Month: March 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

NEW ORLEANS, LA – United States District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon sentenced ELLIS BATISTE SR., age 50, of LaPlace, Louisiana, on March 24, 2022, to 72 months in the Bureau of Prisons for violating the Federal Controlled Substances Act, Title 21, United States Code, Sections 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(B), and 846, announced U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans.   

According to the court records, in Count One, BATISTE conspired to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute a quantity of a mixture or substance containing a quantity of cocaine hydrochloride, fentanyl, cocaine base, heroin, and methamphetamine. 

During the investigation, law enforcement seized over 15 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride and over 1 kilogram of fentanyl.  The majority of this cocaine hydrochloride and fentanyl which were being transported from Houston, Texas into the Eastern District of Louisiana. 

District Judge Lemmon sentenced BATISTE to the 72 months imprisonment to be followed by four years of supervised release as to Count One of the sSuperseding Bbill of Iinformation. Judge Lemmon also ordered that BATISTE pay a $100 mandatory special assessment fee.

The case was investigated by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the Saint John the Baptist Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Christopher Usher prosecuted the matter.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Orlando, Florida – United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Luis Raul Perez Rodriguez (50, Orlando) today pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances. Perez Rodriguez faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

According to the plea agreement, on January 21, 2022, Perez Rodriguez had arranged to receive a shipment of three parcels containing 19 kilograms of cocaine, valued at an estimated $570,000, through a delivery service from an address in Puerto Rico to an apartment in Orlando. On January 19, 2022, security specialists at the delivery service company had detected the cocaine shipment and reported the parcels to the Drug Enforcement Administration. On January 21, 2022, an undercover officer working with the DEA posed as a delivery driver and delivered a fake package to the address on the shipment. Perez Rodriguez was in the parking lot of his apartment and identified himself with the fake name associated with the parcels and showed the delivery driver that he was tracking the progress of the shipment on his phone. Perez Rodriguez was apprehended as the driver loaded two out of the three packages into Perez Rodriguez’s vehicle. Additional investigation linked Perez Rodriguez to a series of cocaine shipments from Puerto Rico to Orlando in 2018 and 2019.     

This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration with assistance from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Postal Service. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dana E. Hill.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Desiree Brianna Bello aka Desiree Sanchez, 28, of Contra Costa County, was sentenced today to four years and nine months in prison for bank fraud and possession of stolen U.S. mail, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, between April and August 2020, Bello and co-defendant Richard Beldon Waters III, perpetrated a mail theft and bank fraud scheme throughout Northern California. The scheme involved stealing U.S. mail from residential mailboxes and harvesting bankcards, identification documents, financial information, checks, and personally identifying information (PII) for use in fraudulent activity. Bello used the identification and PII of the mail theft victims to obtain money and property from banks and businesses.

On several occasions, Bello used identification documents and financial instruments of mail theft victims to purchase and lease vehicles from car dealerships. For example, on June 25, 2020, Bello entered a Hyundai dealership in Stockton to lease a new Hyundai Genesis G80 using a stolen identity. She made an initial $7,000 payment with a check in the victim’s name, and also submitted a lease application using the victim’s name, date of birth, California Driver’s License number, and Social Security Number. The dealership ultimately approved the application. Bello was able to drive the new G80, valued at approximately $55,490, off the lot.

Additionally, on two separate occasions in May 2020, Bello knowingly possessed stolen mail. On May 11, 2020, she was arrested in Folsom where she possessed over 300 pieces of stolen mail. Similarly, on May 18, 2020, she was arrested in El Dorado Hills where she possessed five large trash bags of mail that she and her co-schemers had just stolen minutes earlier from a residential complex.

This case is the product of an investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Stockton Police Department, the Folsom Police Department, the Concord Police Department, the Pittsburg Police Department, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, and the California Highway Patrol. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Artuz is prosecuting the case.

Waters pleaded guilty to similar charges in September 2021. He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller on May 23, 2022.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Mark Beale, 75, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, pleaded guilty on March 25 in federal court to unlawful dispensing and distributing of a schedule II controlled substance. Beale will remain on conditions of release pending sentencing.

A federal grand jury indicted Beale on June 23, 2021. According to the plea agreement and other court records, Beale issued prescriptions outside the course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose. From July 8, 2016, through April 5, 2019, Beale, a licensed physician, treated patients, including Jane Doe, in psychiatry. Beale admitted that he conducted only cursory exams, rather than complete medical, physical, or psychiatric evaluations, and made no attempt to document Jane Doe’s medical history.  Beale failed to document many of the prescriptions he prescribed in Jane Doe’s clinical record, which included insufficient clinical evidence to support the diagnoses he made, and the prescriptions he wrote for her were not supported by the listed diagnoses.

