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DETROIT, Michigan: A former top official at a major Detroit nonprofit was sentenced this week to 19 years in prison for stealing over US$40 million. The money was meant to help make the city’s riverfront more beautiful.

Investigators said William Smith, who worked for the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, used the money for his lifestyle — including trips, hotels, limousines, home items, clothes, and jewelry. He also used it to support his side businesses, including real estate, a nightclub, and a basketball team.

Smith, 52, was fired from his job as chief financial officer in May 2024 and arrested the next month. In November, he admitted to wire fraud and money laundering. A judge ordered him to pay back $44.3 million.

The nonprofit gets its funding from private donors and public grants. Officials say Smith’s theft delayed parts of the city’s popular riverwalk project.

Before he was sentenced, Smith admitted he was wrong and said, “I let selfishness, pride, and bad choices take over.”

The conservancy is working to turn several miles of Detroit’s riverfront into parks, plazas, and public spaces. It has led the effort to create the city’s Riverwalk.

“Every dollar Smith used for himself was a dollar taken away from making the riverfront better,” said acting U.S. Attorney Julie Beck.

Smith had been in charge of the nonprofit’s money from 2011 until he was caught in 2024.

After the theft was discovered, the group’s CEO resigned, and a new auditing firm was hired.

The nonprofit said Smith used “a complex web of lies” to steal the money. After his sentencing, they said they were thankful justice was done. They quoted the U.S. government, calling Smith a man of “corrupt and depraved character.”

Conservancy attorney Matthew Schneider said in a victim-impact statement that Smith chose greed over Detroit’s prosperity.

“As much as Smith may wish to mask himself as a professional, upstanding Dr. Jekyll, the reality is he was embezzling in the shadows as a cunning and calculating Mr. Hyde,” Schneider wrote.