Articles Posted in White Collar Crimes

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It may be that the Boston area is simply a dangerous place for a nanny. Several years ago, we had that case in Cambridge where a British nanny was accused (and, actually, convicted) of killing a baby. The case made international headlines. She did have an extremely experienced criminal lawyer on her side and…guess what? She ended up going home when it was all over.

Well, this case is a tad different and the attorney ends up not being needed for the nanny after all. In fact, there was no nanny. Not even a baby. And the outer-Massachusetts part of the drama did not take place overseas, but in Miami, Florida.

You remember Florida, don’t you? Another fraud, to the tune of billions of dollars, was recently discovered there.

Meagan M., 22 (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is a Miami woman who is alleged to have come up with an inventive way to try to keep her man. She made up a baby.

Well, kinda. She tried to do it the regular way, but did not suceed. Apparently, she lost the baby due to a miscarriage three months into the pregnancy. However, Miami police said the Defendant pretended to carry the baby to full term in order to keep her boyfriend, John B., 26, (hereinafter, “Big John”) from breaking up with her. She even named the phantom child, giving it Big John’s last name.

The real problems began when Big John wanted to see the child after its alleged birth. So, the Defendant did what seemed to be the logical thing…she reported that the baby had been kidnapped, and then reported the baby missing to police.

Now, what could be more romantic than that?
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Let the games begin! As local as Boston and as distant as the globe will reach! The adventure of pointing fingers and looking for bodies to blame, as expected, has begun. Defense Attorneys for everybody! Everybody pays!

Bernard Madoff (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), talking in 2001 about what fed the Internet bubble said “You had a lot of novice investors who got into the market looking for easy money, without any regard to the fundamentals. These stocks were running on fumes.”

You would almost think that the Defendant did not have a lot of faith in investors, regulatory agencies such as the Security Exchange Commission and the market in general, wouldn’t you?

Well, I guess now we know why. He, himself, was apparently engaged in a huge fraud and getting away with it.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you have heard that the Defendant is accused of devestated the international economic world, when it was already reeling, through what is alleged to be a fifty billion dollar scam, the largest such fraud in history. For more background information, you may want to check out Tuesday’s blog, entitled, Boston Is Hit, Along With The Rest Of The Country, By Financial Guru And His Use Of A Boston-Originated Method Of Fraud (The Madoff Nightmare Part One.

The question of what to do next appears to be a nasty little thing for which there is no clear answer. Therefore, filling that vacuum, we move to other, and perhaps more lucrative, questions. The questions include such topics as how any scam of this size could remain a secret for so long, who was involved, who else is out there doing similar things and, of course, who got off easy.

In short, the questions are “Who else can we blame?” and perhaps more importantly, “Who else can help finance the cleanup?”

Hey, it’s what we do.
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This holiday season, so many religions and traditions call for gift-giving. Sometimes, those gifts are a big surprise. One gentleman from out of state has been given a surprise gift from the government because of the gifts he has given throughout the country, including the Boston area, big time. The gift he received is the need of a criminal defense attorney. The wide-spread gift he gave? Well, that would be the gift of financial ruin.

You already know his name. It is Bernard Madoff (hereinafter, the “Defendant”). He is a 70-year-old former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, who has now been awarded the country’s bracelets of shame. Last Thursday, he taken out of his house by United States marshals and charged with securities fraud by federal authorities.

Ironically, the Defendant’s gift of restraints and forced government housing was connected to charity and gift work throughout the nation. His actions have apparently brought about the destruction and near-destruction of various charities and philanthropies throughout the country. That’s right….that means fewer gifts for the under-privileged. It also means the same thing for victims of every financial level because they all have one thing in common now. They have been victims of white collar crime in a big way to the tune of approximately fifty billion dollars.

Such a loss is kind of hard to swallow, especially in such difficult economic times. Actually, it was the market’s recent crash that finally brought the Defendant’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme to light. The Defendant himself is said to have “come clean”. He has admitted that his money management operations were “all just one big lie” and “a giant Ponzi scheme.” .

You may be unfamilier with the term “Ponzi scheme”. For those so uninitiated, it is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high profits to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi who apparently introduced the scheme to the United States in the early 1900’s from…of all places…Boston. Because the invested capital is not earning a sufficient return on its own, Ponzi schemes usually eventually collapse under their own weight.

So much for a “I never thought it could happen…” , or, perhaps more formally, “Whodathunkit” defense.
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Good Monday morning to you, Boston and environs. I hope you are free, recovered from last week’s ice storms and ready to begin a new week. Hopefully you are greeting another week without the need for a criminal defense attorney.

