The agency's former executive director filed a lawsuit alleging fraud and misuse of federal anti-poverty funds. Federal prosecutors have ended their investigation and unsealed the complaint and its allegations.
City of Buffalo officials misused millions of dollars in federal anti-poverty funds and steered grants to favored real-estate developers, according to a federal lawsuit filed three and a half years ago and kept under seal until a month ago.
The lawsuit was brought by Nona Watson, a former executive director of the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, which serves as a pass-through for federal funds intended to fight poverty, blight and substandard housing.
Watson led BURA from September 2015 until she was fired in October 2018 — an act of retaliation, she claimed in the suit, “because she raised concerns about illegal and inappropriate practices, including the misuse of federal funds.”
In November 2019, she filed an action under the Federal False Claims Act, accusing the City of Buffalo of perpetrating “a well-orchestrated fraud upon the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency … and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”
Specifically, she claimed city officials used federal money to pay employees to do work on behalf of the city, rather than BURA or the federally funded program for which the money was intended.
She also accused city officials of bending federal rules to the advantage of a handful of preferred developers — among them Nick Sinatra and David Pawlik —...
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