Montville — State police are investigating whether two former commissioners allegedly misused Montville Housing Authority funds for personal purchases from Amazon, Walmart and BJ's Wholesale Club.

Credit card statements obtained by The Day from the town of Montville show individual purchases amounting to more than $3,000 from October 2021 to February 2022, some of which could be construed as items for personal use.

The housing authority credit cards are in former authority commissioners Patty DiGioia-Evrett and Mike Brower’s names. DiGioia-Evrett resigned last month when she moved out of town, and Brower resigned last week after the town announced it would be holding a hearing to consider whether he should be removed as an authority commissioner. 

The state police’s public information office confirmed the investigation via email last week, but further details were not available because it is an open investigation. 

in her resignation letter, DiGioia-Evrett, who is currently the New London Housing Authority’s finance and human resources director, criticized the town and the mayor for not appreciating or supporting “volunteers who give 150% for free.”

 “I was torn apart at a Town Council Meeting by a group of people who have no idea how a Housing Authority works and didn’t think it necessary to even get that knowledge. Instead, they took the word of a few disgruntled residents,” DiGioia-Evrett wrote in her letter. 

The meeting DiGioia-Evrett references, which took place in June 2021, was the culmination of more than a year of complaints made to town officials about DiGioia-Evrett and Brower from authority tenants.

During the meeting, DiGioia-Evrett and Brower, along with then newly hired housing administrator Shirley Smith, publicly responded for the first time to accusations from tenants of the two complexes the authority oversees — Independence Village Elderly Housing on Milefski Drive in Uncasville and Freedom Village Elderly Housing on Liberty Road in Oakdale.

Multiple tenants were given the opportunity to make their complaints official in front of the town council. They spoke of what they said were unjustified rent increases, additional fees, intimidation, warnings of eviction and maintenance problems, among other issues. 

 “This town has caused me to have many medical issues and I refuse to continue to be stressed and sick,” DiGioia-Evrett continued in her resignation letter. “Again, effective immediately, you can keep your Commission. I will no longer allow my name to be dragged through the mud, I will no longer allow you to harm my health, and I do wish the residents well.”

Brower was the tenant commissioner, as there is a spot on the commission reserved for one of the authority tenants. His short resignation letter did not offer a reason for his resignation.

The letter from Town Council Chair Tom McNally warning Brower of the May 4 hearing was detailed in the allegations it raised. These included  “Going into the Housing Authority office and accessing tenant files without proper authorization,” ”Improperly neglecting to deposit tenant rent checks,” threatening to evict tenants, which is not something a tenant commissioner can do, threatening eviction under false pretenses, “Viewing security video without proper authorization,” improperly authorizing improvements to his own rental unit “when similar improvements were not allowed in other units,” “Possible improper use of a housing authority credit card” and “Failure to properly monitor the use of Housing Authority credit cards.” 

In December 2020, former authority commissioner Sierra Davis resigned, saying commissioners had become too involved in the day-to-day operations of the authority. In 2019, when authority executive director Mary Cahoon stepped down, DiGioia-Evrett and Brower stepped in and took control of day-to-day management of the authority, including its finances. Davis, authority tenants and town officials subsequently raised alarms because commissioners typically don’t have such control over authority duties as those are left to an independent executive director.

Not until about midway through 2021 was Shirley Smith hired as the part-time housing authority administrator. 

While DiGioia-Evrett told The Day she and Brower stepped back once Smith was hired, Smith told The Day that the two commissioners still maintained control over authority finances. Smith said she was kept out of the authority credit card accounts, which DiGioia-Evrett and Brower had access to. 

DiGioia-Evrett said she never knowingly used authority funds for personal use. However, she thinks it is possible she accidentally used an authority credit card for personal purchases. She said she hadn’t heard of the misuse of funds accusations before speaking with The Day. 

“Just off the top of my head, what you’re saying, I guarantee you the wrong credit card was used. Oh my God,” DiGoia-Evrett said when confronted with the purchases, adding that it was most likely a mix-up of credit cards. 

“Is that Amazon? When you have an Amazon account, sometimes it uses a default card. Oh my God. I can’t believe this,” DiGioia-Evrett said. “If you could see how many different credit cards I have on my Amazon account.”

