ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A former high-level political appointee of St. Louis County Executive Sam Page pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges involving a COVID-19 relief funds kickback scheme.
Tony Weaver pleaded guilty Friday to four felony counts of wire fraud as part of a scheme to get COVID-19 relief funds for a local businessman in exchange for a share of the money.
Page appointed Weaver as the Change Management Coordinator at the St. Louis County Justice Services Center in 2020. He previously served as the administrative assistant to a former St. Louis County Council member. He was indicted along with three St. Louis aldermen after an FBI informant wore a wire capturing them involved in a series of alleged corruption schemes.
According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Missouri, Weaver admitted to approaching a man with the scheme in May 2020.
Prosecutors said Weaver talked with the man, identified as “John Smith,” who owned several businesses in St. Louis County, about helping him apply for grants from the county’s Small Business Relief (SBR) Program. The program used federal CARES Act money and was meant to help businesses that had to shut down during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.
Weaver said his former boss on the county council, identified as "Jane Doe," needed to know the names of Smith's businesses to approve them for a grant. Weaver told Smith he'd apply for the maximum grant of $15,000 for each business, saying Doe's office was "going to do what I tell them to do.”
Weaver admitted to filling out four loan applications for Smith’s businesses and lied about that the businesses had to close and lay off employees during the pandemic. He also hid that Smith had at least 25% ownership in all six businesses because a business owner was only allowed to apply for one grant.
They agreed on multiple occasions to split any money they received, the indictment stated.
The relief fund applications weren’t approved, but Weaver did tell Smith that he'd been paid a $300 kickback for obtaining a grant for someone else.
Weaver's sentencing date is set for Jan. 25, 2023. Each wire fraud charge carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both.
Mohammed Almuttan, the alleged informant at the center of the bribery and fraud investigations into Weaver and three St. Louis aldermen, was sentenced earlier this month for a conspiracy to traffic contraband cigarettes. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison plus 2 years of supervised release.
