Derochemont admitted, in a Tampa federal courtroom, mail fraud and tax evasion for conspiring with an accountant to steal from Cast-Crete between October 2003 and December 2008 and then failing to pay income taxes on the stolen money.

From 2005 to 2008, Derochemont’s annual income nearly quadrupled but he failed to pay taxes on his full income, according to court documents.

Mail fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison,  while he faces up to five years in prison on the tax evasion charge.

Hughes died two years ago, while under investigation by the IRS regarding at least $300 million in unpaid corporate and personal tax liabilities, according to a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. He was politically conservative and very involved in local Hillsborough County government.

According to Derochemont’s signed plea agreement, he conspired with a certified public accountant who was not employed by Cast-Crete. Derochemont sent the accountant checks for “fictitious accounting and sales tax services,” and the accountant sent Derochemont kickbacks.

Cast-Crete has sued Derochemont and a company accountant, alleging that they stole a total of more than $3.8 million from the company, and that Derochemont took more than $1.3 million more to pay his credit card bills.

Court documents indicate Derochemont also stole money from the company’s operating account to pay his personal credit card bills. He admits he also failed to pay federal income taxes on the money he stole between 2006 and 2008.

He paid a total of $65,437 in taxes, but allegedly should have paid $775,141 based on his actual income.

Under the plea agreement, Derochement is required to reimburse Cast-Crete and the IRS and to forfeit $5.3 million, an amount about equivalent to the proceeds of the embezzlement scheme.

According to witnesses and evidence at trial, Diamond operated a fraudulent Ponzi scheme from April 2006 to January 2009 through his Sarasota company, Diamond Ventures LLC. Diamond solicited friends, family, and others to invest in his company for the purported purpose of trading their invested funds in foreign exchange (Forex) currency markets. Diamond promised investors in Sarasota and throughout the United
States a monthly return of 2.75-5% on their investments and guaranteed the security of investors’ proceeds.

In reality, Diamond lost $13.3 million of the investors’ funds and then concealed the loss by providing investors with false account statements showing that their accounts were increasing as promised.

Diamond used investment proceeds to make interest payments to investors. A total of $37 million went into Diamond’s fund for the purposes of trading, all of which was dissipated through Ponzi distributions, losing trades, and diversions to Diamond for his personal benefit.

In a Ponzi scheme, investors are paid “profits” with their own money or that of other investors who got in after them.

The deals inevitably collapse when the influx of money stops being enough to make the outgoing payments. The current recession has stopped the investment influx in its tracks and caused many, many of these schemes to be exposed.

The investigation and prosecution of alleged Ponzi schemes are best navigated with the assistance of an experienced federal criminal defense attorney. Involving an attorney early on in the process can be extremely beneficial to any fraud suspect or defendant.

See Also:

• Sarasota Man Charged with Fraud in Alleged Ponzi Scheme

• Florida’s Gulf Coast: Hotbed of Ponzi Schemes?

Hooker had pleaded guilty in October 2009 but was not sentenced until last week.

According to federal prosecutors, Hooker and a man named Jack Shaw executed a scheme from approximately 2002 to November 2006 to defraud Blue Hawaiian Products, which is a company that manufactured and sold fiberglass swimming pool shells. Prosecutors claim, in court documents, that Hooker acquired customer checks that had been sent by private and interstate carriers (the interstate travel of the funds brings the fraud into the purview of the federal courts instead of the state courts) and made payable to his employer, Blue Hawaiian Products.

Shaw allegedly opened a business checking account in the name of Blue Hawaiian Pools and Supplies into which the checks were deposited. Hooker then prepared fraudulently altered Blue Hawaiian invoices reflecting substantially lower purchase prices than the true invoices and Shaw purchased cashier checks for the lower prices from the fraudulent account and remitted them to Blue Hawaiian Products in payment of the fraudulent invoice.

Shaw and Hooker then retained the difference between the amounts of the original checks and the lower, fraudulently invoiced amounts. Because Hooker did not report those funds to the federal government as income, he also faced tax charges.

Hooker omitted the proceeds of the fraud scheme from his 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 Federal Individual Income Tax Returns. This allowed the federal authorities to charge him with tax fraud in addition to mail fraud related to the interception of checks and falsification of invoices.

The investigation began last summer after a pharmacist discovered a fake prescription from a doctor in Spring Hill. After calling the sheriff’s office, the pharmacist and investigators discovered more prescriptions from the same doctor – but the doctor told investigators that he didn’t write the prescriptions and didn’t know the patients.

Narcotics detectives have arrested over 30 people so far and have 127 pending charges of obtaining oxycodone, Xanax and methadone by fraud as a result of their investigation.

