Crime & Safety

Firefighter Suspended Following Arrest for Tax Evasion

Needham resident, an elected assessor, is accused of not paying taxes on misappropriated funds.

Needham firefighter Kevin Foley remains suspended from his job with the town after he was arrested last week on federal charges of tax evasion.

Foley, who also is an elected member of the Needham Board of Assessors, is accused of misappropriating $492,334 belonging to a 77-year-old Needham woman and failing to file taxes on those funds as well as on his legally earned income from the town, according to the federal indictment provided by the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.

Needham Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick  said town counsel is looking into whether Foley, as an elected official, can be suspended from his role as assessor.

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“The town’s expectation is that our employees will conduct themselves to the highest moral and ethical standards, and we will act expeditiously to address illegal activity or other improper conduct,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement released last week.

Foley, 54, of Greendale Avenue, Needham, was arrested last Wednesday by federal officials and indicted in U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts on three counts of felony tax evasion for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.

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According to the federal indictment, Foley failed to file an income tax return and pay taxes on certain earnings from around June 22, 2006 through April 15, 2010.

In the indictment, Foley is accused of various activities “designed to hide his income and assets from the IRS and obstruct the IRS from assessing the taxes owed.”

Those alleged activities include: withdrawing cash from Needham resident Barbara Horowitz’s bank accounts and purchasing money orders for his own use; endorsing checks drawn on Horowitz's bank accounts to pay his personal expenses, including his home mortgage; transferring funds from Horowitz's bank account into his personal accounts; withdrawing cash using Horowitz's ATM card; and transferring money from Horowitz's account into his own account and using that money to purchase a boat, according to the indictment.

For Horowitz and her family, Foley’s indictment was a long time coming, according to daughter Wendy Ribeiro, who responded to questions via e-mail from her home in Brazil.

“My sister called me last week. It was a call my family and I had waited for for more than a year and a half,” Ribeiro wrote. “My daughter and I jumped up and down screaming. It was such a relief.”

Ribeiro said she first met Foley about 30 years ago, when he had come to her father, a lawyer, for advice. For a while, she said, Foley was a “trusted friend,” eventually spending more and more time with Mrs. Horowitz after her husband died.

“He seemed to be isolating my mother from her family," Ribeiro said. "I noticed that her credit cards would not always work in stores. I tried to look at bills that were at my mother's home and he would become livid."

When she ran her mother’s credit report in October 2009, Ribeiro said she was shocked at what she found.

“His [Foley’s] new truck was on my mother’s credit report. Three school loans totaling close to $100,000 were also on her credit report. All her credit cards were up to limit and late,” Ribeiro said.

She contacted local police and began investigating the various bank statements herself.

Ribeiro said she was relieved to hear that Foley had finally been charged in the matter.

“I have spent the last year and a half cleaning up the mess he left,” she said.

Reached at home on Monday afternoon, Foley declined to discuss the charges against him.

“I really have no comment,” he said.


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