List of All Articles with Tag 'crime'

By Nate Raymond BOSTON A former employee of a federal prison in Massachusetts has agreed to plead guilty

A New Jersey con man who was pardoned by former President Donald Trump has been arrested and is accused of defrauding investors out of millions of dollars. Eliyahu “Eli” Weinstein was charged alongside four others with a number of crimes, including conspiring to defraud investors of more than $35m and conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to a statement from the office of the US attorney for New Jersey. Each of the five defendants was charged with one count of wire fraud conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Mr Weinstein was given a 24-year federal prison sentence after being convicted of two separate investment fraud schemes — one that ran from 2004 through 2011, the other from 2012 through 2013 — across both of which he defrauded investors of roughly $230m, according to a court document. On 19 January, 2021, after Mr Weinstein had served less than eight of the 24 years, Mr Trump pardoned him. Shortly after his release from prison, Mr Weinstein started up a new scheme, the statement said. “We allege Mr. Weinstein took part in a new scheme to rip off investors by hiding his real identity,” Special Agent in Charge James E Dennehy of the Newark FBI said. Mr Weinstein allegedly used the alias “Mike Konig” in this new scheme outlined by the FBI. Mr Weinstein allegedly said in a “surreptitious audio” obtained by investigators August 2022: “We collectively did not tell everyone who I was, no one would ever give you a penny if they knew who I was . . . because I have a bad reputation.” He worked with four others, the court document states: Aryeh “Ari” Bromberg , Joel Wittels, Shlomo Erez, and Alaa Hattab. The men were accused of taking “tens of millions of dollars from investors” through the firm Optimus Investments Inc. Most of these investors were “family, friends, or close associates,” the document said. Mr Weinstein, Mr Bromberg, and Mr Wittels received a large portion of the money through Tryon Management Group LLC — another company that was owned and operated “by two other conspirators” — which promised investors opportunities to invest in deals involving Covid-19 face masks, “scarce baby formula,” and first-aid kits “bound for Ukraine,” according to the statement. However, unable to pay the investors with legitimate investment returns, the men decided to combine the funds from both Optimus and Tryon investors and “use it to make monthly payments to other investors in a Ponzi-like fashion” starting in February 2022, the document states. “Once the Tryon owners learned that Mike Konig was actually Weinstein, they agreed with the defendants to continue concealing Weinstein’s identity from investors and to raise additional money to pay off existing Tryon investors, all in an effort to stop the Ponzi scheme from falling apart and to cover up the fraud,” the statement said. The men are also charged with obstructing justice after allegedly “hiding Mr Weinstein’s assets” — $200m in restitution — owed to his previous victims, as well as allegedly “concealing his myriad business activities, which were expressly prohibited by the terms of his supervised release,” according to the court document. If convicted on both charges, each of the five men face a maximum of 25 years in prison and fines of “either $250,000 or twice the gain or loss from the offense, whichever is greatest,” according to the statement. On top of this, the Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil complaint against the men and two other individuals “based on the same and additional conduct,” the statement said. Mr Weinstein was one of the 143 people pardoned by former President Trump in the final hours of his term. Read More Donald Trump is the first former president arrested on federal charges. Can he still run in 2024? An inmate was pardoned by Oregon’s governor. Two years on he’s a person of interest in four suspicious deaths Egypt pardons jailed activists, including two prominent rights defenders, official reports say

A California man pleaded guilty last week to hiding his mother’s death from the federal authorities for over 30 years, collecting more than $800,000 in benefits under her name. Donald Felix Zampach, 65, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of Social Security fraud, according to the Justice Department. “This crime is believed to be the longest-running and largest fraud of its kind in this district,” US Attorney Randy Grossman said in a statement. “This defendant didn’t just passively collect checks mailed to his deceased mother. This was an elaborate fraud spanning more than three decades that required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse.” All told, beginning in 1990, the Poway man collected $830,238. He could face up to 25 years in prison, though US sentencing guidelines suggest it will more likely be a sentence of 30 to 37 months. “He is overwhelmed with regret,” Knut Johnson, Zampach’s lawyer, told The New York Times. As part of his plea deal, Zampach will forfeit the benefit, pay restitution to various lenders, and turn over the home he took possession of in his mother’s name. The benefits scheme was an elaborate one, according to the DoJ. When Zampach’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she left the US and returned to her native Japan, where she died in 1990 at age 61. Her son notified the US embassy in Tokyo of the death, but admitted to leaving blank a box for her Social Security number to avoid the government being aware of her passing, and he repeated this omission on forms for burial permits. Zampach kept up this ruse until September 2022, collecting his mother’s Social Security checks and payments from the Defense Finance Accounting Service, which pays survivors of military veterans. An audit of those over age 90 who hadn’t used their Medicare benefits helped reveal the California man’s scheme. This sort of fraud has happened in the past. In 2018, a Mexican man pleaded guilty to defrauding the government for even longer, spending 37 years collecting nearly $361,000 in government benefits after assuming the identity of a US citizen, according to The San Diego Union Tribune. In 2015, Dutch police learned that a man kept his dead mother’s body hidden for over two years and continued collecting her pension and social assistance payments. He was later caught and forced to repay 40,000 euros, according to 1 Limburg. Read More Real Housewives star Phaedra Parks reveals why she gave her son $150,000 for his 13th birthday Mastercard helping banks predict scams before money leaves customers’ accounts Vermont will pay $16.5M to settle lawsuits by foreign investors in fraudulent ski developments

