Category Archives: White Collar Crime
Coconut Grove Man Accused Of Money Laundering And Bribing State-Owned Companies
The high-rise condominiums of Miami are beautiful to behold, but many of them harbor ugly secrets. People say that, when you are rich, everyone is willing to let you buy things, with few questions asked, and if this is the case, then it is no surprise that many of the most sought-after real estate… Read More »
Will Your Prison Sentence End Early Because Of Compassionate Release?
One of the most stressful moments when you are a defendant in a criminal case is when your lawyer tells you the maximum penalty you could face; sometimes it amounts to more years in prison than a person can survive. That is only the worst-case scenario, and most defendants do not receive the maximum… Read More »
Three Broward Defendants Arrested In Bail Bonds Kickback Scheme
Getting arrested and going to jail for the first time is a terrifying and bewildering experience. The state does not have the right to imprison you except after you have been convicted of a crime and unless due process was observed in arriving at your conviction, and yet people get arrested and taken to… Read More »
Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Gets Probation For Defrauding The Sheriff’s Department Out Of More Than $15,000
Most workers are entitled to receive overtime pay during weeks when they work more than 40 hours. If you are eligible for overtime pay, then you get 1.5 times your usual pay rate for each hour or partial hour beyond the 40th that you work in a given week. In general, overtime pay applies… Read More »
Five South Florida Defendants Imprisoned For Medicare Fraud
Florida is famous as a permanent or seasonal destination for retirees, and there are plenty of ways to make money off of the Sunshine State’s old folks. First, there are the legitimate businesses, such as early bird specials and senior breakfast menus, oldies radio stations, and bingo halls. If you are not so concerned… Read More »
Miami-Dade Court Clerk Faces Charges For Theft And Fraud For Stealing Divorce Filing Fees
Divorce can ruin your finances in a variety of ways; there is a reason that recently divorced people account for a disproportionately high percentage of divorce filings. The court might order you to keep paying the mortgage on your former marital home, where your ex-spouse continues to reside, even as you are responsible for… Read More »
Former Miami-Dade County Employee Gets Six Months In Prison For Making False Statements In Order To Receive COVID-19 Relief Loan
The COVID-19 pandemic has been extraordinarily disruptive to the daily routines and income of millions of working people and small business owners. If you are still employed now at the same job where you were working before the pandemic, and if your income has not decreased during this time, you are one of the… Read More »
Financial Crimes Charges Filed Against Both Alleged Victims In Pooh Shiesty Shooting Case
Lontrell Williams, known by his stage name Pooh Shiesty, is only 22 years old, and he has lived in Tennessee for most of his life. His star rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of people who were stuck at home streamed his songs, and when more than 670,000 people followed him on Instagram. … Read More »
Aventura Businessman Sentenced To 82 Months For His Role In Scamming Medicare By Performing Medically Unnecessary Lab Tests
The pandemic shutdown days of 2020 brought about a new normal. It required some people to overcome their fear of technology. Finally setting up online banking and communicating with co-workers by video chat are not everyone’s cup of tea, but for the cautious, they were better than risking exposure to a contagious illness with… Read More »
Upon Extradition To Miami, Alex Saab Gets Most Charges Dropped, Resulting In A Maximum Sentence Of 20 Years For Money Laundering
Recent efforts at the federal level to combat money laundering, especially instances involving wealthy foreign nationals hiding unethically appropriated funds in United States shell corporations and real estate investments, will make it harder for people to obscure the origins of large sums of money. Meanwhile, some high-profile money laundering cases are still pending, including… Read More »
Miami Man Sentenced To Prison For Paying Kickbacks In Connection To Drug Testing Lab
Living with substance use disorder and achieving long-term sobriety is difficult enough, but unscrupulous actors in the addiction treatment and recovery industry make it even more difficult. Unfortunately, a disproportionate share of such unscrupulous activity takes place right here in South Florida. First it was the strip mall pain clinics where people would drive… Read More »
Former University Of Miami Professor, His Wife, And His Sister Face Charges For Conspiracy And Money Laundering
Long before Facebook made it possible for college students to spread rumors to the entire world in real time, students have been making up far-fetched rumors about what kinds of criminal activities their professors might be up to when they are not in class. Perhaps when you were a student, you and your friends… Read More »
North Miami Man Sentenced To Prison For Identity Theft And Tax Refund Scheme
Elderly people often lament that the current generation of young men tends not to embrace the 9-to-5 workday the way that their fathers and grandfathers did. For reasons too complex to factor into the average grandparents’ grump session, salaried jobs are the exception rather than the rule for men in their 20s. Some guys… Read More »
Miami Matchmaker Faces Criminal Charges For Conspiracy To Commit Marriage Fraud
When your relatives or friends tell you that you are getting married for the wrong reasons, the appropriate response is usually to tell them to mind your own beeswax. Plenty of people who are happily married today entered into their marriages because of motivations that could easily make them targets of workplace gossip or… Read More »
Four Floridians Charged In Multi-State “Grandparent Scam”
One of the ways that seniors can protect themselves from financial abuse is by simply staying connected to a wide network of family members and friends. It’s hard to get drawn into a long phone conversation or email exchange with a stranger, in which the stranger will eventually ask you for money, if you… Read More »
Fort Myers Woman Pleads Guilty To Financial Aid Fraud For Operating Phony Career Institute
People often say that college is a scam, but what they really mean is that it is prohibitively expensive, or perhaps they are complaining that college admissions recruiters often promise that their university offers a much faster and more direct route to a lucrative career than it actually does. Both of those criticisms are… Read More »
Central Florida Couple With Conspiracy To Obtain More Than $1 Million In COVID-19 Relief Funds Through Fraudulent Means
Almost everyone who has ever had a Facebook account has posted photos that they thought made them look impressive and cool, only to take them down later once they realized that the photos cast them in a negative light, whether they were simply physically unflattering or whether they presented the subject as foolish, culturally… Read More »
Treasure Coast Man Gets 15-Year Sentence for Defrauding Banks Out of $40 Million
Pretending to be rich is nothing new, and some people are convincing enough to keep the fraud going for several years. Anna Sorokin pretending to be a German heiress for several years, funding her lavish lifestyle with promises to pay later. Christian Gerhartsreiter convinced everyone, including his own wife, that he was an heir… Read More »
Bruce and Shawn Chait, the Real Estate Developers Who Pleaded Guilty to Bribing County Officials, Now Face Charges of Extortion
Any Floridian who has read the local news, and any resident of the 49 states who has read a Carl Hiaasen novel, can connect the dots when presented with the keywords “golf course,” “real estate development,” “Florida,” and “corruption.” Several years ago, a startling number of officials in the county government faced criminal charges… Read More »
A Broward County Man Just Got a Prison Sentence for Underreporting His Income to the IRS, but Should You Worry About Your Tax Return Misdeeds?
Tax evasion is a crime, and we can all think of famous instances where people got into major legal trouble for not paying the taxes the IRS claims they owe. You probably know the story of how Al Capone went to prison not for illegal sale of alcoholic beverages or for his alleged connections… Read More »
