraudulent proceeds and used the money for personal expenses, he never reported the money on the tax forms that he filed with the IRS during the course of the scheme.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Vazquez ordered Teixeira to pay restitution.