A local Victoria's Secret lost $30,000 a month to theft, authorities say. The Cabela's has reportedly lost more merchandise than any other in the nation. They're not in San Francisco, Chicago or New York, the way some might assume. They're in Wichita, Kansas.

Law enforcement agencies are investigating a series of hoax bomb threats that targeted major US retailers and grocery stores in an apparent extortion scheme for thousands of dollars in gift cards, bitcoin and cash, according to a report. Kroger, Meijer, Walmart and Whole Foods are among the companies that have been targeted in several states, according toThe Wall Street Journal. Callers have threatened to detonate bombs if gift cards, bitcoin or other payments are not provided, the newspaper reported. The FBI is working with state and local law enforcement to identify the threats, which have so far been unfounded, WSJ reported. It is unclear whether the calls are part of an organised effort. Callers have used block numbers to conceal their identities, according to police. One call to a Whole Foods in suburban Chicago reportedly demanded $5,000 in bitcoin and threatened to detonate a pipe bomb. Another call to a Kroger in New Mexico reportedly demanded an employee wire money and threatened that a bomb would go off if they called the police. Calls to a Meijer grocery store in Wisconsin demanded $5,000 in Apple gift cards. The threats echo similar menacing calls that have been a mainstay of local news outlets across the US in the past several years. After such threats, law enforcement agencies are typically called to the scene to evacuate the stores, causing major headaches for retailers and surrounding traffic. The latest efforts are “another evolving scam” for US retailers, according to Lisa Bruno, a senior executive vice president of retail operations at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, speaking to The Wall Street Journal. The threats also appear to be separate from those made towards retailers like Target, where stores in at least five states have faced threats over the company’s support for LGBT+ shoppers during Pride Month. Read More Pride collection backlash has derailed retailers, but LGBT designers are more empowered than ever Starbucks workers at 150 stores to strike over alleged ban on Pride decor

Elizabeth Holmes has surrendered to a federal prison in Texas to begin her 11-year sentence over the Theranos scandal which rocked the high-flying tech world of Silicon Valley. The 39-year-old disgraced tech entrepreneur reported to Bryan, the minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas, on Tuesday after exhausting all remaining legal avenues to cling onto her freedom. Holmes was convicted in January 2022 of four counts of fraud and conspiracy for lying about the capabilities pf her biotech company’s blood testing technology and conning investors out of millions of dollars. She was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison and ordered to pay $452m in restitution to investors – including $125m to media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Holmes had been given until 2pm local time to surrender to the prison camp where she will see out her 11-year sentence surrounded by other white-collar, non-violent female offenders. Her two children – two-year-old William and three-month-old Invicta – will be allowed to visit their mother in the facility. The prison camp, which runs a work-focused program where all inmates are required to hold a job for at least 90 days, is a marked difference from Holmes’ life years earlier when she was seen as the darling of Silicon Valley. The saga began two decades ago when Holmes dropped out of Stanford University in 2003 at the age of 19 to found Theranos. The blood lab company aimed to develop medical devices that could diagnose hundreds of diseases and medical conditions with just a pinprick of blood. Over the next 10 years, Theranos boasted about its capabilities to transform the healthcare industry and grew to a value of $9bn, attracting investments from the likes of Murdoch, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the heirs to the Walmart fortune. The company amassed an influential board of directors including former presidential cabinet members George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and James Mattis. Holmes, meanwhile, was catapulted onto magazine covers and became heralded as the next Steve Jobs while her personal fortune reached $4.5bn. But the technology didn’t do close to what Holmes claimed it could. In 2018, Holmes – Theranos CEO and founder – and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani – Theranos chief operating officer and Holmes’ live-in romantic partner – were both indicted on fraud charges and the company was dissolved. She was allowed out on bail and while awaiting trial – which was stalled due to the Covid-19 pandemic – Holmes became pregnant with her first child with her partner, hotel boss Billy Evans. She became pregnant with her second child following her conviction. During her trial, Holmes sought to paint a picture that she had simply been under the control of Balwani, 57, and that she never intended to mislead investors about the technology’s capabilities. The jury didn’t buy it and she was convicted of four counts, which could have landed her with up to 20 years’ prison time. Balwani was also convicted of 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy at his trial and was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison. He began serving his sentence in Southern California last month. Since her conviction, Holmes has fought to stay out of prison claiming that she was treated unfairly by prosecutors during trial and that she should be allowed to remain out of prison while she appeals the conviction. An appeals court denied her request and said she must report to prison where she can continue to appeal her conviction behind bars. She asked the judge that she be allowed to remain free through Memorial Day weekend so that she could sort out childcare for her two children, before surrendering to authorities on 30 May. Weeks before beginning her sentence, Holmes admitted that she had made “many mistakes” in a new interview with The New York Times. “I made so many mistakes and there was so much I didn’t know and understand, and I feel like when you do it wrong, it’s like you really internalise it in a deep way,” she said. Read More Elizabeth Holmes news – latest: Theranos founder to surrender to Texas prison today to begin 11-year sentence As Elizabeth Holmes heads to prison for fraud, questions remain about her motives Elizabeth Holmes requests May 30 as new date to report to prison after losing her bid to remain free

Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is about to begin her 11-year prison sentence after being found guilty of defrauding investors, including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, over fake claims about the company’s blood-testing capabilities. As well as being handed jail time over her role in misleading investors, Holmes was also ordered to pay $452m in restitution. Follow the latest updates live “This is a fraud case where an exciting venture went forward with great expectations and hope, only to be dashed by untruth, misrepresentations, hubris, and plain lies,” Judge Davila, presiding over the case, said before handing down the prison sentence to Holmes. “I suppose we step back and we look at this, and we think, what is the pathology of fraud? Is it the inability or the refusal to accept responsibility or express contrition in any way? Now, perhaps that is the cautionary tale that will go forward from this case.” Ahead of being sentenced, Holmes, who has long maintained she did not intend to defraud anyone, told the court: “I am devastated by my failings. “Every day for the past years I have felt deep pain for what people went through because I failed them. I regret my failings with every cell of my body.” Where will Holmes serve her sentence Holmes, who requested 18 months of house arrest as a punishment, will begin her sentence at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas – an all-female facility 100 miles from Holmes’ hometown. The minimum security prison houses around 500 inmates, and runs a variety of programmes intended to prepare prisoners for life after incarceration, according to Camp Bryan’s handbook. Holmes’ day will begin at 6am, when inmates are woken up for meals and work; people failing to comply with the strict wakeup rules are subject to punishments. Inmates are then counted at five different times during the day, when they must assemble in specific areas (once again, punishments are doled out to those who are not present at these times). The prison features a study, game room, and work programmes that see all inmates take part in a six-week course on the importance of efficiency in the workplace before they are placed into a role – with some prisoners earning as little as $0.12 in some assignments. According to the handbook, “All designated inmates are required to develop a financial plan to meet their financial obligations”, which for Holmes will mean reparations of $452m. How will Holmes keep in touch with her family? Holmes is married to Billy Evans, and the pair have two children, William, 2, and newborn Invicta. She lives around 100 miles from her family, who will be permitted to visit at weekends. Inmates at Camp Bryan are also permitted to take part in video sessions with their friends and family, according to the handbook, as well as to send and receive text messages. Prior to beginning her sentence at Camp Bryan, Holmes spent the weekend with her husband and children at the beach.

