Ex-Hawaii County housing official pleads guilty to taking $2M in kickbacks

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A former Hawaii county housing official pleaded responsible Monday to fraud after taking almost $2 million in kickbacks for approving inexpensive housing credit.

Alan Scott Rudo, 55, pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit trustworthy companies mail fraud.

“I used my place on the county to affect inexpensive housing builders,” mentioned Rudo, in federal courtroom.

Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth mentioned he’s been shocked by the allegations. He additionally mentioned this can be a case of 1 dangerous apple in county authorities.

“I believe quite a lot of the folks within the county that had been working with the federal investigators didn’t even understand how deep it went,” Roth mentioned.

Rudo labored as a housing specialist for the Workplace of Housing and Group Improvement from 2006 to 2018. The crime occurred from 2014 to 2021.

Court docket paperwork mentioned Rudo was answerable for reviewing and recommending which builders obtain inexpensive housing credit.

Rudo operated three inexpensive housing LLCs to promote land and housing credit to 3 unidentified co-conspirators. Sources say Rudo is probably going cooperating in opposition to the opposite co-conspirators.

“It was one among our county staff that was reviewing these offers and noticed that one thing was not proper and so they really contacted the federal investigators that began this investigation,” mentioned Roth.

Rick Cassiday, housing finance skilled, mentioned Rudo “profited by taking his data of what inexpensive housing credit are and realizing there’s a requirement from respectable housing builders that they’d pay for it.”

He added, “He most likely went to them and mentioned, You guys need a challenge going? You need market? Let me enable you to do it by promoting you these credit score and you may resell it. That’s what they did.”

Rudo faces a most 20 years in jail and a $250,000 fantastic.

Restitution is to be decided and all offered land is to be forfeited again to the county.

“What occurs with one thing like this, it could diminish the quantity of inexpensive housing models in favor of a market unit and so we’re actually making an attempt to guarantee that we’ve that skill to construct inexpensive homes that our native households can elevate their households in,” mentioned Roth.

Rudo is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

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