BOSTON — A Fitchburg man and former Quincy official will spend six months in federal prison after being convicted of using city funds to buy personal items, including more than 100 pounds of bourbon steak tips, a framed portrait of himself, and a Prius.
The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thomas F. Clasby, Jr., 62, of Fitchburg, directed $8,950 in city funds to a music studio to pay for personal recording sessions of him singing.
In addition to the prison stint, Clasby will serve six months of home confinement and a year of supervised release, a statement from the office said. He’s also been ordered to pay more than $136,000 in restitution.
Clasby pleaded guilty to embezzlement, mail and wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property in March after a grand jury indicted him two months earlier.
From 1999 to 2024, Clasby was the director of the Quincy Department of Elder Services. According to the statement, in 2019, he began diverting city funds for personal expenses, such as:
— $2,236 for the steak,
— $4,800 for the car, which FBI Boston Division Special Agent in Charge Ted Docks said was for a “secret girlfriend,” and
— $1,658 for a “a signature, lacquered, mounted and framed self-portrait,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Additionally, he directed $38,000 to a consulting company owned by a friend.
“The consulting company never provided goods or services to any City department,” the statement said. “Instead, Clasby’s friend cashed the City checks and delivered the cash to Clasby at a rest stop in Framingham, Mass., a ferry terminal in Bridgeport, Conn. and at the friend’s New York apartment.”
“Clasby’s actions misdirected taxpayer funds, degraded government services and eroded the public’s trust,” United States Attorney Leah B. Foley said in a statement. “I hope that today’s sentence sends a deterrent message to others, that if you steal from taxpayer funded programs you will be held accountable.”
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