A Utah mother who has been charged with poisoning her husband spent the final day of his life on calls with the Internal Revenue Service and a money lender as she struggled with around $2.5million in debt, according to newly-filed court documents. Kouri Richins, 33, is charged with murder over the death of her 39-year-old husband Eric Richins, the father of her three boys, in March 2022. Before her arrest earlier this month, she had been promoting the release of a children’s book she wrote as a grieving widow about dealing with loss. New documents filed on Thursday in Summit County, where Ms Richins is being held, offered new details about previous poisoning attempts. The documents reveal that three days after Ms Richins bought fentanyl pills in a hand-to-hand transaction in her driveway, on Valentine’s Day 2022, she “prepared a sandwich for Eric Richins and placed it on the seat of his truck with a love note”. “Shortly after consuming the sandwich, Eric Richins broke out in hives and had difficulty breathing,” the documents stated. “Eric found his son’s epipen and administered it to himself and slept. Eric Richins believed that he had been poisoned. Eric Richins told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him.” The couple had been having financial disagreements, and Mr Richins had removed his wife as a beneficiary from his will and estate, according to documents. “In September 2020, Eric Richins discovered that the Defendant had obtained and spent $250,000 home equity line of credit on the Kamas home, withdrawn at least $100,000 from his bank accounts, and spent in excess of $30,000 credit cards,” the new documents state. “The Defendant had also been appropriating distributions made from Eric Richins’ business for the purpose of making federal and state quarterly tax payments and not paying the taxes. The stolen tax payments totaled at least $134,346. Eric Richins confronted the Defendant and she agreed to repay him.” In October 2020, Mr Richins consulted a divorce lawyer and an estate-planning lawyer, changing his will to form a living trust and placing his estate in control of his sister, Katie Richins-Benson, for the primary benefit of his three children. He transferred his partnership interest in his stone masonry business to the trust and replaced Ms Richins as the beneficiary of his $500,000 life insurance policy with the trust. She was unaware of this. Mr Richins also was unaware that his wife had taken out at least four life insurance policies on him totaling nearly $2m, according to the filings. In late January 2022, Ms Richins took out a new insurance policy on her husband. It was issued the following month, on 4 February. The next week she procured illicit fentanyl, according to the documents, and the sandwich incident followed days later. Ms Richins reached out again to contacts who helped her obtain illegal drugs in late February, according to documents, claiming that the “fentanyl pills that she previously provided were not strong enough and asked that she procure some stronger fentanyl”. One contact, according to documents, “initially stated that the Defendant specifically asked for ‘some of the Michael Jackson stuff’ during this request for fentanyl, but subsequently conceded that the Defendant may have made the Michael Jackson reference during her first request for fentanyl”. Through this contact, Ms Richins arranged to meet another person at a gas station to buy fentanyl on 26 February, 2022 according to the documents. On 1 March, her “outstanding state and federal tax liability was $189,840,” and she owed “a hard money lender at least $1,847,760”. She also owed her husband “at least $514,346,” the documents stated. On 3 March, she “had a lengthy telephone call with the IRS and talked to her hard money lender,” the charging documents noted. Hours later, she prepared her husband a Moscow Mule cocktail. Ms Richins told investigators that her husband drank the cocktail while in bed, and she slept in one of the boys’ bedrooms because the child was having a night terror. When she awoke around 3am, Ms Richins said, she returned to her room and found Eric cold to the touch, prompting her to call 911. While she told police she’d left her phone in the couple’s room while caring for her child, “the status on her phone shows that it was locked and unlocked multiple times and there was also movement recorded on the phone,” the documents state. “In addition, tolls and phone billing data for Defendant’s phone show that messages were sent and received during that time.” Mr Richins was pronounced dead on 4 March, 2022. Almost immediately Ms Richins, a real estate agent, closed on a multi-million-dollar mansion the couple had been arguing about. Two days after his death, she arranged for a locksmith to drill into her husband’s safe. When his sister and trustee objected, Ms Richins “became enraged and punched [her] in the face and neck,” the documents state. “Sheriff’s deputies responded and called Eric Richins’ estate planning lawyer from the scene. Here, the Defendant learned for the first time of the existence of the Eric Richins Living Trust.” Ms Richins was arrested last week and a 19 May detention hearing has been postponed until 12 June. Between her husband’s death and her arrest, Ms Richins had been fighting with his family and trust regarding his estate and, particularly, the couple’s sprawling home, where they married on 15 June 2013. Presenting herself as a grieving widow, Ms Richins also authored a children’s book titled Are You With Me? on dealing with loss. She appeared on a local TV show to promote the book weeks before she was taken into custody. Lawyer Greg Skordas, a Richins family spokesman, told The Independent on Wednesday: “It was right up until the end that she was carrying on as though nothing had happened, and that she was a victim, and she was a martyr and promoting her book. “And I don’t know to what extent she knew this was coming or suspected it, but we certainly did.” A lawyer for Kouri Richins has not responded to requests for comment from The Independent. Read More Four students stabbed to death, a weeks-long manhunt and still no motive: What we know about the Idaho murders Lori Vallow had two alleged accomplices in her children’s murders. One will never face justice