A federal jury Friday convicted Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence of 20 corruption-related charges accusing him of manipulating the town's books and fabricating revenues to get better rates on bonds to finance the town's baseball stadium and other projects.

The convictions end St. Lawrence's 16-year reign as supervisor of Rockland County's largest and most diverse town, now facing economic distress.

The 12-member jury returned guilty verdicts on 11 wire fraud counts, eight counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. The jury acquitted St. Lawrence, 65, of Wesley Hills, of one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud.

The fraud counts carry prison terms of 20 years, while conspiracy carries a five-year term.

His sentencing on Sept. 28 will be based on federal guidelines and the discretion of U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel following the month-long trial led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys James McMahon, Stephen Ritchin and Daniel Loss.

St. Lawrence stood nervously as the jury came out and had a stunned look on his face as the verdict was read.

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St. Lawrence declined comment afterward but defense lawyer Michael Burke of Suffern said he would appeal the verdict.

"We're disappointed in the jury verdict," Burke said. "We believe we will be successful on post-trial motions and appeal."

Jurors had asked for a substantial amount of transcripts of testimony after they began deliberating, but at about 1:30 p.m. Friday, they announced they had reached their verdict. Several jurors who declined to give their names said it was a complicated case but they were confident about their decision.

Ramapo resident Rudy Dent, who has been attending the trial, celebrated.

"We waited 13 years for this," Dent said outside the courthouse. "Justice will be served."

Longtime political foe Robert Romanowski said, "Ever since the construction of the stadium began against the approval of residents, we knew things were amiss and not right. Today, a jury has proven that fact. We have no sympathy for St. Lawrence because of the things he has done to the Town of Ramapo. No one forced him to do what he did,. He did it on his own. He brought this on himself."

The Town Board will meet to vote on a successor for St. Lawrence, though a board member is not required for the top spot. The board also will consider other reforms to the town government.

Councilman Patrick Withers, who testified against St. Lawrence after audio-taping conversations for the FBI over several years, called Friday "a sad day for our Ramapo family."

"We must now move forward in a new and better direction for our town residents and taxpayers," Withers said. "I will personally be part of a positive direction."

Rockland County Executive Ed Day, a Republican, called the verdict "a stain on the town and all of Rockland County. We support every effort to restore integrity to Ramapo."

St. Lawrence's 16-year reign as Ramapo's top elected official has been filled with controversy. He was up for another two-year term in November.

The supervisor had been handily re-elected amid accusations he catered to the town's powerful Orthodox Jewish voting bloc and recently has been linked to an $800,000 deal to remove piles of contaminated soil that have continued to languish in western Ramapo.

The trial started in U.S. District Court in White Plains on April 20. The jury began deliberations May 18.

St. Lawrence, who did not testify during the trial, was not accused of personally profiting from his alleged schemes.

Instead, the federal case focused on the complex concept that he ripped off investors in connection with fabricated financial figures and lies on the sales of municipal bonds issued by the town and the Ramapo Local Development Corp., the town's economic development arm, which sought bonds for development projects.

He fabricated receivables to bolster the town's financial health and fund balance in an effort to get a better credit rating and lower interest rate on bonds, which financed the stadium and infrastructure projects. In doing so, St. Lawrence cheated bond buyers who didn't get as high a profit on their bond purchases.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, who succeeded Preet Bharara after his firing by President Donald Trump, said the prosecution upheld the integrity of the bond market.

“As the jury found today after trial, Christopher St. Lawrence lied repeatedly to the investing public about the state of Ramapo’s finances," Kim said. "The integrity of the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market is of critical importance to both investors and municipalities that rely on this market. The verdict today in a case of public corruption meets securities fraud, stands as a victory for both honest government and fair financial markets.”

As of August 2015, Ramapo had more than $128 million in outstanding bonds that had been issued for municipal purposes, while the RLDC had issued $25 million in bonds to pay for the construction a baseball stadium in Ramapo.

While the fraud predated the stadium, Ramapo's financial problems were caused largely by the estimated $58 million total cost of the stadium.

Ramapo paid more than half of that cost, despite the rejection of the town's guarantee of bonds to pay for construction of the stadium in a town-wide referendum in 2010 and St. Lawrence’s public statements that no public money would be used to pay for the stadium.

St. Lawrence lied to investors in the Town’s and RLDC’s bonds in order to conceal the deteriorating state of the Town’s finances and the inability of the RLDC to make scheduled payments of principal and interest to holders of its bonds from its own money, prosecutors said during the trial. St. Lawrence lied to investors primarily by making up false assets in the town's general fund.

St. Lawrence, federal prosecutors said, was willing to lie and commit fraud to pay for the baseball stadium, the home of the Rockland Boulders.

Prosecutors painted a picture of the powerful Democratic supervisor as a fast-talking manipulator who had complete control of the town's finances. He also wore the hats of finance and budget director, as well as president of the RLDC.

Prosecutors detailed a series of allegedly bogus transactions involving the stadium and town-owned housing complexes intended to prop up Ramapo's bottom line.

These involved the RLDC, which failed to meet payments on bonds for the estimated $60 million baseball stadium and surrounding parking. The town guaranteed the payments for the stadium, placing the burden on the town budget and taxpayers.

