Maguire Pleads Guilty to Obstruction of Justice
When then-State Senator Vincent Leibell was building his 6,000-square-foot home in Patterson, one “Favored Contractor” handled a good chunk of the work, valued at approximately $50,000, federal prosecutors say, but Leibell paid just $5,000 to the contractor. When he learned a grand jury was investigating the matter, Leibell’s chief of staff, Ray Maguire Jr., made two more $5,000 payments to the contractor and asked him to “clean up the paper” regarding the construction. This entailed creating fake invoices to make it seem like Leibell had intended to pay the contractor from the beginning, according to prosecutors.
On Thursday, Maguire pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of justice before Judge Cathy Seibel at the U.S. District Courthouse in White Plains.
“I asked a contractor to mislead a grand jury and investigators,” Maguire told Seibel Thursday.
He’ll be sentenced on December 16 at 3:30 p.m. The maximum sentence is 10 years in prison, though sentencing guidelines call for 12 to 18 months in prison. Maguire has also resigned from the U.S. Air Force, according to his attorney, Richard Willstatter of the White Plains law firm of Green & Willstatter.
Maguire served as Leibell’s Chief of Staff from 2005 to 2010, the last five of Leibell’s 15 years in the Senate. Last December, a month after being elected county executive of Putnam, Leibell pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice and tax evasion charges unrelated to the construction of his home and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. His sentence began in July.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.