The U.S. Attorney in Tampa announced the indictment of two Tampa Bay area accountants for conspiracy to defraud the IRS and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. George B. Calvert of Hernando Beach and Gregory Guido of Litha, former Certified Public Accountants, were also indicted for money laundering.

Prosecutors alleged that, from 2002 through 2006, Calvert and Guido conspired with others to defraud the IRS through a complicated fraudulent tax credits scheme related to a tax credit for selling fuels from non-conventional sources (FNS) to certain parties. According to authorities, Calvert, Guido and their co-conspirators identified landfills in the United States and Puerto Rico and purported to secure rights to the FNS tax credits generated by the landfills. They then created fraudulent assignments purporting to transfer the right to claim the FNS tax credits from the landfill owners to their own companies.

The government alleges that the defendants created fraudulent and back-dated landfill gas purchase agreements to make it appear as if their own company was selling methane from the landfills to an unrelated third party such that they could claim FNS tax credits. In reality, no such sales were occurring. (more…)

Pharmacists Satender Singh and Rajnish Mehta were sentenced to probation on Friday in a federal health insurance fraud case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa. Both Singh and Mehta previously pleaded guilty and received credit for cooperating with the investigation into federal health insurance fraud. The investigation is believed to be on-going and now includes numerous physicians.

Singh admittedly stole more than $99,000 from Tricare, the military health insurance program, and Medicaid. He was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to making false statements to a federal health care program. (more…)

A U.S. District Judge in Tampa sentenced a Pinellas County man to 57 months in federal prison last week for mail fraud and tax fraud. Joseph Christopher Hooker of Tierra Verde was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $2,478,423.98 to Roger William Erdelac, owner of a company called Blue Hawaiian Products, and $ 819,426 to the Internal Revenue Service.

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. (more…)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed actor Wesley Snipes’ 2008 conviction and sentence for failing to file tax returns last week. Snipes faces a three-year federal prison sentence but has been free on bail pending appeal.

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. (more…)

Five Tampa Bay-area pharmacists have been charged with defrauding the federal government and stealing from Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare, the military insurance program, by submitting fraudulent reimbursement requests for prescriptions never filled.

Federal prosecutors allege Jatin Patel submitted false reimbursement requests from his pharmacy in Clearwater and that two other pharmacists, Rajnish Mehta and Satender Singh, provided him with forged prescriptions to support the claims.

Patel later told investigators that he submitted those claims for $260,000 and split the money with Mehta and Singh.

A regional Medicare fraud task force, the pharmacists are accused of stealing more than $1.5 million by submitting hundreds of false prescription claims between 2006 and 2008. (more…)

Dr. Jeffrey Friedlander pleaded guilty in a Tampa federal court this week to conspiring to distribute and dispense numerous controlled substances–Oxycodone, Morphine, Hydrocodone, and Alprazolam–and to conspiring to defraud Medicare. Friedlander faces a maximum penalty of twenty years in federal prison for the drug conspiracy and ten years for the fraud conspiracy.

According to the plea agreement, Friedlander, a licensed Florida physician, practiced out of a business called Neurology and Pain Center with clinics in Tampa, Sarasota, Lakeland, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville and Orlando. He was a participating physician in Medicare, submitting claims for reimbursement for his services and writing prescriptions for Medicare patients. (more…)

The U.S. Attorney in Tampa announced the indictment of four Tampa men for alleged money laundering in relation to an illegal alien smuggling organization to conceal the origins of the money. The investigation, coined Operation “Brazilian Express,” reportedly took over a year to conclude.

According to federal prosecutors and law enforcement, the illegal alien-smuggling scheme was headed by Tampa resident Edson Veiga and smuggled illegal Brazilian aliens over the Mexican border and into the United States. Veiga previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to alien smuggling and is serving a sentence of 33 months in federal prison. His cooperation with federal authorities appears to have been key to the investigation.

According to court document, the organization charged the aliens between $8,000 and $10,000 and used the money to pay individuals at various stages of the operation. Veiga reportedly made approximately $1,500 for each successfully smuggled alien. Authorities estimate that the group successfully smuggled about 100 illegal aliens into the country. (more…)

Carel A. “Chad” Prater of Sarasota was found guilty of a vareity of government fraud-related charges, including corrupt interference with the federal tax laws, aiding and assisting the filing of a false tax return, failure to file a tax return, criminal contempt, structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements and making false declarations before a grand jury this week.

Prater served as his own attorney during his trial, which is certainly allowed but never advised due to the nuances of criminal and constitutional law as well as the detailed rules which govern trial procedure.

In his own defense, he claimed that income earned in the United States is generally not taxable. According to law enforcement, Prater perpetrated a scheme by which he purported to help his clients “legally” avoid paying income taxes. He claimed he could legally remove his clients from the federal tax system. (more…)

Barbara Branks, owner of La Gringa Professional Immigration Services in Clearwater, was sentenced this week to nearly five years in federal prison for filing false asylum applications with United States customs agencies. She was also ordered to forfeit about $816,000 in profits from the fraudulent filings.

Branks was indicted last September and pleaded guilty in November to filing 274 fraudulent asylum petitions. After a pre-sentence investigation, Branks appeared for sentencing. The judge sentenced her to four years and nine months in federal prison. (more…)

Fort Myers real estate agent Thomas Daugherty pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal tax evasion charges in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers.

Prosecutors alleged that Daugherty, who handled commercial real estate transactions, reported a total of $3,366,733 in income for the years 1998 through 2005. He reported $2,020,655 in income for the years 2006 and 2007. However, Daugherty failed to pay $1,648,227 in taxes for the years 1998 through 2005.

Law enforcement further alleged, and Daugherty admitted, that he maintained a lifestyle of hoarding and spending cash in order to hide his assets from the IRS during that time. He cashed his real estate commission checks or purchased cashier’s checks made out to himself, rather than depositing them into his bank account. From November 2002 through April 2008, Daugherty purchased more than 210 cashier’s checks totaling more than $2,190,000 and made payable to himself while maintaining nominal or negative bank account balances.

The failure to pay income tax alone would probably not have concerned federal authorities to quite the extent that Daugherty’s evasion tactics apparently did. Daughtery will now be the subject of a pre-sentence investigation and faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.