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Ruben Wills, Queens city councilman, busted in corruption investigation
The politician was charged with misusing tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds — even spending some of the money on a $750 designer handbag.
CHRISTIE M. FARRIELLA FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSCity Councilman Ruben Wills leaves the Queens Criminal Courthouse after being arraigned on corruption charges Wednesday.A city councilman's career is going to hell in a Louis Vuitton handbag.
Councilman Ruben Wills, 42, of Jamaica, Queens, was arrested Wednesday on charges of stealing $30,500 in government money, and using some of it for shopping trips to Nordstrom and Century 21 and the purchase of a $750 Vuitton bag at Macy’s.
Wills, a Democrat, was slapped with a dozen charges, including scheming to defraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records. A relative, Jelani Mills, 30, of St. Albans, Queens, also was charged.
“The indictment details a very calculating scheme to defraud New York taxpayers while lining the councilman’s own pockets,” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said. Noting that some of the money was “supposed to be helping children in need,” Schneiderman added, “That’s about as low as you can get.”
Wills, who was first elected in 2010, denied the charges. “I’m not resigning,” he told reporters after he was arraigned and released without bail.
City Councilman Ruben Wills on Wednesday was walked from the 112th Precinct station house in Queens after being arrested the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
“This is America, people. We are presumed innocent before being proven guilty. I know because of where I come from and the color I am it doesn’t usually work like that with you guys — but I am presumed innocent and that’s what we’re going with.”
Mills was held on $20,000 bail. The nature of his family tie with Wills was not immediately clear.
With the indictment, Wills became the latest in a sad parade of state and city officials charged with ripping off taxpayers.
A member of that parade, former state Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Queens) — for whom Wills once worked as chief of staff — had a role in Wednesday’s charges.
Wills (shown) was arrested Wednesday morning with a relative, Jelani Mills, on unspecified charges. 
Huntley steered a $33,000 legislative appropriation known as a “member item” to a charity Wills controlled, New York 4 Life, which had vowed to use the money to attack childhood obesity, help single dads and moms, and revitalize neighborhoods.
The charity held one event costing $14,000 — and Wills took the rest “for personal benefit,” including the purchases at Nordstrom and Century 21, the attorney general’s office charged.
Huntley has since been convicted and sentenced to a year behind bars on unrelated charges of stealing $88,000 from a separate taxpayer-funded charity she controlled.
The remainder of Wills’ alleged theft involved money he received for his losing 2009 Council race under the city’s program of public campaign financing.
MARC A. HERMANNWills is expected to be arraigned Wednesday morning in Queens Criminal Court, a law enforcement source told the Daily News.According to prosecutors, Mills created a shell company called Micro Targeting that billed Wills’ campaign $11,500 for work that was never performed. After receiving payment, Mills wrote a $6,800 check to New York 4 Life. Wills then withdrew that money or used it for purchases, such as the Vuitton bag, which he bought at Macy’s, prosecutors said.
Wills was one of seven elected officials secretly recorded by Huntley in her Queens home in 2012 after she began cooperating with federal prosecutors in an effort to reduce the prison time she faced.
However, none of those recorded conversations appeared to figure in Wednesday’s charges.
At a news conference Wednesday, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) said Wills had stepped down as chairman of the drug abuse subcommittee, and already was stripped of his privilege to earmark city money for member items in his district.
“Days like these are never good days for the institution,” she said.
With Erin Durkin
