By Rich Bockmann
A Queens Village man is facing up to three years in prison after he admitted to scamming more than $100,000 from the charity-matching program offered to employees at the Long Island Home Depot where he worked, the Nassau County district attorney said.
Alfred Williams, 57, pleaded guilty Tuesday to pocketing more than $111,000 by falsely reporting donations allegedly made by his co-workers at the Elmont Home Depot to the company’s one-to-one charitable matching program, Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said.
“By using the good will of a charity foundation and in the name of a religious organization, Mr. Williams took advantage of the charitable spirit of good-hearted people for his personal financial gain,” Rice said. “Crimes like these have a chilling effect on giving and make it more difficult for legitimate charities to ask for badly needed donations for worthy causes.”
Williams originally faced a potential sentence of up to 15 years behind bars when he was indicted in November on charges of grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and identity theft, but Rice said prosecutors will recommend a sentence of one to three years in jail plus restitution after he pleaded guilty to one count of grand larceny.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Williams had been a Home Depot employee since 1991 and began working at the Elmont store in 2007, three years after he registered his nonprofit, Faith Without Walls International Ministries.
Between 2009 and 2012, Williams falsely claimed more than 40 of his Home Depot co-workers donated to the charity, conning the Home Depot Foundation to write checks to Faith Without Walls totalling more than $111,000, Rice said.
The foundation’s program matches employee donations to registered nonprofits on a dollar-to-dollar basis up to $3,000 per calendar year.
The program prohibits charities run by employees from receiving funds, but Rice said Williams hid his association by purposely not listing himself as a contact for Faith Without Walls.
The Home Depot first became suspicious when an employee tried to make a donation to a different charity in December 2011 and was told she had already reached her maximum amount for that year.
The company launched an investigation and forwarded the case to Nassau County law enforcement officials. Home Depot’s probe found more than $57,000 in pending donations registered by Williams that had not been matched by the foundation.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
