Ralph Priola was a busy man during the height of the massive scheme to take over anddefraud Las Vegas-area homeowners associations between 2006 and 2008.

The onetime casino executive and right-hand man of the scheme’s mastermind, former construction company boss Leon Benzer, testified Monday how he paid off lawyers and HOA board members and spearheaded election rigging at more than a half-dozen HOAs targeted in the multimillion-dollar scheme.

Priola, who has pleaded guilty in the scheme with Benzer and 35 other conspirators, testified that dozens of straw buyers and board members were on Benzer’s payroll at the time.

Federal prosecutors showed a jury ledgers kept by Priola that revealed he was paying thousands of dollars a month to the recruited straw buyers and HOA board members, mostly in cash, on Benzer’s behalf to keep the scheme alive.

His efforts, he repeated over and over again on the witness stand, were aimed at packing HOA boards to get Benzer lucrative construction defect contracts. The scheme paid off in a big way at the Vistana HOA, which awarded Benzer’s Silver Lining Construction Company more than $8 million in repair work.

Priola testified that he ended his employment with Benzer after the FBI and Las Vegas police raided Benzer’s operation a various sites across the valley in September 2008. Read more: