Aaron Troodler (left) arriving at federal courthouse for sentencing. Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News
“Aaron Troodler today was spared prison time when he was sentenced to probation and a $20,000 fine as a reward for testifying against his co-defendant, former Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, who has been sentenced to prison on his May securities fraud conviction.
The disbarred attorney was given 18 months supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel, who ruled he must pay $15,000 immediately, then $550 a month for 18 months.
Troodler apologized for his actions, saying he embarrassed himself and his family. His parents and about a dozen other friends and family members were in the crowd in White Plains on Tuesday as the sentence was pronounced.
The memorandum submitted to Seibel by Troodler’s attorneys says the government agreed Troodler played a minor role in the fraud, didn’t benefit financially, and has no prior criminal history. The memorandum notes his devotion to community service and his wife and their four children.
The memorandum also promotes Troodler as a family man who is primary caretaker for his four children — ranging in age from 7 to 19 — because his wife works as a school principal. They now live in Pennsylvania.
“This case is a deeply unfortunate aberration in Troodler’s otherwise unblemished life,” the memorandum states, noting Troodler’s testimony over three days in April and May tied St. Lawrence to the securities fraud conspiracy.
Troodler, 42, admitted taking part in a St. Lawrence-orchestrated scheme to defraud investors in municipal bonds issued by the RLDC. Troodler served as the corporation’s executive director as St. Lawrence led the agency’s now-disbanded three-member board.
Troodler gave the jury testimony that tied St. Lawrence to create false revenues and various financial schemes to repay $25 million bond on the town’s $58 million baseball stadium. During St. Lawrence’s trial in April and May, Troodler testified over three days about how St. Lawrence rigged the town’s books, manufactured revenues and manipulated funds to make payments on the $58-million stadium’s $25 million bond.
“The world I was in, the culture at Town Hall, was that everything was always justified,” Troodler testified. “Everyone said things were fine. Essentially I knew things weren’t right.
“Every time the RLDC needed to make a payment there was a mad rush,” he said. “Every time, the supervisor had to come up with a way to make the payments.”
Troodler and St. Lawrence lied to investors about the town and RLDC bonds, prosecutors said, “primarily by making up false assets in the town’s general fund … 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.”
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