https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/local/larivee-going-to-prison-for-eight-months-in-abenaki-fraud/article_7d09ca31-b27e-50f1-a5db-90c20e3737ce.htmlMay 06, 2022
The Rutland Herald Newspaper
By Mike Donoghue
Larivee going to prison for eight months in Abenaki fraud
BURLINGTON – A former program director at the now-defunct Abenaki Self Help Association Inc. in Franklin County has been sentenced to eight months in prison for embezzling more than a $100,000 from a federal grant given to the tribe.
Louise Lampman Larivee, 63, of Swanton, who served as the tribe’s director of the U.S. Department of Labor grant program from March 2013 to May 2017, will be under federal supervision for three years once freed from prison.
Chief Federal Judge Geoffrey Crawford told Larivee, the mastermind of the scheme, she needs to make $96,725 in restitution for her part of the fraud.
Co-conspirator Candy L. Thomas, 64, of Swanton is under court-order to make $20,000 in restitution for her part. Thomas, who had worked for ASHAI as a bookkeeper from about February 2013 to April 2017, admitted her guilt immediately when confronted and is serving three years on federal supervised release.
Thomas, who testified against Larivee, began making restitution before she was sentenced. She is required to pay at least $200 a month.
In contrast, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory L. Waples noted Larivee had not made a single restitution payment since pleading guilty in November partway through her trial in Rutland. She admitted to one of two felony fraud charges on the third day of the trial after the government had only one minor witness left to testify.
Larivee, who pleaded not guilty to the two-count indictment, fought the case for 2½ years before she folded. The government had presented 10 witnesses, several from the tribe, to paint a clear picture of the long-running fraud Larivee executed, records show.
Larivee admitted that between 2013 and continuing until about April 2017 she “knowingly and intentionally embezzled, stole, obtained by fraud and converted money” that was under the control of ASHAI.
The government maintains Larivee, after pleading guilty, posted a Facebook message the next day telling the niece of one of the most damaging witnesses that her aunt had lied on the witness stand and that was the only reason she changed her plea.
Waples argued the court should reject Larivee’s recent claim that she get credit for acceptance of responsibility for her criminal conduct due to her guilty plea. Waples said Larivee was not entitled to a lighter sentence after making the false claim about the witness.
Crawford agreed. He said he could not give Larivee acknowledgement for acceptance of reasonability after she dishonestly wrote a witness had lied in open court one day earlier.
Even with a recent letter from Larivee admitting she was wrong to send the social media message and to falsely claim a woman lied at the trial, Crawford said it did not change the harm inflicted.
Crawford agreed to allow Larivee to self-surrender on July 5 at a federal prison, likely in Danbury, Conn.
During the hearing Larivee offered an apology to the tribe, family and friends.
“I am truly, truly sorry from the bottom of my heart,” she said during the nearly two-hour sentencing hearing.
Larivee noted she is most disappointed because her father, a former tribal chief, in his final days, told her she needed to take care of Abenaki Nation.
“I feel like I let him down. I feel like I betrayed him,” said Larivee, who asked for no prison time. She said she was concerned for her daughter’s medial issues and wellbeing.
The federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory, calculated that a defendant with Larivee’s history and criminal conviction should be imprisoned somewhere between 21 and 27 months.
Crawford, in imposing the eight-month sentence, said he had gone into the hearing expecting to impose a stiffer sentence, but was swayed by two character witnesses at the hearing. Larivee also had a series of letters submitted by friends, including several from out of state.
Abenaki Chief Richard Menard, of Swanton, testified that while Larivee had stolen from the Tribe, he thought that she had done considerable service that had gone unrewarded. He also said she was a big help when he found himself taking over as Chief in October 2019 when his predecessor walked out. Larivee knew the tribe’s history.
Professor Lisa Brooks of Amherst College, who grew up in Swanton, said she had known Larivee for 30 years and had worked alongside her on Abenaki issues, including preserving the “Grandma Lampman” land.
Crawford asked both witnesses during their testimony – and later quizzed Kirby – how they each reconciled all the civic good they said Larivee had done through the years in contrast to stealing from a fund designed to help needy Abenaki tribe members. The annual federal grant was designed to help provide employment and training activities for Abenaki members.
Each year, ASHAI, which received tens of thousands of dollars in grant money from the Department of Labor, functioned as the service arm of the Abenaki Nation. “The main goal of ASHAI has been increasing the self-sufficiency of the Native American community by promoting economic and social development via program efforts in education, employment and economic development,” court records note.
Crawford also said nobody had been able to tell the court where the money went.
Kirby had asked the court to consider no prison time and placing Larivee on probation or home confinement. That would allow her to help take care of her daughter, who is severely disabled by PTSD, and her three children, Kirby said in court papers.
Even a short prison sentence would endanger the welfare of the family, Kirby wrote.
Waples, who has handled many of the significant federal embezzlement cases in recent years, reminded the judge he has said in past cases that deterrence is critical for the criminal justice to be successful. He said the only way deterrence is served in through punishment.
