Former Newark mayor, Sharpe James was found guilty Wednesday of charges related to fraud and conspiracy.

The ex-mayor, who is 72 years old, was accused of selling undervalued city properties to his mistress Tamika Riley, 39, who resold them and gained large profits. James encouraged urban renewal by offering developers land at very low costs and he afterwards approved the sale of properties to Riley, who was then his girlfriend. Riley paid about $46,000 for nine properties, which she then resold for the price of more than $600,000. She was convicted of 12 counts regarding this scheme.

The two face sentences of seven or eight years in prison, but there is the possibility that a judges gives James a much harsher penalty, one of about 20 years, on several individual counts.

In a separate case, James is also accused of spending money from city-issued credit cards to pay for personal expenses, including vacations for himself and several women other than his wife in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the Dominican Republic. It was discovered James had spent around $60,000 on such trips, between 2001 and 2006.

James denied any wrongdoing, arguing that he had had diplomatic reasons in the visited countries. He said he had gone to Rio de Janeiro to meet with the region’s consulate general, while the trip to the Dominican Republic was to find information about the tropical gardens there and decide whether they could be replicated in Newark.

The former mayor and his ex-mistress are both currently free on bail.