Two School Board Members and Middleman Plead Guilty to Extortion

Transcription

1 Two School Board Members and Middleman Plead Guilty to Extortion Elpidio Yanez Jr. and Eloy Infante TEXAS Two elected members of the school board of Donna, Texas, admitted today to accepting bribes in connection with a services contract held by the Donna Independent School District, according to officials. Eloy Infante, 54; Elpidio Yanez Jr., 45; and Adrian Guerrero, 50, all from Donna, plead guilty today to attempted interference with commerce by extortion. Infante and Yanez are both members of the Donna School Board and Guerrero is a private citizen. Sentencing is set for March 22, The crimes occurred from February 2015 through May 2015, and the defendants allegedly attempted to extort, and solicited and accepted bribes from, an individual whose company provided services to the school district.

2 Specifically, the indictment alleges that the defendants informed the individual that in order for his company to keep its contract with the school district, he needed to pay Infante and Yanez $10,000 each. The indictment alleges that both Infante and Yanez accepted partial payment of the $10,000, and that Guerrero served as the middleman for one of the payments. The FBI investigated this case. SEO Expert Sentenced for Extorting and Threatening Businesses DALLAS, TEXAS A federal judge sentenced a 53-yearold Search Engineer Optimization or SEO expert to three years in prison for attempting to extort money from a business in Dallas, according to authorities. U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey on Monday sentenced William Stanley, 53, a/k/a William Laurence, Bill Stanley, William Davis, William Harris, and William L.

3 Stanley, for attempting to extort money from the Dallasbased firm, GE, officials said. The judge also ordered Stanley to pay $174,888 in restitution to a dozen identified victims of Stanley s extortive conduct, including GE., officials said. Stanley and his sister, Lynn Faust, a/k/a Lynn Michaels, were indicted in 2014, and Stanley plead guilty last month to one count of Hobbs Act Extortion. Faust, 55, who was arrested in Sweden in May 2014, plead guilty in July 2015 to one count of receiving the proceeds of extortion and aiding and abetting, authorities said. She is facing up to three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Her sentencing is set for Feb. 1. Stanley, although a U.S. citizen, most recently resided in Romania with his wife, a Romanian national. In 2013, he traveled several times between Europe and the United States. On March 3, 2014, he was arrested on a related federal criminal complaint at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, where he arrived on a flight from Europe. He has been in custody since that time. Faust assisted Stanley in operating his search engine optimization or SEO company. Legitimate vs. Illegitimate SEO A legitimate SEO business engages in standard practices such as optimizing the underlying HTML code on a website for certain keywords that a search engine indexer such as web crawler for Google, Bing would associate with a given search query. An illegitimate SEO business engages in deceptive

4 tactics to affect search engine rankings and the volume of results. Such deceptive tactics include creating fraudulent reviews (good or bad), creating fictitious websites, or hiding text on websites, officials maintain. While Stanley engaged in some legitimate SEO work, he also engaged in illegitimate and illegal SEO activities. Stanley also extorted people and companies by threatening to engage in the illegitimate SEO work, that being posting fraudulent comments and creating negative reviews online, if the victim did not pay him a certain sum of money. In November 2009, GE entered into a contract with Stanley for SEO services and reputation management. Stanley was hired because of his ability to improve a firm s online reputation through search results. After approximately one year, however, GE sought to terminate its relationship with Stanley after it determined he had acted outside of his contracted duties. Stanley also created websites that had the ability to damage GE s reputation by associating GE with a scam. Stanley demanded additional payments to end his contractual relationship with GE and to surrender the administrator rights to the websites to GE. From November 2010 through January 2011, GE paid Stanley a total of $80,000 to terminate the relationship. Posing as William Davis and William Laurence, Stanley transmitted threatening communications, via and telephone, from foreign countries to GE in Texas. Those communications threatened to post comments on the Internet wrongfully disparaging GE s reputation, if GE did not send money to Stanley, according to officials.

