Month: March 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

CHICAGO — A federal judge today sentenced a suburban Chicago woman to a year in prison for using insider information obtained from her husband to purchase shares of a company ahead of its acquisition by the husband’s employer.

DENISE GREVAS, 60, of Evanston, Ill., pleaded guilty last year to a securities fraud charge.  In addition to the year-and-a-day prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber fined Grevas $100,000.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI.  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a civil enforcement action against Grevas, provided valuable assistance.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jared Hasten and Jason Yonan represented the government in the criminal case.

Grevas admitted in a plea agreement that she made $286,960 in illegal profits from the purchase and sale of securities in a Washington state-based pharmaceutical company, which was a target for acquisition and later acquired by a foreign pharmaceutical company that employed Grevas’s husband.  Grevas used material, non-public information about the expected acquisition to purchase shares in the Washington company ahead of a public announcement of the acquisition on Sept. 16, 2019.  After the announcement, the Washington company’s stock price increased and Grevas sold the shares for the profit.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal jury in Greenbelt, Maryland, convicted a North Carolina woman and a Maryland man yesterday for conspiring to defraud the United States, helping file false tax returns, and stealing government funds.

According to evidence presented at trial, between 2013 and 2016, Sandra Denise Curl, of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Percy Leroy Jacobs, of Prince Frederick, Maryland, filed tax returns on behalf of multiple fraudulent trusts they owned, seeking refunds to which they were not entitled. Curl and Jacobs also filed false individual tax returns in their own names, claiming fictitious false tax withholdings in order to generate refunds. In total, the defendants attempted to defraud the IRS of more than $2.2 million.

Curl and Jacobs are scheduled to be sentenced on July 7. Both defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States, three years in prison for each count of aiding and assisting the filing of a false tax return, and 10 years in prison for theft of government property. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron for the District of Maryland made the announcement.

IRS-Criminal Investigation is investigating the case.

Trial Attorneys Jeffrey McLellan and George Meggali of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morgan for the District of Maryland are prosecuting the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

The former Comptroller General of Ecuador made his initial appearance today in Miami, Florida, for allegedly engaging in a scheme to use the U.S. financial system to launder money to promote and conceal an illegal bribery scheme in Ecuador.

According to the March 24 indictment unsealed today, between approximately 2010 and 2016, Carlos Ramon Polit Faggioni (Polit), allegedly solicited and received over $10 million in bribe payments from Odebrecht S.A., the Brazil-based construction conglomerate, in exchange for using his official position as Comptroller General of Ecuador to influence official actions by the comptroller’s office in order to benefit Odebrecht and its business in Ecuador. Additionally, Polit is alleged to have received a bribe from an Ecuadorian businessman in or around 2015 in exchange for assisting the businessman and his company in connection with certain contracts from the state-owned insurance company of Ecuador.

The indictment alleges that, from in or around 2010 and continuing until at least 2017, at the direction of Polit, another member of the conspiracy caused proceeds of Polit’s bribery scheme to “disappear” by using Florida companies registered in the names of certain associates, often without the associates’ knowledge. The conspirators also used funds from Polit’s bribery scheme to purchase and renovate real estate in South Florida and elsewhere and to purchase restaurants, a dry cleaner and other businesses. 

Odebrecht S.A. pleaded guilty on Dec. 21, 2016, in the Eastern District of New York to conspiring to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a broader scheme to pay nearly $800 million in bribes to public officials in 12 countries, including Ecuador.

Polit is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, three counts of concealment money laundering, and two counts of engaging in transactions in criminally derived property. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering and up to 10 years in prison for each count of engaging in transactions in criminally derived property. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez for the Southern District of Florida, and Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami office made the announcement.

HSI’s Miami Field Office is investigating the case. 

Trial Attorneys Jill Simon and Alexander Kramer of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael N. Berger of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Laserna is handling asset forfeiture.

The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided substantial assistance. The Justice Department also wishes to thank law enforcement authorities in Ecuador, Brazil, Panama, and Curacao for their assistance with the investigation.  

The Fraud Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) matters. Additional information about the Justice Department’s FCPA enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal jury convicted a California man yesterday for submitting fraudulent applications seeking money from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), submitting false statements to a financial institution, and money laundering. 

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Robert Benlevi, 53, of Encino, submitted 27 PPP loan applications to four banks between April and June 2020 on behalf of eight companies solely owned by Benlevi. In the applications, Benlevi sought a total of $27 million in forgivable PPP loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In his fraudulent applications, Benlevi represented that each of his companies had 100 employees and average monthly payroll of $400,000, even though he knew that the companies did not have any employees or payroll expenses. The evidence further showed that Benlevi also submitted fabricated IRS documents falsely stating that each of the companies had an annual payroll of $4.8 million.

Based on Benlevi’s fraudulent loan applications, three of Benlevi’s companies — 1Stellar Health LLC, Bestways2 Health LLC, and Joyous-Health4U LLC — obtained $3 million in PPP funds. Although Benlevi falsely represented that the funds sought through the PPP loan applications would be used to pay payroll and certain other business expenses, the evidence showed that he instead used them for personal expenses, including cash withdrawals, payments on his personal credit cards, transfers to other personal and business accounts he controlled, and renting an oceanfront apartment in Santa Monica. In a single day, Benlevi withdrew from the Bestways2 Health account $248,000 of PPP funds in cashier’s checks, which were deposited into other accounts that Benlevi controlled.

Benlevi was convicted of bank fraud, false statements to a financial institution, and money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 27 and faces up to 30 years in prison for each of the bank fraud and false statement charges, and up to 10 years in prison for each count of money laundering. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison of the Central District of California; Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; Assistant Director in Charge Kristi K. Johnson of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey D. Pittano of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General (FDIC-OIG); and Special Agent in Charge Weston King of the SBA Office of Inspector General (SBA-OIG) Western Region made the announcement.

The FBI, SBA-OIG, and FDIC-OIG investigated the case. 

Trial Attorneys Emily Culbertson and Justin Givens of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.