An aide and one-time chief of staff to New York State Assembly Assistant Speaker Felix Ortiz was arrested Thursday on a wire fraud charge, accused of diverting $80,000 from campaign contributions for his personal use.

Maruf �Mitu� Alam, 29, of Brooklyn, was released on $100,000 bail after an appearance in Brooklyn federal court, where he was charged in a criminal complaint with stealing the money in cash from a campaign account between January 2012 and April 2018.

A lawyer for Alam did not respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said in a release that Alam was �caught red-handed� using Ortiz�s campaign account �as his personal piggy bank.�

William F. Sweeney Jr., head of New York City�s FBI office, said Alam �went to great lengths to conceal his fraud, including traveling to China to illicitly withdraw funds from a campaign account and then filing false disclosure reports with the New York State Board of Elections.�

Ortiz, a Democrat, said in a statement that he had just learned of the arrest and could not yet comment.

According to the criminal complaint, Alam diverted the money from a campaign committee account set up to support Ortiz. The court papers said he had served in various roles for Ortiz, including as chief of staff.

The account received over $60,000 in contributions but had more than $50,000 in expenditures from January 2014 to December 2017, authorities said. Among the expenses, the complaint said, were substantial cash withdrawals, including two in China during a period when in 2015 when Alam was in China.

The complaint said a review of Alam�s personal checking account revealed that he regularly made large cash deposits into his account that appeared inconsistent with his earnings as a New York state employee. Investigators noted that his annual salary from 2013 through 2018 ranged from $21,431 in 2013, when he worked part time, to $48,388 in 2018, when he worked full time.

The complaint said FBI agents who interviewed Ortiz in March were told that Alam acted as the �treasurer� for two campaign accounts and that Ortiz had not authorized Alam or anyone else to withdraw $80,000 in cash.

(AP)