Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah announced last week that a co-founder of Christopher’s Voice, Inc., a New Rochelle-based charity for autistic children, has been arraigned on a felony charge of stealing approximately $24,000 from the not-for-profit organization and spending the money for his own personal purposes.
The defendant, Christopher Greco, 52 of New Rochelle, a 25-year veteran of the New Rochelle Police Department who retired in August 2021, was arrested on Sept. 21 by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, charged with Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree. He was arraigned today before Judge Matthew Costa in New Rochelle City Court on the charge of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree. The defendant’s next court date is Oct. 25.
According to the facts as alleged in the felony complaint, between January 2018 and May 2023, the defendant stole money intended for Christopher’s Voice, Inc., and spent it for his own personal purposes.
Greco, who also served as the President of the New Rochelle PBA and was named a “Hometown Hero” for creating a non-profit, Christopher’s Voice, named after his autistic son.
More details on the charges against Greco are at TalkoftheSound.com. “As reported in 2021, Christopher’s Voice engaged in spending of donor contributions outside the framework of both the original goals set out in their tax-exempt organization determination letter from the IRS in 2017.
“Failure to operate in accord with stated exempt purposes in the original application for exemption may result in an organization losing its tax-exempt status. Non-profits can amend their stated exempt purpose, but there is no record that such an amendment was filed for Christopher’s Voice.
“Christopher’s Voice is a two-man band. Despite having board members, donation spending decisions were made entirely by Christopher Greco and Tracy Greco. In 2021, we wrote: This might explain the seemingly capricious nature of decisions to spend money on largely undocumented, ostensibly charitable purposes outside their original application for tax-exempt status for things like paying rent for individuals, handing out $1,000 checks to employees of the City School District of New Rochelle which has an annual budget of $290 million, buying dog vests, allowing third parties to raise money in their name with vaguely worded and illegal claims about how much money generated by an event would be turned over to Christopher’s Voice, the charity’s abysmal record of putting funds raised to charitable purposes and the limited spending on charitable purposes described in their original application for tax-exempt status such as GPS tracking systems and security systems,” writes Talk of the Sound Editor Robert Cox.
It appears that Greco was not a fan of either DA Rocah or of Robert Cox. When a video surfaced of New Rochelle Police Detective Michael Vaccaro assaulting a possible suspect, Rocah charged him with assault.
Greco was not pleased with Rocah’s decision, including Rocah’s email address in a Facebook post which accused Rocah of “hunting cops”, and “Mimi Rocah is a threat to Westchester County residents and to police officers and to their families. Handcuffing good cops and weak on real crime — you are now less safe with her in office.”
Greco’s beef with Cox is nothing more than sour grapes based on good journalism. Starting in 2021, Cox wrote a series of stories about other alleged improprieties of Greco, which he has compiled at the Talkofthesound.com.
