Blog Archive: August 2009

Reinaldo Guerra, of Miami, Florida, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit Medicare fraud and Medicare fraud. The scheme involved in home medical equipment. Guerra operated 11 corporations that purported to supply this equipment. Through these companies, Guerra submitted about $123 million in fraudulent claims where no equipment had been prescribed or ordered by a physician. Medicare paid a total of $35 million to the companies before Guerra was caught.   Guerra is set to be sentenced November...

This past Friday, August 21, Apple, Google, and AT&T all responded to the FCC's interrogatories that I wrote about here.   Apparently, according to Apple, the Google Voice application was never actually rejected, but was still under consideration. Apple claims that Google Voice replaces Apple's visual voice mail system, its ability to text, and its address book and was initially not added for this reason. Here, in Apple's own words, "It appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user e...

  Three were indicted on Monday in what authorities believe to be the largest identity theft case prosecuted in history. Five corporate entities were victims in the case: 7-Eleven Inc., Hannaford Brothers Co., and Heartland Payment Systems along with two unidentified victims.   The indictment, available below, names Albert Gonzalez, a Miami man (who also went by the names "soupnazi," "segvec," and "j4guar17"), and two unnamed Russian hackers (cleverly named "Hacker 1" and "Hacker 2"). The i...

  Former Credit Suisse broker Eric Butler was found guilty yesterday of conspiracy and securities fraud. The evidence established that Butler and another broker, Julian Tzolov, defrauded clients to obtain higher sales commissions. Butler and Tzolov sold auction rate securities (ARS) backed by mortgages to clients who had placed orders to buy ARS that were backed by government backed student loans. Butler and Tzolov convinced clients that the student loan backed securities were secure and hig...

Dyron Hart, a twenty year old former student of Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, Louisiana, was just convicted of communicating threats through interstate commerce by making racist death threats through a fictitious Facebook account. On November 5, 2008 Hart created a Facebook account with a fictitious name and used a picture of a white supremacist for the profile. Hart, an African American, used the profile to pretend to be a person upset about the election of President Obama and used t...

  The soon to be world's largest brewing company, InBev (brewer of beers such as Bass, Stella, Labatt, and Becks), was ordered today to divest of its assets in Labatt Beers. The issue stems from InBev's merger with Anheuser-Busch that began on July 13, 2008. At the time, Anheuser-Busch was the largest American brewer capturing 50% of the U.S. market, and InBev was the largest European and South American brewer making it the world's second largest brewer. On November 14, 2008 the Department o...

The Swiss bank UBS, the world's largest private bank, who has been under investigation by the Department of Justice over alleged tax evasion claims has reportedly reached an agreement with the DOJ to settle the case this morning. UBS will be required to disclose the names of clients to settle the case. The Swiss Government has expressed its disapproval of the actions taken by the US to force this disclosure.   The details of the agreement have not yet been disclosed, and it is unknown how ma...

The FBI unsealed an indictment against Marcus Patmon for wire fraud in connection to trying to sell a stolen Pablo Picasso etching titled "Le Repas Frugal." The etching was stolen from a West Palm Beach, Florida art gallery on May 22, 2008. Patmon represented himself as the true owner of the painting in his knowing attempt to sell the stolen etching. The etching is valued at $300,000. Among other things, Patmon faces a $250,000 fine and 20 years in a federal jail. More from the FBI here.  

This story is especially for my local readers, but the rest of you should enjoy it as well. In what appears to be the plot of a Dukes of Hazard episode, three former Dixie County (North Florida) public officials were convicted August 6, 2009 of conspiracy, soliciting bribes, and lying to FBI agents about money they were given. The FBI had received numerous tips regarding corruption in Dixie county over the past few decades but had not succeeded in busting the criminals, until now. The culpri...

I know, this is not directly related to white collar crime or cyber terrorism, but it is still important. Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice yesterday by a vote of 68-31 by the Senate. According to the SCOTUS Blog, she is the 111th justice, the third female, third minority, and the first Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. And actually, this story is somewhat related to white collar crime, because Sotomayor will be sitting for the reargument of ...