Yet.

Unfortunately, there will be no “regular” blog today. This is primarily because of the story I am basing a rather longer-than-usual blog on that is simply not finished by the time I need to be in court today.

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The Boston Herald reports about what are generally considered a couple of those “dirty little secrets” about the Justice System. They involve rather inconvenient truths that are particularly disconcerting, and so tend to be ignored, in the criminal justice arena.

And by the way….they are probably truths you have even suspected at times.

The first one is that, sometimes, police officers overdo it when it comes to force.

The other one is a bit more complicated, but I have faith in you that you can follow it.

Ready?

Step 1- Sometimes, people lie while under oath.

Step 2-Police officers are people
Step 3- Sometimes police officers lie while under oath.

No, this does not mean all police officers and it does not mean this happens in every case. I can tell you from experience, however, that I have experienced cases wherein police officers did not feel overly burdened by the boundaries of the truth.

Usually, these instances go without any penalty to the officer, although it is the crime of perjury just as when one of us “regular people” do it.

Not this time, though.
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Reports say that robberies are on the rise. I suppose that is not a big surprise, given the economic downturn we are dealing with.

Some of the attempts do have some entertainment value, though.
For example, let’s begin with such an attempt from earlier this very week. We turn to Lowell, Massachusetts. There, we find a peaceful scene. A grandmother and her 8-year-old grandson inside their home. Enjoying the day, perhaps happy that the snow from Sunday had stopped. Norman Rockwell type of scene.

Suddenly, there is a knock at the door.

End of peaceful scene.

Grandmother and Grandson were suddenly terrorized. A man and woman burst into the home, demanding money. Actually, they were more specific than that. With masks on, Grandmother tells us, “They kept wanting $1,000. They kept saying, ‘You got $1,000!”

Grandmother explained to them that she didn’t have that much money in the house.

The duo did not belie her. They demanded her purse, which she told them was in another room.

“So when he went for my pocketbook, I told my grandson run and get the police,” she said.

The 8-year-old did as Grandmother told him. He bolted from the house and ran about 100 yards to a gas station, screaming for help.

“I ran in there. I told them to call 911, because people in my house wanted money,” said the grandson.

Right after the child ran out, the couple fled without getting any money. They apparently sought to get away, but, naturally, ran in the same direction as the boy.
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You know, I really hate to beat up on anybody. I really don’t want to be mean.

But when the same guy keeps popping up with new charges and seems to be pushing for czar of the “Hey, I’ll Bet I Can Make This Situation Worse” Club’s newest section, “How Far Can I Push Things Before They Just Lock Me Up?”, I really have to make comment.

I have written about this guy before. He is the former Boston firefighter and bodybuilder Albert A., (hereinafter, the “Defendant”). He is back in the news and back in Commonwealth housing.

Perhaps you remember him.

He was one of Boston’s fireman until a number of months ago. You see, on March 21st, he allegedly slipped on a staircase. Nobody had witnessed the accident, but a Dorchester neurologist said in a report that the Defendant was “totally and permanently disabled”. So, the Defendant applied to the Boston Retirement Board for a disability pension.

Unfortunately, on May 3rd, he achieved apparent medical history by finishing eighth at the 2008 Pro Natural American Championships in Marlborough, Massachusetts. After the Boston Globe published a picture of the medical marvel during the competition, Fire Department officials ordered him to return to work.

He didn’t.

He was fired.

The media had a field day, denouncing the Defendant and his fraudulent acts, not to mention the system that had allowed him to so easily do so.

This would have been enough for most people. But not the Defendant. There was still some room left on that rope.
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You know, Massachusetts is not the only state with laws against fraud. It does turn out to be local news, though, when the Commonwealth’s favorite, if sometimes controversial, team is used in the scam.

Charles P., 38, of Jamestown, Rhode Island (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is in a bit of Red Sox-related trouble. You see, he is accused of scamming, and trying to scam, nearly $1 million from people and a credit union by posing as a Red Sox scout, a real estate investor, cancer survivor, and a philanthropic benefactor all rolled into one. As of Tuesday afternoon, however, he was given a newer identity. This one turns out to be legitimate, though.

He is a criminal defendant being held without bail in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Surprisingly enough, it turns out that the Defendant was not a Red Sox scout, had nothing to do with real estate, and didn’t have cancer. .. although State Police Lt. Col. Steven O’Donnell said that the Defendant made weekly trips to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston for “cancer treatments” to fool his own girlfriend.

