White Collar Crimes

November 11, 2008

Massachusetts Probation For Fraud Is Violated By Assault Charges

Today is Veteran’s Day. It is a day for reflection and a day to honor the men and women who have served this country in the trenches of various lands throughout the years.

Today’s daily blog looks at a matter occurring inside more local trenches. Criminal Justice trenches. The courtroom. A courtroom on Salem, Massachusetts, to be exact. While it certainly does not involve the valor we celebrate today nationally, it does contain some violence and a couple of lessons for us.

Martin S., 53, of Lynn (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) recently lost his battle for his own personal liberty in the Salem courtroom. He was sentenced to serve two years at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Cedar Junction as he was found to have violated probation. Two witnesses testified at the hearing that he grabbed a woman by the throat and fought another man during a September 21, 2008 altercation at an apartment on Lynde Street in Salem.

The Defendant’s attorney said he had gone to the apartment to get his girlfriend out of there because she was drinking alcohol, a violation of her probation for a drunken-driving conviction.

Although the assault charge is still pending in court, the Superior Court Judge observed that the arrest itself is a probation violation. “He’s gotten away with quite a bit in the last couple of years,” the judge said yesterday before announcing the sentence at the conclusion of a probation hearing.
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November 7, 2008

Brookline Couple Enters Not Guilty Plea to Charges They Stole $53,000 in Massachusetts Health Benefits

by Altman & Altman

In Massachusetts, Joseph and Jila Youshaei have pleaded not guilty to charges they stole $53,000 in medical coverage from the state. According to court documents filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, the Brookline couple allegedly claimed they were earning $475/week between 1995 and 2005 when they actually owned a jewelry store, donut shops, a fruit vendor stand, a Boston building, lived in an expensive area, and were worth millions of dollars. They also sent their children to an exclusive private school.

At their arraignment on Thursday, however, their Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer said the Youshaeis were in fact not as wealthy during that 10-year period as prosecutors are alleging. While the couple did own a number of businesses, their attorney maintains that many of them failed. They also bought a house on Chestnut Hill Avenue, currently valued at $896,200, with no money down.

Investigators for Auditor Joseph DeNucci discovered the couple’s alleged misuse of MassHealth. The Youshaeis have been charged with two counts of procurement fraud and larceny over $250 . The couple allegedly obtained state health coverage that they were not entitled to for themselves and their three children while failing to report the income they obtained from their real estate and business ventures to MassHealth. The state’s public health assistance is intended for Massachusetts residents with low incomes.

Health Care Fraud
Health care fraud is a kind of white collar crime that involves dishonestly filing health care claims for profit. Both medical providers and patients have been known to commit this type of fraud.

Examples of health care fraud include:

• Filing more than one claim for the same service.
• Procuring subsidized prescriptions and selling them to make money.
• Revising medical records.
• Reporting procedures incorrectly to make a profit.
• Providing bogus or incomplete data when applying for services.
• Borrowing or lending of insurance cards.

Brookline couple deny they stole $53,000 in health benefits meant for poor, Boston.com, November 6, 2008
Brookline couple pleads not guilty to insurance fraud, Wicked Local, November 6, 2008
Related Web Resource:
Healthcare fraud, Law.Cornell.Edu Continue reading

November 5, 2008

A Massachusetts Bodybuilding Ex-Boston Firefighter Faces Allegations Of Fraud And Breaking Restraining Orders

by Altman & Altman

You know, sometimes, when it rains…it pours. It’s happened to all of us and, now, it is happening to a particular former Boston firefighter.

Albert A., 46, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) had enough problems. First of all, he had lost his job as a firefighter after participating in a bodybuilding contest despite claiming he was permanently disabled. You see, he had applied for a disability pension, saying he slipped on a staircase March 21. Not too long thereafter, though, he was found to have participated in a bodybuilding contest.

Woops.

Now, his fall on the staircase is matched by his falling in love with someone who seems to have fallen out of love with him. The result? He now faces criminal charges that he has violated a restraining order.

According to his ex-love, the Defendant has stalked her with such ferocity for six years that she finally she took out a restraining order and was too petrified to leave her Jamaica Plain apartment. She claims that she keeps her doors locked and closes her curtains “because he looks up to my window when (he’s) not in my hallway,” she wrote in the affidavit.

