Month: November 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

TRENTON, N.J. – A Monmouth County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 63 months in prison for defrauding lenders of $50 million dollars in connection with an invoice factoring scheme perpetrated over nearly a decade, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

Vincent Galano, 60, of Oceanport, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi to an information charging him with one count of wire fraud. Judge Quraishi imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.

According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court:

Accounts receivable factoring, also known as invoice financing (factoring), is a financial transaction through which a company obtains cash by selling its unpaid invoices, ordinarily at a discount, to a factor. Factoring clients send their debtors notices of assignment naming the factor as the assignee of the debt owed on the invoices. The factor collects invoiced amounts owed by the clients’ debtors and, upon collection of the entire invoiced amount, pays its clients the balance of the invoice, deducting the factor’s fees.

Galano formed PF Funding LLC (PF Funding) in 1996 for the purpose of factoring accounts receivables for various corporate clients. In 2007, PF Funding entered into a secured lending relationship with a single purpose entity created to finance PF Funding’s factoring business. Shortly thereafter, the factoring lender established a line of credit as a means to provide PF Funding capital to grow its receiveables portfolio. Over the next several years, PF Funding grew its factoring business by drawing from the line of credit while maintaining as current its loan obligations to the factoring lender. However, beginning in 2011, Galano, through PF Funding, purchased increasingly greater numbers of invoices for which he was unable to collect the debt owed on the receivables. To justify PF Funding’s continued draws from the line of credit, Galano concealed this bad debt from the factoring lender by misrepresenting the bad invoices as collectible on reports he routinely provided to the factoring lender. In other instances, Galano mischaracterized invoices that had already been paid and collected as outstanding and capable of being factored, in essence double-counting to drive up the outstanding receivables. In the reports provided to the factoring lender, Galano manipulated the overall value of PF Funding’s portfolio of outstanding invoices in an amount proportional to the funds he needed to draw from the unsecured line of credit to maintain as current the principal and interest payments on his outstanding loans.   

Engaging in this pattern of misrepresentation over nearly a decade, by 2020 PF Funding had ultimately defaulted under its loan obligations, owing approximately $50 million to its lenders by virtue of the scheme. During a May 2020 telephone call with his lenders, Galano admitted that he had concealed significant losses suffered by PF Funding over many years. He admitted that he had routinely distributed to lenders over that prolonged period fabricated reports that overstated the number and value of outstanding invoices which the reports represented as payable.   

In addition to the prison term, Judge Quraishi sentenced Galano to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $50 million. 

U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric A. Boden of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division in Trenton.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

FORT COLLINS – The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announces it will co-host a Protecting Houses of Worship (PHOW) event in Fort Collins on November 17, 2022. This interfaith event will focus on providing faith-based institutions with information from law enforcement and faith-related security experts about the threats of violence facing houses of worship and responsive measures to counter potential risks. 

The location for the event on November 17, 2022 is the Congregation Har Shalom at 725 West Drake Road in Fort Collins. If interested in attending, please RSVP to Jillian Dardani at Jillian.Dardani@usdoj.gov.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office plans to co-host roughly four PHOW trainings a year across Colorado. The PHOW programs are interfaith events hosted at a community center, church, mosque, synagogue or other faith-based facility for participation by all interested faith-based organizations in the city or region. 

The event in Fort Collins is sponsored by The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado, Community Relations Service, Rocky Mountain Region, and the Fort Collins Police Department.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

St. Thomas, VI – United States Attorney Delia L. Smith announced today that a federal jury convicted Elijah Hakim, of St. Thomas, in the District’s first prosecution of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and possession with intent to distribute fentanyl prosecution.  Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin.  Just two milligrams of fentanyl, or the amount that could fit on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially lethal dose. Chief District Judge Robert A. Molloy schedule Hakim’s sentencing for February 24, 2023.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from April 20, 2021, to May 20, 2021, Hakim conspired to mail two packages containing fentanyl from Georgia to St. Thomas.  The first package was mailed on April 22, 2021, and contained 150 fentanyl pills weighing approximately 17.5 grams which were concealed in a vitamin bottle.  The package was filled with spray foam and mailed from an Atlanta, GA, area post office to St. Thomas.  The second package was mailed on May 18, 2021, and contained 200 fentanyl pills weighing approximately 25 grams which were concealed inside a Gucci gift box.  Like the first package, the second package was filled with spray foam to further conceal the pills and mailed from an Atlanta, GA post office.  Both packages were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protections officers in San Juan, PR and St. Thomas, VI.  Court documents also revealed that during this period, a victim on St. Thomas overdosed from consuming pills suspected to contain fentanyl.