Apparently, having cancer is some kind of aphrodisiac in Rhode Island…at least with this couple. However, the romance dimmed when the girlfriend discovered that the Defendant allegedly had collected $435,000 from her boss at American Power Conversion for real estate investments that never materialized — and were never going to.

Did you know that money issues tend to be a leading cause of break-ups in the United States? Fraud apparently tends to aggravates things.

Upon learning about the Defendant’s scheme, his girlfriend is said to have pressured him to repay her boss.

And he did.

Unfortunately, he did so by writing out a check for $315,000 to the Greenwood Credit Union on a closed account from Bank of Rhode Island. Not only that, but a teller recognized him from media reports about his arrest in November for allegedly posing as a Red Sox scout to get $6,000 from a woman. The teller made a call to the state police.

“Arrest in November? Red Sox?”, you exclaim. “What’s up with that?”

Well, you see, the Defendant previously became Legally Challenged in November, when he was accused of scamming a woman out of more than $6,000 by pretending he was a Boston Red Sox talent agent with access to baseball tickets. Of course, that brush with the law only gained him a single count of fraudulently obtaining money under false pretenses. He was freed after his arraignment.
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You know, some people just belong in jail.

And some people are in jail…working for the jail.

Well, at least they were…!

Take Gary M., 48, of Berkley, a lieutenant with the Department of Correction in Boston (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) for example. He changed seats in the criminal justice arena when he was arrested Wednesday at his home and charged with stealing $100,000 in state funds, firearms and other items from the department for his own use.

The Defendant is now looking at charges of larceny by scheme over $250 and procurement fraud.

“How can a thing like this happen?”, you ask. After all, wasn’t the Defendant supposed to be upholding law and order as an shining example of clean living to those nasty inmates?

Well, maybe. But, according to authorities, his shine has dimmed a bit.

The Defendant had been responsible for the purchase of firearms, ammunition and other specialized equipment since 2002. Only thing is, though, he was supposed to be getting the stuff for the Department of Correction…not himself. He is now accused of buying numerous such items, including five 40-caliber handguns, a machete, a hunting bow and a baseball pitching machine, for himself .

Investigators also allege that between 2004 and 2008, the Defendant falsely reported the value, cost and quantity of equipment department officials believed they had paid for by misrepresenting invoices he had produced. He is also accused of knowingly submitting invoices for more merchandise than he actually used or needed and then using the difference in value as credit to buy items for himself, such as a baseball pitching machine, a motorcycle/ATV trailer, cameras, hunting equipment, firearms and other items. By employing this scheme, he allegedly caused the DOC to be improperly charged by the distributor for supplies that were never received by the DOC.
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In Boston, a federal grand jury indicted Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson on eight counts of attempted extortion connected to her acceptance of over $20,000 in cash between June 2007 and October 2008. A federal indictment charged Wilkerson with eight counts of attempted extortion under color of official right.

According to the indictment, Wilkerson allegedly accepted eight payments (a total of $23,500) from a cooperating witness and undercover agents. The indictment is seeking the return of those funds.

The FBI arrested Wilkerson exactly three weeks ago, following an undercover corruption investigation. Bureau and the Boston Police Department Anti-Corruption Unit began the probe after the senator came under suspicion for allegedly accepting illegal payments in connection with her office. Wilkerson was arrested after she was photographed allegedly putting $1,000 in bribes in her bra at a Beacon Hill restaurant.

Investigators say that they have video and audio recordings of Wilkerson accepting bribes from undercover agents. They are also accusing her of pressuring Mayor Thomas Menino, the Boston License Board, and City Counsel into delaying legislation on behalf of a local nightclub and allegedly taking bribes in exchange for helping the nightclub secure a liquor license.

The Roxbury Democrat has denied all wrongdoing and has refused to resign even though she was formally rebuked by her colleagues in the Massachusetts Senate and wasn’t re-elected to her seat. Her senate term is over in January.

If convicted, Wilkerson could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and 3 years of supervised release.

White Collar Crimes
If you have been arrested and charged with bribery, extortion, embezzlement, economic espionage, or any other white collar crime, your future, your career, and your family life may all be at stake if you are convicted. There have even been cases when a defendant has been wrongly convicted for white collar crimes committed by others.

Sen. Wilkerson indicted, Boston Herald, November 18, 2008
Sen. Wilkerson indicted on corruption charges, Boston.com, November 18, 2008
State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson Arrested By FBI, WBZ.com, October 28, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Read the Criminal Complaint (PDF)

Dianne Wilkerson
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