The suspects, who live in Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties, allegedly used the names of 26 doctors to forge prescriptions on a computer.

Authorities claim that this drug ring, like many others, works like a classic pyramid scheme. A leader sits atop the pyramid with recruiters immediately beneath him. According to the sheriff’s office, Darren Mooney and Marcy Bragdon are the “recruiters” in the Operation Spring Hill ring.

Recruiters look for people down on their luck like addicts and homeless people. Those people then take a fake prescription to a pharmacy. The phone number on the slip is manned by someone posing as the prescribing physician.

The low level recruits keep a small percentage of the pills to take or sell on the street. The remainder is given to the head of the operation.

We’ve seen a huge increase in prescription drug investigations in the Tampa Bay area over the last several years – some involving fake prescriptions, others involving inappropriately prescribed drugs (targeting pain clinics). Reportedly, Pinellas and Pasco counties had the most oxycodone deaths in the state of Florida last year.

Now that the case has been affirmed, the case will be sent to a district judge and Snipes will be given a date by which to surrender to federal authorities. The only remaining appellate option for Snipes and his attorneys is a writ to the U.S. Supreme Court. The assistant U.S. Attorney on the case doesn’t think the case meets the criteria needed to reach the highest court.

Snipes’ attorney though said it is premature to comment on Snipes’ next legal move.

Federal prosecutors accused Snipes, star of movies like Blade and Major League, of conspiring with two men to defraud the IRS of about $11.4 million in refunds on taxes Snipes paid in 1996 and 1997. An indictment charged Snipes with failing to file tax returns from 1999 to 2004, while he earned nearly $38 million.

An Ocala jury found him guilty in 2008 of three misdemeanor counts of failure to file income taxes. The jury also acquitted him on three of the six misdemeanor failure-to-file charges and found him not guilty of two felony charges that included conspiracy and filing a false claim with the IRS.

In his appeal, Snipes claimed that the only reasonable sentence for his crime was probation, that the misdemeanor should not result in jail for a first-time offender. The appeals court disagreed. “The district court acted well within its considerable discretion in sentencing Snipes to thirty-six months in prison,” judges wrote.

He also argued that the trial court did not consider mitigating factors — that he is college educated, has a family and his charitable activities — at sentencing. Again, the appeals court disagreed, saying the law allows for judges to use a graduated penalty structure by measuring a tax loss and matching it to a specific level of offense.

Specifically, the judges felt that the amount of money involved – the amount owed to the government – was very high, warranting a more serious sentence. The judges wrote, “Snipes merely disputes Congress’s and the Commission’s assessment of major tax losses as serious. We are unpersuaded.”

Snipes reportedly owes $2.7 million in back taxes. The government estimates his total debt could exceed $20 million.

Morris has also been charged with the May 18th killing of Derek Anderson at an east Tampa apartment complex, in what authorities suggest was a failed robbery.  Most recently, Morris was charged with killing Harold Wright on June 8th in what was apparently a drug-related shooting.

Curtis and Kocab were both shot in the head after Curtis pulled over a car in which Morris was a passenger. After discovering an active arrest warrant for Morris, Curtis called for backup and Kocab arrived. A dashboard video recorder in one of the officers’ cruisers allegedly captured the shootings, according to an arrest affidavit.

Tampa Bay area law enforcement then spent four days searching for Morris. He was ultimately persuaded to turn himself in.

Morris faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of being a felon in possession of a gun. According to police, Ballistics tests by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement determined that Morris used the same handgun to kill Curtis, Kocab and Anderson. They say that fingerprints link Morris to Wright’s killing.

There has been no announcement as to the prosecution’s decision to pursue (or not pursue) the death penalty. It does seem likely that they will announce that intention with regard to the deaths of Curtis and Kocab, as several aspects of the state’s case (at this point) appear to mirror some of the statutory aggravating factors which might support the imposition of the death penalty. Prosecutors have 45 days from the date of an indictment to make that decision.

A regional public defenders office will represent Morris in all four cases. Stephen Fisher, head of the homicide division for the Criminal Conflict Counsel office for the Second District of Florida,  is assembling a team of three lawyers to represent Morris.

Normally, the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office would handle a local indigent defendant. The local office, however, had a conflict of interest because it had already consulted with the driver of the car which was pulled over by Curtis at the beginning of the month. She faces federal criminal charges relating to the killings.

Pinellas county deputies responded to the accident and felt that Ferron was impaired. She reportedly failed a field sobriety test. The deputies ruled out alcohol (presumably via a breath test of some sort), however. Ferron said she had taken prescription medication.

Ferron was charged with DUI and DUI with property damage. Both charges are misdemeanors and Ferron has been allowed to return to work pending an internal investigation. She faces up to six months in jail for the DUI charge and up to a year in jail for the DUI with property damage charge.