Beale also acknowledged that he failed to conduct adequate clinical monitoring, such as urine drug screening and prescription monitoring inquires. Despite a diagnosis of opioid abuse Beale did not treat the issue or refer Jane Doe for appropriate care. Instead, he continued to prescribe opioids. Beale further acknowledged that he chronically prescribed opioids and benzodiazepines, which put Jane Doe at unacceptable risk of addiction, diversion or overdose.

By the terms of the plea agreement, Beale faces five years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release.

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Tactical Diversion Squad investigated the case with assistance from the Dona Ana County Metro Narcotics Task Force, the Las Cruces Police Department and the El Paso Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys Joni Autrey Stahl and Richard C. Williams are prosecuting the case.

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

SAVANNAH, GA – An illegal alien has admitted to a scheme in which he and his co-conspirators fraudulently employed other illegals to work for a tree service, and then aided in the murder of a man who reported the scheme.

Pablo Rangel-Rubio, 53, a citizen of Mexico illegally present in the United States who resides in Rincon, Ga., pled guilty in U.S. District Court to an Information charging him with Conspiracy to Conceal, Harbor and Shield Illegal Aliens; Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering; three counts of Money Laundering; and one count of Aiding and Abetting the Retaliation Against a Witness, said David H. Estes, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. The guilty plea subjects Rangel-Rubio to a negotiated sentence of 600 months in prison and forfeiture of a 26.62-acre residential compound in Rincon.

“Pablo Rangel-Rubio was responsible for employing at least 100 illegal aliens to work for a tree service, skimming from their paychecks to further fatten his wallet, and then helping arrange the murder of a man who exposed the scheme,” said U.S. Attorney Estes. “The substantial prison sentence from this plea will hold him accountable for those crimes.”  

Rangel-Rubio originally was named in a December 2018 indictment along with his brother, Juan Rangel-Rubio, 45, of Rincon, and Higinio Perez-Bravo, 52, of Savannah, spelling out a conspiracy that employed illegal aliens using assumed identities to work for a tree service, and then retaliated against a legal-citizen employee who reported the scheme.

Juan Rangel-Rubio and Higinio Perez-Bravo are awaiting trial and are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty.

As described in court documents and testimony, Pablo Rangel-Rubio was responsible for hiring employees to work in a subsidiary of a tree service despite his status as an illegal alien. Most of the employees he hired on behalf of the company were illegal aliens, and Rangel-Rubio provided them with the names and social security numbers of others and then concealed their unlawful status and ineligibility to work in the United States. Rangel-Rubio further shielded their unlawful status by obtaining paychecks for the employees from the company, made out to the illegal aliens’ assumed identities, and then cashing those checks and paying the employees in cash. Rangel-Rubio would sometimes withhold money from the employees’ wages for his own gain, and deposit checks in the names of fictitious employees into his own bank account. As part of his plea agreement, Rangel-Rubio agreed that the scheme netted the conspirators more than $3.5 million.

In April 2017, a naturalized citizen employee of the company, Eliud Montoya, contacted the company to report the scheme – and Rangel-Rubio received a copy of Montoya’s written complaint and read it aloud to the other employees in Montoya’s presence. On Aug. 17, 2017, Montoya reported the scheme to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; two days later, Montoya was murdered near his Garden City, Ga., home. Rangel-Rubio admitted aiding and abetting Montoya’s retaliatory murder. 

“Rangel-Rubio’s scheme that not only exploited our nation’s labor laws, but also led to the death of a witness, has thankfully been thwarted and he is facing severe consequences,” said Special Agent in Charge Katrina Berger, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in Georgia and Alabama. “Protecting the integrity of the nation’s immigration and labor laws from criminals looking to circumvent them is of vital importance, and HSI prioritizes this mission.”

“Rangel-Rubio exploited one victim after another, using them for labor and stealing hard-earned money from their paychecks,” said Philip Wislar, Acting Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “This plea proves that the FBI is committed to protecting those who blow the whistle on illegal activity and bringing to justice those who exploit others for financial gain.”

The investigation was led by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the Garden City Police Department, the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office, and the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, and is being prosecuted for the United States by Southern District of Georgia Assistant U.S. Attorney Tania D. Groover.