A Fort Lauderdale broker for Liberty International Financial Services (“Liberty”) has pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the Southern District of Florida. According to the plea documents, from January 2010 through October 2013, Salvatore Colonna agreed to participate in a scheme with other co-conspirators to obtain money from investors by means of materially false…
Eric Granitur, a former Vero Beach real estate and probate attorney, was sentenced yesterday in the Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach Division) to twelve months and a day in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Granitur was convicted by a federal jury in June of two counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy…
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against Hallandale Beach-based 1 Global Capital and former CEO Carl Ruderman, of Aventura, for allegedly defrauding over 3,400 investors out of about $287 million. Read the SEC Press Release here: SEC Charges Florida Cash Advance Company, Former CEO With Defrauding Retail Investors According to the Sun Sentinel, the U.S. Attorney’s Office…
In a recent publication, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) found, “There is ample evidence that federal criminal defendants are being coerced to plead guilty because the penalty for exercising their constitutional rights is simply too high to risk.” In its Trial Penalty report, NACDL examines sentencing and other data underlying the fact that, after a 50 year…
In what Justice Department officials — along with South Florida’s U.S. attorney, the FBI, and Health and Human Services agents — have described as the nation’s biggest Medicare fraud case, federal prosecutors have lost a major battle as a judge threw out key evidence after finding “misconduct” by the Justice Department’s investigative team. Miami Beach businessman Philip Esformes was charged…
Credit card skimming is rapidly on the rise across the state of Florida, and South Florida is being called “ground zero” for skimming frauds. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, inspectors found 169 skimmers in 2015, 219 skimmers in 2016 and tripled to 655 skimmers in 2017. And the numbers continue to rise: in just the…
Credit card skimming is rapidly on the rise across the state of Florida, and South Florida is being called “ground zero” for skimming frauds. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, inspectors found 169 skimmers in 2015, 219 skimmers in 2016 and tripled to 655 skimmers in 2017. And the numbers continue to rise: in just the…
Matthias Krull, a German national and resident of Panama, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in the Southern District of Florida (Miami Division) to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga on Oct. 29. The 44-year-old man, who was employed at a Swiss bank where he was a…
As previously blogged on this site, on June 28, 2018 the Department of Justice announced what was called “the largest health-care fraud takedown in history,” with more than 1,000 law enforcement officers charging 601 people — including 76 doctors, 23 pharmacists, 19 nurses — with more than $2 billion in fraud. The takedown included 124 defendants in South Florida —…
25 defendants were charged in Manhattan Federal Court last week with a multimillion-dollar wire fraud and money laundering scheme that alleged the co-conspirators posted fake advertisements for cars and tricked victims nationwide into wiring more than $4.5 Million into fraudulent accounts. The majority of the defendants resided in Brooklyn, NY, but 2 of the defendants charged were residents of Delray…