Aaron Troodler, the RLDC's former executive director and St. Lawrence's alleged co-conspirator, pleaded guilty and testified against his former boss.

Troodler testified about revenue on the town's books and the RLDC that he said never existed, starting with a $3.66 million payment the agency supposedly was to make to the town for the stadium land. He said every time his agency had to make a payment, the supervisor came up with a last-minute solution.

A trio of prosecutors pressed the point that St. Lawrence became so obsessed with building a baseball stadium that he would lie and fabricate revenues to give investors the impression the town had a healthy financial outlook. In reality, they said, the town's finances were weak.

“He lied repeatedly over an extended period of time,” Assistant U.S. Attorney James McMahon told the jurors during his closing statement. “The fraud got him the money he needed for the stadium he wanted so badly."

Buoyed by hundreds of thousand of pages of documents, prosecutors produced key testimony from several current and former town officials, including those who worked in the town finance office and directly with St. Lawrence.

Finance official Melissa Reimer, the whistleblower who went to the FBI with audiotapes and information on Ramapo's finances, offered the jury her view, backed by documents, that St. Lawrence manipulated the town's finances.

She offered an audiotape of St. Lawrence boasting after a Jan. 25, 2013, conference call between town officials and representatives of Moody's Investors Services, an agency that sets a crucial credit rating for municipalities.

A laughing St. Lawrence is heard saying, "Listen, I'm going to tell you this right now, we need to get the refinancing done. Those numbers, we're going to have to be a magician to get those numbers."

Reimer also described how St. Lawrence floated the idea of making a land transfer from the town's Ramapo Commons development to cover a $3.080 million hole created when the deal to sell another development, The Hamlets, fell through.

Another audiotape played during the trial was secretly made by Withers that captured St. Lawrence claiming he would blame elderly finance official Nat Oberman and use him for "plausible deniability."

According to the evidence, St. Lawrence lied to the RLDC’s bond rating service in January 2013 when he told them in a telephone call that the 2012 fund balance would remain unchanged from the 2011 balance.

Immediately after that call ended, St. Lawrence told Town employees “to do [an upcoming] refinancing of the short term debt as fast as possible because . . . we’re going to have to all be magicians to get to some of those numbers.”

When the RLDC issued $25 million in bonds to build the stadium building itself in 2011, Kim said, St. Lawrence inflated the size of the town's general fund by including a false $3.6 million receivable.

The town’s financial condition was important to investors in the RLDC’s bonds because the town guaranteed the payments of principal and interest on the bonds, prosecutors argued to the jury. Without that fake asset, the general fund's balance would have negative in that year.

In May 2013, the FBI searched Town Hall in connection with this investigation.

Witnesses' credibility assailed

Michael Burke, St. Lawrence's defense attorney, assailed Troodler and Reimer's testimony, saying they had lied to investigators, and blamed Reimer for some of the accounting procedures that prosecutors zeroed in on.

"Christopher St. Lawrence had no intent to deceive or defraud," Burke told the jury.

Burke insisted the supposedly fraudulent transactions were not hidden from auditors nor intended to deceive investors

He argued that Reimer was seeking revenge for being suspended, noting she told a psychic: "If I am going to lose my job, I am going to take them all down."

Reimer told the jurors, "I was very angry. They were bringing me up on fabricated charges."

Burke blamed Reimer as the source of inaccurate information about the town's revenue and fund balances.

He also said Reimer never spoke out against St. Lawrence until after the town pursued disciplinary charges against her, and said she lied during questioning during those proceedings.

"There were no fraud complaints," Burke told the jury. "It was only after she was disciplined and charged does Miss Reimer say she had issues. You must take that into consideration. She lied. That's who the government is relying on."

But Reimer testified she went to the FBI about a year before getting brought up on disciplinary charges.

Read earlier trial coverage

OPENING STATEMENTS: Defense, prosecution set out case; first witness

TRIAL, DAY 2: Questionable bond issues detailed

TRIAL, DAY 3: Town's financial health defended

TRIAL, DAY 4: Boulders baseball chief calls St. Lawrence a 'visionary'

TRIAL, DAY 5: Withers made tapes of meetings, jurors hear excerpts

TRIAL, DAY 6: Aaron Troodler begins testifying

TRIAL, DAY 7: Troodler speaks of 'masking reality'

TRIAL, DAY 8: Troodler 'knew things weren't right'

TRIAL, DAY 9: Supervisor was go-to guy on finances

TRIAL, DAY 10: Judge issues 2 rulings in favor of defense

TRIAL, DAY 11: St. Lawrence trial: Testimony focuses on 'false' revenue

TRIAL, DAY 12: Prosecutor calls 'land swap' fraudulent

TRIAL, DAY 13: Whistleblower describes why she went to FBI

TRIAL, DAY 14: Whistleblower says she warned auditors of fraud

TRIAL, DAY 15: 'Have to be a magician to get those numbers'

TRIAL, DAY 16: Supervisor will not testify

TRIAL, DAY 17: Prosecutor says supervisor lied, schemed to build stadium

TRIAL, DAY 18: Defense attacks star witnesses

TRIAL, DAY 19: Jury asks for Klein, Troodler testimony