GOSHEN – Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler and Orange County Sheriff Paul Arteta have created a countywide “Joint White-Collar Crimes Task Force”, which will focus on enhancing the investigation and prosecution of public corruption and financial crimes. The task force was announced on Wednesday.
The task force’s mandate includes the investigation of residential contractor fraud; crimes involving public integrity, public corruption, and ethics violations; embezzlement and other complex theft cases, crimes against revenue; wage theft, and labor law violations. It will operate out of the Orange County Emergency Services Center in Goshen and will seek aid in its cases from the Hudson Valley Crimes Analysis Center, which is located in the same facility.
The group will be led by Hoovler’s office with designated assistant district attorneys, who will screen and monitor cases accepted for investigation and prosecution. The investigations adopted by the task force will be directly supervised by Chief Trial Assistant District Attorney Richard Moran and Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Borek.
The task force will include at least one full-time criminal investigator from Hoovler’s office and utilize the services of other investigators as needed. The task force will also have three investigators from the Sheriff’s Office. Hoovler and Arteta are extending an invitation to all Orange County law enforcement agencies and various state agencies to pool their resources to investigate these complex cases which can be challenging for small agencies to pursue on their own, and which also can have severely detrimental and long-term effects on their victims. The Town of Newburgh Police Department has already agreed to assign a detective to work with the task force.
“The creation of this Joint White-Collar Crimes Task Force is long overdue,” said Hoovler. “I am grateful to Sheriff Paul Arteta and Town of Newburgh Police Chief Bruce Campbell for recognizing the substantial manpower and commitment necessary to pursue complicated public corruption and financial fraud cases.” DA Hoovler also added “Being the victim of a violent crime is certainly a life altering experience but being defrauded of the funds to build your dream home or losing your small business to fraud can also negatively affect victims’ lives for years. I hope that other law enforcement agencies will join us at the Taskforce. Law enforcement works best when its efforts are coordinated, cooperative and focused.”
