Mount Vernon Acting Mayor Andre Wallace says the corruption conviction of former Corporate Counsel Lawrence Porcari serves as a lesson in abuse of power and public trust.

"He was supposed to take the right steps, you've taken an oath as a lawyer to serve and to do the right thing. These choices should've come up first," says Wallace.

Porcari was found guilty Monday of steering $365,000 from the city’s Water Department to pay for non-water-related expenses.

While serving on the City Council in 2016, Wallace began calling out possible misuse of city water funds.

"You have to stand up for these things when you know you're right and you'll have to go at it alone," says Wallace.

In Nov. 2018, he revealed that although the city’s consumption decreased on average, the water usage rages heightened by 13%.

News 12 is told the City Council has plans to consider all options in the incoming administration to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

As for now, the city’s current administration has safeguards in place to make it difficult for employees to abuse taxpayer’s funds. Wallace says the data is “entered into a computer system and well documented now, which was never done before."

Wallace says he plans to file a lawsuit to reclaim the taxpayer money that was stolen by Porcari.