5 Because of Stanley s threats to harm GE s reputation through negative Internet posts that would adversely affect GE s ability to conduct business if it failed to send money, officials said GE responded to the wrongful inducement by sending four payments totaling $29,556 by MoneyGram to Stanley in Brasov, Romania. According to the factual resume, the government could readily prove that Stanley s extortive conduct caused GE to make the above payments and to lose revenue. The extortive conduct also affected interstate commerce. In addition, the government contended that it could readily prove that Stanley engaged in similar extortionate conduct with approximately 40 to 45 victims, including GE. The FBI investigated the case. Former DEA Agent Sentenced to More Than Six Years in Prison for Extortion and Other Crimes CALIFORNIA A federal judge on Monday sentenced a former DEA agent to six years and six months in prison for extortion, money

6 laundering and obstruction of justice, officials said. The crimes were committed while he was working as an undercover agent investigating Silk Road, an online marketplace used to facilitate the sale and purchase of illegal drugs and other contraband, according to authorities. Carl M. Force, 46, of Baltimore, plead guilty on July 1. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg of California also ordered Force to pay $340,000 in restitution. Force was a Special Agent with the DEA for 15 years. Between 2012 and 2014, officials said he was assigned to the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, a multi-agency group investigating illegal activity on the Silk Road. Force was the lead undercover agent in communication with Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, who ran the Silk Road. As part of the plea agreement, Force admitted that while working undercover as a DEA agent as Nob, in the summer of 2013, Forced offered to sell Ulbricht fake drivers licenses and inside law enforcement information about Silk Road investigation. Force, using the name Nob, claimed to have access through a corrupt government employee, officials stated. He admitted

7 that he attempted to conceal his communications with Ulbricht about the payments by directing Ulbricht to use encrypted messaging. Although Force understood these payments, which were made in bitcoin, to be government property, as they constituted evidence of a crime, he admitted that he falsified official reports and stole the funds, depositing the bitcoin into his own personal account and then converting them into dollars. Force admitted that, at the time, the value of the bitcoin he received from Ulbricht was in excess of approximately $100,000, according to authorities. Force also admitted that he was involved in a scheme that he created to fraudulently obtain additional funds from Ulbricht through another online persona, French Maid, of which his Task Force colleagues were not aware. Force said that, as French Maid, he solicited and received bitcoin payments from Ulbricht worth approximately $100,000 in exchange for information concerning the government s investigation into the Silk Road. In connection with his guilty plea, Force also admitted that, in late 2013, in his personal capacity, he invested $110,000 worth of bitcoin in CoinMKT, a digital currency exchange company, according to officials. Although he did not receive permission from the DEA to do so, he served as CoinMKT s Chief Compliance Officer. In this role, in February 2014, Force was alerted by CoinMKT to what the company initially believed to be suspicious activity in a particular account. Force directed CoinMKT to freeze $337,000 in cash and digital currency from the account and he subsequently transferred the approximately $300,000 of digital currency

8 funds into a personal account that he controlled. Force also entered into a $240,000 contract with 20th Century Fox Film Studios related to a film concerning the government s investigation into the Silk Road. Force admitted that he did not secure the necessary approvals from the DEA to do so. According to his plea agreement, Force admitted that he had obstructed justice both by soliciting and accepting bitcoin from Ulricht and by lying to federal prosecutors and agents who were investigating potential misconduct by Force and others. Currently, officials said Force is one of two federal agents charged with crimes in connection to their roles in investigating the Silk Road. Shaun W. Bridges Shaun W. Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, a former Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service, is charged in a twocount information with money laundering and obstruction of justice for getting more than $800,000 in digital currency during the Silk Road investigation.

9 The charges contained in an information are merely accusations, and a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. Ohio Lobbyist Guilty of Extorting Red-Light-Camera Business for Political Campaigns OHIO John P. Raphael

10 An Ohio lobbyist plead guilty today to extortion in connection with a bribery and fraud scheme involving contributions to the campaigns of elected officials in exchange for lucrative contracts with the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, according to officials. John P. Raphael, 60, of Columbus, Ohio, agreed to plead guilty to a one-count information charging him with a violation of the Hobbs Act, officials said. The case is being investigated by the FBI, the IRS and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Raphael was a consultant and lobbyist based in Columbus. From March 2005 to February 2013, officials said Redflex Traffic Systems, a red light camera enforcement company contacted Raphael to seek and obtain lucrative contracts with the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati. During that time, according to admissions made in his plea, Raphael conveyed to the company specific solicitations for campaign contributions on behalf of elected officials in Columbus and Cincinnati. He repeatedly pressured and induced the company to make contributions by advising the company that it would lose its contracts if it did not. Raphael admitted that the red light camera enforcement company made over $70,000 in campaign contributions, which were funneled through Raphael in his own name and in the names of his family members, friends and business associates, officials said. The former chief executive officer of the red light camera vendor, Karen L. Finley, plead guilty to conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and honest services wire and mail fraud. Finley of Cave Creek, Arizona admitted in federal court

11 that through her former company, Redflex Traffic Systems, she funneled campaign contributions to officials in the two cities between , according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.