Darin Richardson, the former V.I. Housing Finance Authority executive who was convicted last year on multiple counts related to his handling of a federally funded disaster recovery contract and a home construction loan, filed an appeal Monday after making an unsuccessful bid for continued release while the Third Circuit considers his case.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kearney sentenced Richardson to serve three years in prison in March. The first six months of that sentence followed Richardson’s conviction on federal charges of making material false statements to a federal agent, bank fraud, money laundering and making a false statement on a loan application. The remaining 30 months stemmed from a local charge of criminal conflict of interest, which Kearney treated as particularly serious because of Richardson’s former role as a public official. He was ordered to surrender himself into custody on April 7.
During the sentencing hearing, Kearney denied an oral motion from Richardson’s attorney, Darren John-Baptiste, to allow Richardson to remain free pending appeal. John-Baptiste filed a renewed motion for continued release last week in which he signaled his intent to challenge, among other things, several evidentiary rulings made by Senior Judge Wilma Lewis last year.
The evidence in dispute includes testimony from Kimberly McCollum, a co-owner of the company that won a lucrative contract to manage disaster recovery materials in 2021. That contract award was central to the government’s initial indictment of Richardson, who was a member of VIHFA’s evaluation committee while serving as the agency’s chief operating officer. Richardson later received a $107,000 payment from the company’s other co-owner, Morris Anselmi, and recused himself from matters related to the company. At trial, however, prosecutors showed that he continued signing the company’s checks.
“This evidence was absolutely necessary for the government to meet its burden on Count 14 charging Criminal Conflict of Interest under local law,” John-Baptiste argued. Without McCollum’s testimony, “the government had no way of attempting to show that Mr. Richardson did knowingly have an interest, financial and otherwise, direct and indirect, in a transaction which was in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his official duties in the public interest.”
John-Baptiste also raised the issue of missing notes taken by a special agent with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department Inspector General’s Office who interviewed Richardson after he left VIHFA. The government acknowledged shortly before Richardson’s trial that the notes couldn’t be found. John-Baptiste said the missing notes and testimony from the special agent, Jamila Davis, formed the basis of the false statement charge against Richardson.
The United States opposed the motion for continued release and noted that Kearney already issued an oral ruling on the matter during Richardson’s March 26 sentencing hearing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Cherrisse Amaro argued that the renewed motion “is not a vehicle for relitigating arguments already presented to and rejected by the Court” and that such motions should be denied absent new evidence, a change in the law or a clear error in the court’s previous ruling.
“In short, once a defendant has been convicted and sentenced, continued release is the rare exception — not the rule — and the defendant must make a compelling, affirmative showing to justify it,” she wrote.
Kearney denied the renewed motion on Monday.
