Suspended MVPD Officer Brandon Hunter-Carney. Photo form Mount Vernon News Center
Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace announced today that a Mount Vernon police officer was arrested on felony charges for allegedly possessing a stolen check worth over $800,000 and cashing it into the bank account of a business incorporated in his name days earlier.
Brandon Hunter-Carney, 26, of Mount Vernon, was arrested Wednesday by Westchester County District Attorney’s Office investigators and charged with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree and Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, both class C felonies.
Hunter-Carney was arraigned on a felony complaint Wednesday afternoon in Mount Vernon City Court, where Judge Tamika Coverdale released him on his own recognizance, as neither of the charges is bail eligible. He is due back in court on May 13.
The Police Department has placed him on suspension without pay. DA Cacace said: “As my office has alleged, the defendant stole over $800,000 from an unsuspecting business as part of a brazen check-fraud scheme. This is totally unacceptable and represents a serious breach of trust by an individual who would later swear an oath to uphold the laws of this state. My message to the Westchester community is this: No one is above the law. No one is above accountability.”
As alleged in a felony complaint, on Jan. 25, 2023, the defendant possessed a stolen check worth $800,160 that had been issued by a prominent industrial manufacturer to an Alabama corporation named Electric Controls and Systems, Inc.
Two days earlier, a business entity named Electric Controls and Systems Inc. had been incorporated in New York, with the defendant listed as the sole incorporator, according to New York Department of State business records.
The defendant is then accused of depositing the $800,160 check into a bank account belonging to the identically named New York corporation.
This case was investigated by the Investigations Division within the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney John Waszak of the Special Investigations Bureau.