While driving under the influence is generally an alcohol-related traffic charge, Florida’s DUI law actually speaks equally to drug impairment as well. A person is guilty of driving under the influence if he or she is driving or in actual physical control of a vehicle while (1) under the influence of alcoholic beverages, certain chemical substances or controlled substances; or (2) has a blood- or breath-alcohol level of .08 or higher.

The controlled substances designated in Florida’s DUI law include not only street drugs like cocaine and heroin but also prescription drugs like any variety of painkillers which might also lead to impairment.

Holder announced the results of Operation Stolen Dreams – a three and a half month takedown of mortgage fraud schemes throughout the country. Beginning on March 1, 2010, Operation Stolen Dreams has involved over 1,200 criminal defendants who were allegedly responsible for more than $2.3 billion in losses. In addition, the operation involved 191 civil enforcement actions through which more than $147 million has been ordered recovered, with still millions more pending court approval.

In addition to several other cases, the AG spotlighted a case filed in Miami against two defendants who allegedly targeted the Haitian-American community, claiming they would assist them with immigration and housing issues, but then instead using victims’ personal information to produce false documents to obtain mortgage loans.

Another case mentioned was that of a home builder who allegedly used straw buyers to sell his inventory of unsold houses at inflated prices with undisclosed sales rebates. This scheme inflated prices on other homes in the area, creating artificially high comparable sales and affecting the overall new-home market.

Operation Stolen Dreams is operated under the umbrella of the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, launched last November. The Department of Justice has requested $178 million in its fiscal year 2011 budget to fight mortgage fraud, an increase of over $18.4 million. The FBI has over 3,000 pending mortgage fraud cases, almost double the figure from fiscal year 2008.  The task force is also reportedly working with consumer groups to increase financial literacy and better educate homeowners about warning signs of scams.

See Also:

• Expect More Prosecutions in Tampa as Federal Mortgage Fraud Bill Passes Congress

• Tampa Federal Prosecutor Plans More Mortgage Fraud Cases

• South Florida Mortgage Fraud Charges Increasing

In their opinion, the justices indicated that the trial judge in Hillsborough County should have allowed Pasha fire his court-appointed attorney and represent himself. Jurors convicted Pasha of the August 23, 2002, stabbing deaths of his wife Robin Canady and her daughter Ranesha Singleton.

“Pasha clearly expressed a desire to proceed pro se (represent himself) in order to avoid the proceedings with counsel he found to be unacceptable,” the court wrote in its eight-page ruling. “This error of the trial court requires reversal.”

Pasha attempted to fire his court-appointed lawyer, Nick Sinardi, a week before his October 2007 trial. He argued that they disagreed over trial strategy. The trial judge denied the request, stating that Pasha was getting adequate representation.

Pasha then indicated he would rather represent himself. During a hearing on that request, the morning trial was to begin, Pasha said he would prefer to have a lawyer but that he didn’t have that choice because the judge wouldn’t replace Sinardi. Pasha’s request to represent himself was ultimately denied.

The Supreme Court said the defendant’s comments showed he did not prefer to be self-represented, that he wanted representation but that he understood trial attorney Nick Sinardi was the only appointed counsel to which he was entitled. The verdict and sentence was overturned and the case remanded for a new trial.

At the trial, witnesses testified they were parked behind the Woodland Corporate Center near Waters and Manhattan avenues when they saw a man carrying a shiny object and wearing a white jumpsuit covered in blood. They saw the man drive away in a white van, which they followed.

Deputies stopped Pasha in his van at a red light and found a blood-soaked jumpsuit and a bloody knife. The bodies of Canady and Singleton were found in woods near the corporate center.

Sentencing will occur after a sufficient pre-sentencing investigation report is completed and submitted to the sentencing judge for review and consideration.

According to their plea agreements, the Cantins told deputies they made the meth in the garage of their home while two of their three chidlren were present. The Cantins have three children, ages six months to nine years.

They were arrested in February after Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to their home on a domestic disturbance call. Beth Cantin said the argument started because her husband wouldn’t let her go into the garage where the chemicals were.

Detectives found a clandestine laboratory that consisted of chemicals necessary to manufacture methamphetamine. Those chemicals generate toxic fumes when combined together to create the drug, according to authorities.

Beth Cantin described herself as a “florist and stay-at-home mom.” Both Cantins are in their mid-30s.

Matthew Cantin indicated, at the plea hearing, that he “was Baker Acted in 2008 for four days” after his wife called authorities. The Baker Act is the common name of the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, which allows someone to be involuntarily examined (a.k.a. involuntary commitment) for up to 72 hours if there is evidence that the person has a mental illness and is a harm to himself or others.