He said Larivee’s good work in the community is an aggravating factor in her case because she knew all the social and economic challenges the Abenaki tribe had to deal with and she decided she wanted to steal the money.
While he did not give a specific sentence recommendation in open court, Waples listed in his sentencing memorandum the sentences imposed in 39 other federal fraud cases. He said the one that came close with the facts was the $165,000 stolen from Hunger Free Vermont that netted Sally Kirby a 15-month prison sentence.
Waples said a probation sentence would neither serve the interests of fairness nor consistency. He also noted that Larivee, who just finished paying off a $40,000 vehicle, has a negative cash flow.
“Paying restitution will not be a meaningful form of punishment in her case because she has few assets or income streams with which to pay restitution. She is not likely to be ostracized or estranged from her community in ways that might be ordinarily expected,” Waples wrote in his sentencing memo.
Waples said the government has become aware that “many member of the Abenaki community either do not blame for Larivee for her unthinkable breach of trust or are prepared to forgive her transgressions. Larivee’s defiant protestation of innocence, even after admitting her guilt in open court, suggests the stigma of shame has not sunk deeply under her skin,” he said.
“Larivee should be punished in some way that will be meaningful to her and viable to the public at large,” Waples said.
The prosecution and defense had sparred at the start of the hearing over the actual loss to the Abenaki nation. The U.S. Probation Office had pegged the loss at $156,000, including $22,276 in falsely inflated mileage reimbursement claims, court records show.
The defense objected to Waples assertions about false mileage claims. Crawford said he gave more credit to arguments by Waples because Larivee had destroyed files and records that might provide the actual amounts.
There also was some question about a $5 an hour raise that Larivee received, but there were questions about whether it had been authorized by all the proper parties.
Crawford also expressed doubts about claims by the defense that when money was taken from the bank account that it was used to pay bills, including water and power. The judge questioned why checks would not be written and instead Larivee would stop by and pay in cash or seek money orders to pay Abenaki bills.
There were disputes about the actual number of hours Larivee claimed. A federal investigator wrote Larivee had claimed as many as 80 hours a week for certain time periods. The director that served from about 2011 to January 2013 before Larivee took over said it was impossible.
“There is no way that job would include that many hours,” she said. “There were days it was deader than dead because people were not coming in,” she told an investigator.
The Swanton-based tribe continued to employ Larivee after her indictment with a similar job with Maquam Bay of Missisquoi. Larivee lost that job in March 2020 after the U.S. Department of Labor pulled the federal grant, Menard has said.
Abenaki is considered one of the most prominent early Indian tribes in Vermont.
There are more than 3,600 members in the Missisquoi Abenaki Tribe, according to Menard. The Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi is believed to be the longest continuous kinship-related Abenaki tribal community in existence in the United States.
May 6, 2022
Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Vermont
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Louise Larivee Imprisoned for Non-Profit Embezzlement
The United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Louise Larivee, 63, of Swanton, was sentenced today in United States District Court in Burlington upon her guilty plea to a charge of federal program embezzlement. Chief U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford sentenced Larivee to serve 8 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release. The court also ordered Larivee to pay restitution in the amount of $96,700. Larivee had pleaded guilty on the third day of her jury trial in Rutland last November. The court ordered Larivee to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on July 05, 2022 to begin serving her sentence.
In June 2019, a federal grand jury in Burlington returned a two-count indictment charging Larivee with conspiracy and federal program embezzlement. Candy Thomas, 64, also of Swanton, a separately charged co-conspirator, had previously pled guilty to the federal program embezzlement charge. According to the indictment, between 2013 and 2017, Larivee was employed by the Abenaki Self Help Association, Inc. in Swanton as the director of a federal grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. ASHAI functioned as a service arm of the Abenaki Nation, promoting economic and social development through programmatic efforts in education, employment and economic development. Each year, ASHAI received tens of thousands of dollars in grant money from the Department of Labor. During that same period, Candy Thomas worked at ASHAI as an office worker and bookkeeper. Thomas had check signing authority on ASHAI’s bank accounts.
According to the indictment and testimony at Larivee’s trial, between 2013 and 2017, Larivee and Thomas conspired to embezzle, and did embezzle, more than $100,000 from ASHAI. Thomas aided the commission of this theft by issuing checks and giving cash to Larivee, at Larivee’s request, in amounts that significantly exceeded Larivee’s authorized compensation. Larivee also received travel reimbursement checks based upon fraudulently inflated mileage claims. Thomas helped cover up this fraud by sending tax forms to the Internal Revenue Service that concealed the true amount of ASHAI funds that were being paid over to Larivee.
Thomas, who testified at Larivee’s trial, was sentenced to probation in December and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $20,000.
This case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.
Larivee is represented by David Kirby. Thomas was represented by the Office of the Federal Public Defender. The prosecutors were Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Spencer Willig.
