NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — The now-former CEO of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Corporation was sentenced on Tuesday to a year in prison for using federal grant funds to take lavish vacations.

A New Haven judge also sentenced 62-year-old Drew Rankin to three years of supervised release. Restitution will be assigned at a later date.

The CMEEC includes Norwich, Groton, Jewett City, Norwalk and Bozrah. The organization received a collective $9 million from the U.S. Department of Energy from 2010 to 2015, along with other federal grants.

But instead of using the funds properly, Ranking and some members of the board of directors took trips to the Kentucky Derby and went to a luxury golf resort in West Virginia. The group was accused of spending more than $800,000 on travel expenses like private flights, first-class hotels, meals, tickets to sporting events and more.

When asked by media about the trips, “Rankin underreported the costs of the trips, omitted the names of attendees who were not CMEEC employees or board members, and made other false statements related to how the trips were funded,” according to an announcement Tuesday from U.S. States Attorney Vanessa Roberts Avery.

The group then canceled a reservation they’d made for the 2017 Kentucky Derby. They were refunded only $90,000 of the $298,960 it had prepaid.

Rankin, along with James Sullivan and John Bilda, were found guilty of one count of theft concerning a program receiving federal funds in December 2021. Sullivan and Bilba have yet to be sentenced.

Rankin has been released on a $100,000 bond and must report to prison on July 11.