Contact

Click here for a confidential contact or call:

1-212-350-2774

Criminal Proceedings

This archive displays posts tagged as involving criminal law proceedings relevant to whistleblowers. You may also be interested in our pages:

Page 11 of 37

August 6, 2021

Alaska commercial fisherman James Aaron Stevens was ordered to pay a $1 million fine and sentenced to six months in prison following his guilty plea on charges under the Lacy Act related to the false reporting of halibut and sablefish catch by his vessels the F/V Alaskan Star and F/V Southern Seas.  Over four seasons, Stevens falsified documents including individual fishing quota (IFQ) reports, state fish tickets, and fishing logbooks, to falsely claim that he harvested fish in locations and regulatory areas where he did not fish and omit areas where he actually fished. USAO AK

August 5, 2021

Pipeline company Summit Midstream Partners LLC, Meadowlark Midstream Company LLC, and Summit Operating Services Company LLC, have agreed to pay $35 million in fines and penalties to settle criminal and civil cases arising from the discharge of 29 million gallons of “produced water” – a waste product of hydraulic fracturing – from Summit’s pipeline near Williston, North Dakota, over the course of nearly five months in 2014-2015.  As part of the settlement, Summit admitted that it operated the pipeline without a reliable leak detection system and made incomplete and misleading reports to federal and state authorities about the spill.  DOJ; EPA; December, 2021 DOJ Release

August 4, 2021

For causing more than $100 million in losses to employers, employees, financial institutions, and financing companies and laundering more than $1 billion in stolen funds, Michael Mann, the owner of shuttered payroll service companies ValueWise and MyPayrollHR, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.  In addition to misappropriating payroll funds and money laundering, Mann was also found to have fraudulently obtained tens of millions of dollars in loans from three financing companies, as well as fraudulently obtained lines of credit from several banks in the New York area.  NY AG; USAO NDNY

July 13, 2021

Joel Jerome Tucker, the principal in payday loan business eData Solutions, LLC and related entities, was ordered to pay $8.1 million in restitution to the IRS and sentenced to 12.5 years in prison following his conviction on charges related to his fraudulent sale of non-existent payday loan portfolios and the failure by him and his companies to file federal income tax returns or pay taxes.  Tucker used nominee bank accounts to conceal income and assets and owed taxes, penalties, and interest of more than $12 million.  In addition, in 2020, Tucker fraudulently obtained a $20,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan.  USAO WD MO

July 8, 2021

Medical supply company Avanos Medical Inc. entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and will pay $22.2 million to resolve charges that it sold misbranded surgical gowns, labeling the MicroCool gowns as providing the highest level of fluid and virus protection under ANSI/AAMI standards, when the company knew the gowns had never met that standard.  The government also alleged that Avanos obstructed FDA inspection efforts.  ND Tex

July 2, 2021

Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson of Sweden has been sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $16 million, including several properties and a resort in Thailand, in one of the largest cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes ever prosecuted in the United States.  Starting in 2011 until his arrest in Thailand in 2019, Karlsson induced thousands of investors from around the country and over 45 countries around the world to use cryptocurrency to purchase shares in an entity he called Eastern Metal Securities, by falsely claiming that it was run by award-winning economists and had zero risk of loss.  He then misappropriated at least $1.5 million to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself.  USAO NDCA; DOJ; SEC

June 29, 2021

Accountant Steven Brown, who operated a financial consulting and investment company called Alpha Trade Analytics, Inc., has been sentenced to over 4 years in prison and ordered to pay over $3.3 million in restitution for running a Ponzi scheme that affected 48 victims, many of whom were connected to a nonprofit that provided dance and theater arts education to children.  Through his role as an accountant for the nonprofit, Brown received access to high-net-worth individuals, whom he encouraged to invest with Alpha Trade through false promises.  When it came time to pay out investors, Brown used funds from new investors, as well as funds embezzled from the nonprofit.  USAO CDCA

June 29, 2021

A man in Minnesota who allegedly defrauded two dozen investor clients out of $2.3 million has been sentenced to 7 years in prison.  Isaiah Leslie Goodman, a registered investment advisor and owner of Becoming Financial Group, Inc., Becoming Financial Advisory Services L.L.C., and MoneyVerbs, allegedly lied to prospective and existing clients while misappropriating their funds for his own use.  As part of his sentence, Goodman will forfeit some of his ill-gotten gains.  USAO MN

June 25, 2021

UK-based global engineering company Amec Foster Wheeler Energy Limited, a subsidiary of John Wood Group plc, has agreed to pay more than $40.7 million in criminal fines, disgorgement, and interest, and enter into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement to settle foreign bribery charges involving a $190 million contract from state-owned Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) to design a gas-to-chemicals complex in Brazil.  Through employees located in New York and Texas, Amec Foster Wheeler allegedly conspired with others to pay bribes to win the contract, earning at least $12.9 million in profit as a result. The company also reached settlements with the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office and Brazilian authorities, and will receive credits for payments made to those entities. USAO EDNY; DOJ; SEC

June 7, 2021

An engineering firm in North Carolina, Contech Engineered Solutions LLC (Contech), has been ordered to pay $7 million in criminal fines and over $1.5 million in restitution to the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).  Contech admitted that it conspired to rig bids and defraud the NCDOT, fraudulently obtaining contracts over a ten-year period.  DOJ charged a former Contech executive, Brent Brewbaker, as a co-defendant.  Brewbaker remains under indictment.  DOJ
1 9 10 11 12 13 37