Details of the credit card purchases

Purchases on the authority card in DiGioia-Evrett’s name for the months of October and November 2021 show almost all of the $1,658 spent went toward what could be personal purchases, including four separate Walmart purchases of more than $100 and three such purchases totaling more than $200. Brower also spent more than $100 of authority funds during that time on electronic insect and pest repellent. 

Credit card statements for December 2021 and January 2022 show DiGioia-Evrett made $1,000-plus in purchases during that time, including rhinestone accessories for a car, hair curlers and other Amazon buys, and a $271 AT&T phone bill.

For the same months, Brower spent more than $100 combined on a Bluetooth adapter and for shopping at BJs. He could not be reached to comment for this story. 

Smith, the new authority adminstrator, said she was concerned when she saw the statements. She was also concerned when she could no longer find any such statements from Brower’s and DiGioia-Evrett’s cards in the office. 

“They both told me they had credit cards, but I thought it was for the use of the housing authority. It was never to the point where I thought about them using it personally,” Smith said. “When I went to go back to look for the statements for 2021, the whole folder’s gone.”

Later in her tenure Smith took on the responsibility of making sure the money coming into and out of the authority matched up. But the books weren’t matching.  

“That’s the problem, I didn’t have anything to go off of,” Smith said. “I wasn’t receiving any of the receipts from the accounts they had. That was the first thing I was told when I was hired: Before we pay the bill, receipts need to be there. And it just stopped all of a sudden. That’s when I said, ‘I’m sitting here paying $2,000, $3,000 a month, where are the receipts?’ Then I’m seeing AT&T bills getting paid and Bluetooth headsets and stuff like that. That stuff’s not for the housing authority.”

Smith said she is working with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority to take stock of where the authority is financially now. Smith said CHFA is supportive of her desire to to hire an audit company to come in and check on the authority finances, which CHFA confirmed with The Day. Smith pointed out that it’s possible DiGioia-Evrett and Brower had been using authority funds for personal use for two years, but neither she nor the town have seen the rest of the credit card statements. 

Mayor Ron McDaniel said he is aware of the credit card statements.

"I don’t know anything other than I’ve seen them,” McDaniel continued. “It doesn’t seem that these items were necessary for the authority on the face of it, but we never got into the asking them of any questions.”

Kathie Doherty-Peck, director of the town’s Senior and Social Services Department, has received dozens of complaints from authority tenants since 2020. She said having two commissioners running the authority hands-on was an issue.

 “The problem I believe is that our two housing complexes in town had always run with an executive director to oversee the daily functions of both villages, and a commission to kind of oversee the director and make sure things are running the way they should be,” she said. “I think that the tenants were lacking in many services and support that they should have had and would have had, had there been an executive director in that position.” 

McNally, Smith and Doherty-Peck all also said the authority owes the town money — approximately $70,000-$80,000 — in payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) for the past three years. 

“Patty (DiGioia-Evrett) did not want to pay the PILOT because she didn’t like the mayor,” Smith said. “I asked multiple times to pay the PILOT … and every time it was like, ‘Nope, we’re not paying it, nope, we’re not paying it.’”

When asked whether the town was owed the PILOT funds, DiGioia-Evrett said, “Yeah, that’s probably true.”

DiGioia-Evrett said she was “stunned” by the allegations. When asked whether the authority credit cards were properly maintained or improperly used, DiGioia-Evrett said, “I really don’t know. I can’t answer that question.” 

She accused the town of conducting a “witch hunt” against her and Brower. 

“They didn’t like that we don’t take their crap,” DiGioia-Evrett said. “Because I was vocal. I didn’t like what happened and I was vocal. I didn’t like the way we were treated. … I am quite confident the mayor does not like us. He made that clear by his actions.” 

“This is a life-destroying accusation. I take it very, very seriously,” DiGioia-Evrett continued. “Why do I have to hear this from a reporter? To me, that is suspect. That is what you do when you’re doing dirty dealings. I gave my heart and soul to this housing authority, days, nights, weekends, holidays, made sure they were booked, that all the units are full. I worked endlessly for free, and this is what I get.”

s.spinella@theday.com