STATEN ISLAND — The former head of purchasing for the Staten Island District Attorney's office was hit with a 10-count indictment after he embezzled more than $440,000 from the office to pay for items like knives and vacations, federal prosecutors said.
William Nelson, 44, served as the procurement director for the DA from 2006 to 2016 and used two office credit cards to buy electronics, groceries, New York Giants tickets, books, survival gear, handbags and more.
He even used PayPal to transfer thousands of dollars from the cards to his personal account, prosecutors said.
"This case is a textbook example of what can happen when power goes unchecked," said William Sweeney, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI, in a statement about the former Richmond County DA employee.
"Not only did Nelson allegedly steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the RCDA, but he shamefully exploited his official position to authorize the very transactions that made this possible."
Nelson was indicted on one count of theft of funds and nine counts of mail fraud and is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges Thursday afternoon, prosecutors said.
The employee primarily worked under then-DA and current Congressman Dan Donovan. His department was largely left without oversight and his credit card activity was unmonitored during that time, authorities said.
A spokesman for Donovan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nelson was hired to oversee all purchases by Donovan in 2005, but started funneling money from the agency to cover a myriad of personal expenses a year after he started, prosecutors said.
This included an extensive knife collection that Nelson dedicated most of his Instagram account to.
Nelson took advantage of a lack of financial protocols in the DA's office to get away with the scheme for 10 years and had no supervision over his purchases during that time, according to a Department of Investigation report.
He concealed credit card statements sent to his work email to avoid review, mischaracterized the nature of some purchases and approved all of them himself, federal prosecutors said.
The DOI report found the DA's office did not have a purchase threshold set for Nelson, didn't review expenditure codes in the budget he used to hide his theft, and did not approve payments to vendors in a way required by the city.
Current DA Michael McMahon previously said the office did not have written fiscal procedures to oversee finances until 2012 and the ones that were put in place at the time were "limited."
Since Nelson's arrest, McMahon made changes to the procedures and adopted a series of recommendations by the DOI to increase oversight of its finances.
Nelson was demoted to procurement analyst in May 2016 after McMahon took office and made changes to the staff. A spokesman for the DA couldn't say why he lost his original position.
He worked in that post until he resigned in December after the office started interviewing new procurement directors and he was put on terminal leave.
After his resignation, the DA's office noticed irregularities and unauthorized spending by the agency and notified the DOI to investigate, McMahon said.
The DOI arrested Nelson for grand larceny in June and he was officially fired from the DA's office then.
"These are funds that were meant to make Staten Island safer; to fight the opioid crisis, the surge in domestic violence, the use of illegal guns, to name a few; but instead they were allegedly used for personal indulgences," McMahon said in a statement. "I am very glad that my new administration was able to quickly detect Nelson’s crimes and immediately refer the matter to DOI and the Eastern District for prosecution."
