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CLAYTON — Federal charges alleging a top liaison to St. Louis County Executive Sam Page tried to fraudulently win small-business relief grants drew swift condemnation Tuesday from Page’s County Council critics and election opponents, who questioned the county’s past federal aid spending.

Tony Weaver, a jail “change management coordinator,” was charged with four counts of wire fraud in a scheme to fraudulently obtain COVID-19 relief funds for a local businessman and split the proceeds. Ultimately, none of the four applications Weaver helped file on behalf of the businessman were successful, according to the indictment.

Page appointed Weaver to the jail job in late 2019; at the time, Weaver was a legislative aide for then-4th District Councilwoman Rochelle Walton Gray, D-Black Jack.

Page fired Weaver immediately after the charges became public Tuesday. In a statement, Page spokesman Doug Moore said the charges were unrelated to Weaver’s work at the jail and there was ultimately no theft of taxpayer funds because of “controls put in place by Dr. Page’s administration.”

Page, in a prepared statement at the County Council meeting, added that Weaver “was stripped of access” to county buildings and his county email account, and vowed his administration would cooperate with the federal investigation.

3rd District Republican Tim Fitch, a longtime Page critic, and Jane Dueker, Page’s opponent in the Aug. 2 Democratic primary, blasted the statement and accused Page of lying about the success of the program.

They referred to parts of the indictment that showed Weaver telling the businessman, identified as John Smith, that he had “helped ten other individuals apply for SBR grant funds.”

Dueker, an attorney and former political adviser to previous County Executive Steve Stenger, confronted Page during the public comment portion of the council meeting.

“How can you say with confidence that no taxpayer dollars were used?” she said. “Please inform us. If not, it’s a lie.”

Page, responding to a similar allegation from Fitch, said they were trying to “reinterpret” the indictment and said those other statements could be part of an “ongoing investigation” by federal authorities.

Councilman Mark Harder, R-7th District, said afterward that he would introduce a nonbinding resolution calling for a state audit of past federal aid spending.

Dueker had earlier criticized Page over Twitter and in appearances outside the federal courthouse in St. Louis, alleging Weaver had broad influence in county government and that Page “empowered” and “enabled” him.

And State Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin, who is running for Republican nomination for county executive, had also seized on the indictment in a tweet from his campaign account: “Want more corruption in County government? Re-elect @SamforSTLCounty. Want to stop the corruption and crime? Vote for me!”

Fitch said that Weaver’s indictment lent credence to Republicans’ opposition to a controversial decision in 2020 to cede control to Page’s administration of $173.5 million in federal aid under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Part of the CARES Act money was used to fund a small-business grant program.

“This is exactly why some of us on the council battled with Sam Page regarding oversight of these funds & didn’t want him to have total control over them,” Fitch wrote in the tweet. “If it’s predictable, it’s preventable. #SamYouOwnThis.”

He added that he wanted to “offer the U.S. Attorney & the FBI space in the county government building to do their important work.”

The council had voted 4-3 to approve the decision to cede control of CARES funds. Walton Gray had been among a four-member Democratic majority who argued it was necessary to disperse aid quickly during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision has since been a flashpoint for county politics. Councilwoman Rita Days, D-1st District, who also voted to approve the move, later said she regretted the decision and joined Fitch and Harder to become among Page’s fiercest critics.

Walton Gray was unseated in the August 2020 primary by Shalonda Webb, who joined the three council members in a bipartisan majority critical of Page after his council allies in early 2021 attempted to hold onto council leadership positions using a lame duck vote from Walton Gray. The majority elected Days as council chair to replace Page ally Lisa Clancy, D-5th District.

Clancy, who as council chair in 2020 had formed a council committee to oversee CARES spending, said in a tweet Tuesday evening that she was disappointed to learn about Weaver’s alleged fraud scheme.

“I’m disappointed to learn that a former colleague was trying to defraud the County’s CARES Act money, but I’m pleased that the checks and balances we had in place made his efforts unsuccessful,” Clancy said in a tweet. “And, Dr. Page was right to immediately terminate Mr. Weaver from his position today.”

According to the indictment, Weaver approached a small-business owner in May 2020 about applying for federal grants through the county, and that his boss on the council, identified in the indictment as “Jane Doe,” needed to know the names of the businessman’s companies because she made the final decision.

That month, while Walton Gray was still on the council, the county launched the St. Louis County Small Business Relief (SBR) program to award grants totaling $17.5 million to small businesses that were affected by stay-at-home orders, using CARES funds.

The indictment says the owner of several businesses, including a gas station, convenience mart, supermarket, laundromat and automobile mechanic shop met with Weaver about obtaining grants under the county program. Weaver helped prepare the applications and directed the businessman to make false representations about his businesses in order to try to win grant money.

It turned out that three of Smith’s four businesses weren’t in Walton Gray’s district, and ultimately none of them received any of the SBR grant money, according to the indictment.

Walton Gray did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday.

In January 2021, after she lost her council seat to Webb, Page hired her as COVID-19 vaccine outreach coordinator for the county. She lost that job in April of this year after voters approved a charter amendment that affected her classification as a county employee.

Other council members did not publicly address the indictment Tuesday. Webb and Kelli Dunaway, 2nd District, were absent from Tuesday night’s council meeting.

Updated at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 7.