MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A man who scammed a 9/11 fund out of thousands of dollars has been jailed.
Claudio Tavarez, former comptroller of the September 11th Families' Association, admitted to stealing more than $17,500 by writing unauthorized checks to himself. He tried to cover up the fraud by recording the checks as payment to vendors between July 2009 and April 2010.
He was sentenced to nine months in jail by Manhattan Criminal Court judge Larry Stephens on Thursday. It was the sentence he'd been promised when he pleaded guilty on July 6.
Tavarez, 45, of Washington Heights, paid the cash back to the organization, prosecutors said Thursday at the sentencing.
He declined to speak at the sentencing and no one from the Association, which is based on Cortlandt Street, was present.
