Month: September 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – An Ash Grove, Mo., woman was sentenced in federal court today for a wire fraud scheme in which she embezzled more than $362,000 from her Springfield, Mo., employer and failed to pay nearly $1 million in business payroll taxes and personal income taxes.

Carrie Leigh Long, 52, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to three years and five months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Long to pay $1,329,440 in restitution — $362,175 to her employer and $1,071,802 to the IRS. The court also ordered Long to forfeit to the government $362,175.

On April 25, 2022, Long pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of failure to pay over employment taxes.

Long was employed by Executive Coach Builders, Inc. to provide in-house accounting services to the company and to Executive Bus Builders, Inc. The companies are headquartered in Springfield but do business worldwide with factories and sales offices in Missouri and California. The companies build luxury buses, coaches, and limousines. Long was hired in April 2014.

Long admitted that she stole at least $362,175 from the companies from February 2016 to September 2020. Long also admitted that she failed to pay approximately $902,226 of employment taxes the companies owed to the IRS. By not making these payments, Long created a pool of funds in the companies’ bank accounts from which she continued her embezzlement scheme.

Long used her position as an in-house accountant for the companies, and her access to the companies’ check stock, to regularly write checks against the companies’ bank accounts for unauthorized payments to herself. Long stole money from the companies by filling in unauthorized amounts on some pre-signed checks and making such checks payable to herself. Long also stole money from the companies by forging signatures on the companies’ checks, filling in unauthorized amounts on the checks, and making such checks payable to herself.

According to court documents, Long stole from the companies at least 198 times. When the companies’ owner confronted her with evidence that she had stolen from the companies and that she had not paid over the companies’ employment taxes, she continued to lie to him, forcing him to hire an accounting firm to investigate.

As part of the scheme, Long did not claim the unauthorized payments as personal income on her individual income tax returns from 2016 through 2020. This resulted in a loss to the IRS of $65,039.

Beginning in April 2019, Long ceased to make regular payments to the IRS for the employment taxes the companies owed the IRS. Long concealed her actions from company officials by altering the companies’ bank account statements and misrepresenting on her financial reports that the payments had been made. Long caused the companies to fail to pay over to the IRS approximately $902,226 of taxes (including both the employer portion and the funds withheld from the companies’ employees’ paychecks) owed to the IRS for two quarters of 2019 and one quarter of 2020.

When an agent from the Internal Revenue Service attempted to collect those delinquent tax payments, Long falsely claimed they had been paid and provided forged bank account statements.

According to court documents, Long was convicted in state court of similar conduct with a previous employer and was still on probation for that crime at the time of this federal offense. On Oct. 21, 2013, she pleaded guilty in the Circuit Court of Laclede County, Mo., to stealing more than $88,000 from a client of her then-accounting firm employer. As in this federal case, she stole by forging checks made payable to herself and endorsed in her own name against the victim’s bank account. Long received a suspended five-year sentence, was ordered to serve 90 days shock time, placed on probation for five years, and ordered to pay restitution to her victim within 30 days of her sentencing.

Long’s mother actually paid her court-ordered restitution on her behalf in the state case. Long used the money she stole from the companies in this scheme to pay her mother back for the prior victims’ restitution payment.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon Kempf. It was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation and the FBI.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – A Newport News man pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud Navy Federal Credit Union and its members out of money and property.

According to court documents, from approximately April to August 2021, Samari Smith, 20, conspired with at least four other people to commit credit union fraud by convincing account holders to withdraw and turnover funds to them under false pretenses. Smith and his coconspirators targeted sailors in the United States Navy on online dating applications like Tinder by posing as women interested in a romantic relationship. Smith and his co-conspirators asked the victimized Sailors to withdraw and turnover funds – often under the guise of helping a relative in the Navy who was trying to send them money. 

Samari Smith was directly involved in defrauding four Sailors in the Navy who were then stationed in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, which caused more than $40,000 in fraud losses to these victims. Two co-conspirators previously pleaded guilty, including the leader of the conspiracy, Trequan Smith, 21, of Hampton and Emani Burton, 23, also of Hampton. The broader fraud conspiracy orchestrated by Trequan Smith victimized dozens of Sailors in the Navy and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of fraud loss.

