Law Enforcement | WPN World People News

Yesterday in federal court, two mortgage loan officers pleaded guilty to recruiting straw buyers to purchase properties at inflated prices and then distributing the excess loan funds among themselves, the straw buyers, and others involved in the scheme.

The owner of a Miami health care agency pleaded guilty today for his participation in a $60 million home health Medicare fraud scheme, announced the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

A Eureka man was arrested for embezzling federal funds from two Indian tribal organizations, announced Special Agent in Charge Stephanie Douglas of the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office.

David L. Johnson and Michael L. Putnam were sentenced today following their convictions for tax crimes related to their involvement in the Genesis Fund, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced.

A federal court has permanently barred a Michigan couple, Damian and Holly Jackson, of Detroit, from preparing federal tax returns for others, preparing their own federal tax returns using false 1099 forms, and promoting an alleged tax-fraud scheme based on the frivolous “redemption” theory, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction order, to which the Jacksons consented without admitting the allegations against them, was signed by Judge Paul D. Borman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Richard Kellogg Armstrong, 77, of Prescott, Ariz., was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Blackburn to 108 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Judge Blackburn ordered the sentence to run con secutively to the 660 day prison term and $1,021,500 of fines cumulatively imposed upon Armstrong as punitive sanctions for 10 acts of contempt of court. He also ordered Armstrong to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the amount of $1,678,834 and to forfeit two residences and a personal aircraft. The sentence was announced by the Justice Department’s Tax Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado and the IRS Criminal Investigation Denver Field Office. Codefendant Curtis L. Morris, age 43, of Elizabeth, Colo., is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 6, 2012.

Islamic Center of Joplin before fire.

Thomas Preston O’Berry, 43, of Smyrna, Georgia, who scammed investors out of over $2.4 million in a Ponzi scheme, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Steve C. Jones to serve two years in federal prison on charges of wire fraud.

Mark A. Conner, the former President of FirstCity Bank of Stockbridge who, while serving as a top officer of FirstCity Bank of Stockbridge, Georgia, was part of a multi-million-dollar conspiracy to defraud the bank, and who hid assets in the Cayman Islands and lied about it in his personal bankruptcy case, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Steve C. Jones. The court sentenced Conner, 46, formerly of Canton, Georgia, and Tallahassee, Florida, to serve 12 years in federal prison. Conner pleaded guilty to these charges on October 21, 2011. Conner has been in federal custody since being arrested on the charges by federal agents at Miami International Airport on March 20, 2011, upon his arrival in Miami from the Turks and Caicos Islands in the West Indies.

Valencia Person, 54, of Suitland, Maryland, was sentenced today to 15 months in prison for taking part in a scheme to embezzle more than $900,000 from her former employer, XM Satellite Radio, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr. and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.