“He constantly calls me at work, harassing, at home, my parents, my siblings and my children,” she wrote in an Oct. 28 affidavit. “He gets in my hallway and stands by my door for hours. He follows me everywhere, and for that reason I am in fear of leaving my house.” According to the affidavit, the Defendant has been harassing her for six years. Yet, on the application for the restraining order she lists herself as having a current or present dating or engagement relationship with him.
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October 22, 2008

Cousin Reveals Massachusetts Drunk Driver Leaving Scene And Attempting Fraud

by Altman & Altman

We are now announcing a special “family plan” for the “Hey, I’ll Bet I Can Make This Situation Worse” club we have spoken so much of in this daily blog.

Lawrence, Massachusetts. July, 2008. A 1997 Honda Civic careens into a fence on Phillips Street. Eduard M., 19, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), the driver, takes the unorthodox approach – he tells his passengers to follow him and they flee the scene. He then reports the car stolen.

It’s a good start toward individual membership. After all, what’s a simple car accident when you can have charges of leaving the scene and fraud added with very little additional effort?

Clinching this nomination, however, is the Defendant’s cousin, Jose, who then went back to the scene to retrieve his hat.

You see, Jose is a friendly guy and ended up talking about the situation with a resident of the house where the accident had occurred. He told the resident how the Defendant had been drunk, but that his auto insurance would cover damage to the fence.

Lawrence police are a friendly bunch too and one of their officers ended up engaged in the conversation with cousin Jose. So, Jose elaborated on the story. He told the officer that his cousin, the Defendant, was drunk and had a suspended driver’s license, but still insisted on driving five other people home from a party on Kendall Street. Missing a turn at Dorchester and Phillips streets, the Defendant hit the fence instead.
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October 20, 2008

Andover, Massachusetts, Couple Arrested For Internet Crimes Of Harassment, Identity Fraud And Threats

by Altman & Altman

The Ten Commandments had a few things to say about interaction with one’s neighbors. It might have been helpful, however, had they mentioned what would later be named “the internet” and how it would play into things. At least, it might have helped a particular Andover couple.

Friday morning, Bill and Gail J., both 51 (hereinafter, the “Defendants”), were arrested and charged with criminally harassing their neighbors (hereinafter, the “Neighbors”) over the Internet because of a property dispute.

The harassment allegedly started with a fake advertisement on Craig’s List for used golf carts and other items such as unwanted memberships to a national nudist association. You guessed it…the Neighbors were listed as the people to contact. It then escalated to fake reports of child abuse to state social workers, mysteriously opened bank accounts, and threatening emails and letters, prosecutors said.

The harassment took place over several weeks in March, authorities said. According to court records, the Neighbors began receiving dozens of harassing and threatening e-mails and phone calls. At one point, DSS social workers came to their home to investigate false claims that their 14-year-old son had abused a female at school.

The Defendants pleaded not guilty to counts of criminal harassment, identity fraud and conspiracy at their arraignment in Essex District Court, as they each stood by their individual attorney. Both lawyers said the Defendants are Tewksbury High School graduates who own a realty company and have lived in Andover for nine years. They are also parents of three teenage daughters.
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October 14, 2008

Massachusetts Automobile Insurance Fraud Probe Yields White Collar Record Breakers

by Altman & Altman

Have you ever wondered how seriously insurance companies take the possibility of fraudulent claims?

In Lawrence, Massachusetts, the city’s auto insurance fraud task force brought charges against nine people last week…all involving the very same two-car accident.

One method the task force uses for their investigations is to be on the look-out for what they call “frequent flier” cases. “Frequent flier” is the nickname the auto insurance industry labels those with five or more claims in 10 years. Such high claim totals generally raise “red flags” about the credibility of claimants and suspicions about possible fraud. Four of the nine people charged in their latest probe had filed seven or more claims.

The accident took place in January, 2003. As the story goes, a 1996 Honda Accord was driving on Bailey Street when it slid in the snow and through a stop sign at the intersection with Phillips Street, hitting a 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII. Two passengers in the Honda, however, now tell the police that the accident was a fraud. Accident reconstructionists are also of the opinion that the damage could not have been caused as described.

The “red flag” in this case? Well, let’s take the driver of the driver of the Honda, Jose C., 58 (Defendant 1). He has filed 26 auto insurance claims over a 51/2-year period ending in early 2003, including eight for accidents involving injury.