At trial, the United States introduced fingerprints found on the May package which matched Hakim’s fingerprints.  Also admitted at trial was packaging material found in Hakim’s Atlanta apartment which consisted of a spray foam cannister, bubble wrap, vacuum sealed bags and fiber tape consistent with the packaging used to conceal the fentanyl in the April and May packages.

“Across the United States, opioids, primarily fentanyl, killed over 80,000 people in 2021 alone,” stated United States Attorney Delia Smith.  “Here in the Virgin Islands, we have thus far been spared the worst of the opioid epidemic, but these two shipments of fentanyl show that we are not immune.  Fortunately, the vigilance and dedication of our law enforcement partners led to the interception of these deadly drugs and we were able to convict those responsible.  We will continue to do everything in our power to keep the Virgin Islands safe from this lethal scourge.”

“The defendant’s lawless misuse of the U.S. Mail has finally come to a halt,” said Juan A. Vargas, Acting Inspector in Charge of the Miami Division. “Postal Inspectors will continue to work collaboratively with our law enforcement partners to combine our resources and expertise to combat the perils of illegal and dangerous drug distribution.”

“Our extraordinary enforcement partnerships allow us to work in unison and combat drug trafficking and the violence this brings,” said SAC Denise Foster from the DEA Caribbean Division. “It’s the DEA’s mission to dismantle and destroy drug trafficking organizations no matter where they originate. We will continue to work diligently with our Federal, state, and local counterparts and to bring to justice those who seek to poison our communities.”

The investigation was conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meredith Edwards and Kyle Payne prosecuted the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

FRESNO, Calif. — Isaiah Garcia, 20, of Fresno, was sentenced today to five years in prison for conspiring to distribute over 40 grams of fentanyl, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, between October and December of 2020, Isaiah Garcia conspired with his brother, who was incarcerated at the Fresno County Jail, to distribute fentanyl pills. The two used the jail’s telephones to discuss the plan. Investigators uncovered the plan and in December 2020, obtained a federal warrant to search Isaiah Garcia’s residence. In his bedroom, officers found over 1,000 fentanyl pills. Isaiah Garcia pleaded guilty on Aug. 8, 2022. On Oct. 11, 2022, Isaiah Garcia’s brother, Mario Garcia, was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison.

The case was the result of an investigation by FORT (a multi-agency team composed of Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Fresno Police Department) and the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin J. Gilio prosecuted the case.

This case is part of Operation Synthetic Opioid Surge (S.O.S.) a program designed to reduce the supply of deadly synthetic opioids in high impact areas as well as identifying wholesale distribution networks and international and domestic suppliers. In July 2018, the Justice Department announced the creation of S.O.S., which is being implemented in the Eastern District of California and nine other federal districts.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A California man was charged today with assault and attempted kidnapping in violation of federal law in connection with the break-in at the residence of Nancy and Paul Pelosi in San Francisco on Friday.

According to the complaint, David Wayne DePape, 42, of Richmond, was arrested on Friday inside the Pelosi residence by San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) police officers responding to a 911 call from Paul Pelosi, husband of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Paul Pelosi later described to police that he had been asleep when DePape, whom he had never seen before, entered his bedroom looking for Nancy Pelosi.

According to the complaint, minutes after the 911 call, two police officers responded to the Pelosi residence where they encountered Paul Pelosi and DePape struggling over a hammer. Officers told the men to drop the hammer, and DePape allegedly gained control of the hammer and swung it, striking Pelosi in the head. Officers immediately restrained DePape, while Pelosi appeared to be unconscious on the ground. As set forth in the complaint, once DePape was restrained, officers secured a roll of tape, white rope, a second hammer, a pair of rubber and cloth gloves, and zip ties from the crime scene, where officers also observed a broken glass door to the back porch.   

DePape is charged with one count of assault of an immediate family member of a United States official with the intent to retaliate against the official on account of the performance of official duties, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. DePape is also charged with one count of attempted kidnapping of a United States official on account of the performance of official duties, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds for the Northern District of California, Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp of the FBI San Francisco Field Office, and Chief J. Thomas Manger of the U.S. Capitol Police made the announcement.

The Special Prosecutions Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California is prosecuting the case.

The FBI San Francisco Field Office, the U.S. Capitol Police, and the San Francisco Police Department are investigating the case.