After a two-week trial, defendant in U.S. v Stein was convicted of mail, wire, and securities fraud based on evident that he fabricated press releases and purchase money orders to inflate the stock price of his client, Signalife, Inc, a publicly traded manufacturer of medical devices. The district court sentenced Stein to…
In U.S v. Leon, Leon appeals from her conviction following a jury trial of three counts of attempting to cause a financial institution to not file a required currency transaction report (a CTR) in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5324(a)(1). On appeal Leon claimed that the government and the…
In this appeal Birge was convicted of one count of mail fraud pursuant to 18 U.S.C. section 1341 for writing herself $767,218.99 while serving as the Chief Clerk of the probate court of Chatham County, Georgia. The checks were drawn from the conservatorship accounts belonging to 31 minors, two…
Appellants in the Pierre opinion appealed their federal criminal convictions and sentences for conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, conspiracy to traffic in unauthorized access devises, aggravated identity theft and other substantive counts of identity theft following a jury trial. The scheme in this case involved filing fraudulent income tax…
In United States v. Croteau, the defendant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence for his ten-count criminal conviction in federal court for making false and fictitious claims on this tax returns and for the reasonableness of his 56 month federal sentence. Croteau was a tax protester who filed false returns…
Rodriguez challenged her guilty plea to conspiracy to commit the federal crimes of mail fraud and wire fraud arguing that her plea was not knowing or voluntary. She also claimed her plea should not have been accepted by the district judge because she told the district judge she suffered from…
Defendants Esquenazi and Rodriguez were convicted in Miami federal court of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. The FCPA makes it a crime to bribe the foreign official for the purpose of influencing the official. A foreign official…
In U.S. v. Massam, the defendant was convicted of theft and embezzlement of an employee benefit fund (E.R.I.S.A) he set of for himself and his employees and for which he served as the pension plan administrator. After divorcing his fifth wife, the state divorce court entered a distribution order to…
In U.S. v. Joseph, the defendant was convicted mail fraud and theft from the government for filing false income tax returns using false information. As a result of his committing this federal crime, the Internal Revenue Service actually disbursed $37,196. Before sentencing the government obtained an order from the district…
In U.S. v. Mathauda the defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in violation of federal criminal law. The case arose from his operation and of a business offering fraudulent business opportunities. From a call room in Costa Rica, the defendant would entice victims by advertising…