Samari Smith pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced on January 27, 2023. He faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. Trequan Smith pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. He faces a mandatory minimum of two years in prison and a maximum penalty of 32 years in prison. Burton pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and was sentenced to a term of one day of incarceration and three years of supervised release.  

Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Tira A. Hayward, Acting Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Washington Division; and Frederick Franks, Special Agent in Charge of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Norfolk Field Office, made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen accepted the plea.

This case was investigated under the leadership and coordination of the Newport News Financial Crimes Task Force.

Assistant U.S. Attorney D. Mack Coleman is prosecuting the case.

A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Related court documents and information are located on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case Nos. 4:22-cr-56, 4:21-cr-67, and 4:21-cr-68.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Defendant Admits Paying D.C. Government Employee for Confidential Information

Source: United States Department of Justice News

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk on Tuesday sentenced a man from St. Louis County who robbed two stores while wearing a GPS ankle bracelet placed on him after other robbery charges to 14 years in prison.

On Dec. 5, 2020, Darrion Gardner and a co-defendant robbed a T-Mobile store on Lackland Road in Overland while armed. They forced an employee to the ground, stole money from the cash registers and one employee and then forced an employee at gunpoint to take them to a storage area, where they stole phones, Gardner admitted in a plea agreement.

Two days later, the pair robbed the Universal Accessories store on St. Charles Rock Road in Breckenridge Hills. The men took phones from the store and an employee at gunpoint.

Gardner was arrested on Dec. 10, 2020.

After his arrest, Gardner tried to get his father to destroy evidence of the robberies located in his bedroom.

A sentencing memo called the series of events “violent and aggressive crimes which were brazenly repeated.”

Before the cell phone store robberies, Gardner had been released on bond after being arrested and accused of the robbery or attempted robbery of people walking on or near the grounds of Concordia Seminary and Washington University, court records show. Gardner still faces pending charges related to those robberies in St. Louis County Circuit Court.

Gardner, now 22, pleaded guilty in May in U.S. District Court to two felony counts of robbery and two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Each gun charge carries a mandatory minimum five-year term consecutive to other charges. 

Federal charges are pending against Gardner’s alleged co-defendant, Malik Dorsey, who was shot by a clerk while allegedly robbing a cell phone store in Maplewood on Dec. 9, 2020.

The FBI and police departments in Overland Hills, Breckenridge and Maplewood investigated this case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

On Monday, Sept. 12, 2022, Justice Department leadership met with leaders from the criminal public defender and civil legal aid communities in two separate events, coordinated by the Office for Access to Justice, to discuss access to justice, the right to counsel, and expanding legal assistance in both the criminal and civil legal systems.  This represents the first time in over five years that the Department has hosted leadership from these public defender communities, and the first time in over a decade that all of the Executive Directors of the legal aid organizations funded by the Legal Services Corporation had the opportunity to gather together in person.

“The legitimacy of the law depends on equal justice,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “But equal justice depends on equal access to justice.  And equal access, in turn, depends on the thousands of professionals who do the difficult and demanding work of providing legal services to those in need.”

On Monday afternoon, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Civil Rights Division, Office for Access to Justice Director Rachel Rossi, Office of Justice Programs Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Amy Solomon and other Department staff met with the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the American Council of Chief Defenders, the Black Public Defender Association, the Gault Center, the National Association for Public Defense, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  The groups discussed a broad set of issues, including the need for data and research, the challenges of retention and recruitment, and the upcoming 60^th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark case establishing a constitutional right to counsel in criminal proceedings.  Justice Department officials highlighted the important role of public defenders in protecting constitutional rights.

“In some places, we know there is a constructive denial of the right to counsel because defender systems are simply under-resourced,” said Associate Attorney General Gupta.  “The tragic impact of COVID across our court systems has uniquely exacerbated these issues for public defense offices.”

Attorney General Garland, Associate Attorney General Gupta, and Director Rossi later spoke to the Executive Directors of over 100 legal aid organizations at a reception that also included leadership from the Legal Services Corporation.  The event was an opportunity for the civil legal aid community to gather with Department leadership and staff in recognition of the vital role that legal services play in our democracy.