Coincidence, you say? Perhaps he is simply the unluckiest driver in the world. Maybe. But, let’s look at the owner and passenger in the Lincoln, Rita L., 52 (Defendant 2). She has had 22 auto insurance claims over a 12-year period dating back to 1996. Nine of the claims involved car accidents with reported injuries. Defendant 2 claimed to have been hurt in six of those cases.
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October 3, 2008

Massachusetts Police And Prosecutor Are Accused Of Abusing Trust For Sex And Money

by Altman & Altman

It is almost as if members of law enforcement have been reading this daily blog and decided to help me illustrate one of its chief lessons. The lesson?

Anybody can find themselves facing criminal charges…even someone you least expect. Maybe even you.

Today’s defendants come to our attention by crossing the aisle from the other side of the trenches.

September 25, 2008

Insurance Fraud And Other White Collar Crime Alleged In Salem, Massachussets

by Altman & Altman

Yesterday’s Salem News told of 31 year old Peabody resident Tyler P. According to prosecutors, he is an enterprising young man with a taste for some of the nicer things in life. Unfortunately, they also claim that his methods of financing such things were not so nice. So they went out and got him something they knew he had not already gotten for himself. They got it from the local grand jury. You guessed it, it’s a brand new indictment.

Mr. P. now faces a multi-count indictment alleging four counts of felony larceny, three counts of insurance fraud, three counts of filing a false police report, forgery, attempted larceny and uttering a forged instrument.

Mr. P. first came to the attention of insurance company investigators last spring after a series of claims raised red flags at Arbella Mutual, the company that insured his car. A year earlier, in July 2007, he had added rental car coverage to his auto insurance policy. An hour after adding the coverage, he called again to say he had been involved in an accident. While the car was waiting to be repaired, prosecutors in the attorney general’s office allege, he filed a false police report with the Beverly police, claiming that his car had been vandalized and reported the vandalism to Arbella.

September 22, 2008

Fruitlands Museum Files Complaint In Worcester, Massachusetts, Claiming A Family Of Bad Apples Embezzled Over One Million Dollars

by Altman & Altman

Did you have a nice weekend? A few Museum Patrons in Hollis, New Hampshire didn’t. According to Friday’s news, a lawsuit has been filed against in Worcester Superior Court that is likely only the tip of the legal iceberg of their problems.

Fruitlands Museum has filed a lawsuit against former chief operating officer Peggy Kempton and her children for allegedly embezzling more than $1 million during the past eight years. Also named in the legal action is a Leominster accounting firm that allegedly did not notify museum officials about the alleged fraud.

The Complaint, filed Tuesday, accuses Peggy Kempton, Fruitlands’ former chief operating officer, and her children, of obtaining money and property by false pretenses, and converting or misappropriating Fruitlands’ assets. Ms. Kempton, who leased a cottage owned by Fruitlands at 144 Prospect Hill Road, next to the museum since October 1999, for $1,400 a month, is also accused of failing to pay rent. The lawsuit further accuses Solar & Kilcoyne, an accounting firm in Leominster, Massachusetts, of negligence and failing to alert anyone on the nonprofit museum’s board of directors about the alleged financial irregularities.

September 19, 2008

Threats Made At A Massachusetts College Result In Investigation And Arrest

by Altman & Altman

Last February, it would appear that the political scene at Bridgewater State College got a bit heated. Bomb and death threats began being posted around campus. On September 2nd, 2008, as the country’s major parties were celebrating their conventions, a former Parliamentarian was being arrested for her alternative methods of announcing her platform.

Former Student Michelle Fortune, 47, of East Bridgewater, had held the post of Parliamentarian, which is a high ranking position within a campus leadership organization called the “Student Government Association”. She was arrested at her home on six counts of threats to kill, six counts of vandalism, six counts of making a bomb threat, disturbing the peace, and creating a disturbance at a school. Unfortunately, political fever being what it is, the arrest did not go terribly smoothly and she was subsequently charged with resisting arrest.

The threats made on February 26th and 27th came in the form of six messages handwritten on several bathroom walls around the BSC campus. February 28, 2008 was specified as the date attacks would occur. Investigators employed the services of a handwriting expert in hopes of cracking the case. According to Chief Tillinghast of the BSC Police Department, “more handwriting samples were needed so a search warrant was obtained. BSC Police executed the search and seized numerous documents from the suspect’s home. The suspect was found to be responsible.”