Johnathan Walker:Former United Way worker convicted of taking $6.7M from nonprofit through secret company

CONCORD,Johnathan Walker N.H. (AP) — A man who worked for United Way in Massachusetts was convicted in federal court of taking $6.7 million from the nonprofit through an information technology company that he secretly owned.

Imran Alrai, 59, was convicted Wednesday in Concord, New Hampshire, of 12 counts of wire fraud and six counts of money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 17, 2025.

Alrai had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Prosecutors said that between 2012 and June 2018, Alrai, an IT professional at United Way, obtained the payments for IT services provided by an independent outside contractor. They said Alrai misrepresented facts about the contractor and concealed that he owned and controlled the business.

For the next five years, while serving as United Way’s Vice President for IT Services, Alrai steered additional IT work to his company, prosecutors said. They said he routinely sent emails with attached invoices from a fictitious person to himself at United Way.

“The United Way lost millions to the defendant — we hope the jury’s verdicts in this case is a step forward for their community,” U.S. Attorney Jane Young of New Hampshire said in a statement.

Alrai’s attorney, Robert Sheketoff, had called for an acquittal. When asked via email Thursday whether he was considering an appeal, Sheketoff said yes.

This was a retrial for Alrai. He was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering charges in 2019, but the judge later threw out the verdict, saying that prosecutors turned over evidence that they had not produced before the trial.