Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - fraud

By Nick Dorsten, Esq.

From The St. Petersburg Times website, a story about fraud, bad checks and the consequences...

PINELLAS: Anybody can write a bad check. The theft defendant and his associates refined it to an art form.

They stole business checks out of company mailboxes — not to cash them, but to scan and copy them.

Then they found drug addicts, homeless people or anyone desperate enough to sell their ID cards for $50 or so.

Putting the two together, the fraud group created authentic-looking payroll checks in the names of real people. The checks had special touches such as bank logos and carefully reproduced signatures of company executives.

A group of "runners" would carry the bogus checks into banks, cashing them one by one, using the ID cards to make it all seem real.

"It was organized crime at its best," said a Pinellas sheriff's Detective, who investigated the case.

In all, the web of counterfeiters included 100 people and cost banks across Florida more than $1 million, he said.

But this week, the fraud defendant pleaded no contest to racketeering and got an 11-year prison sentence. Another eight people in his organization have pleaded in Pinellas and other counties to various charges, most of them cooperating with authorities. Three were sentenced to varying prison terms Friday.

The detective and an Assistant Statewide Prosecutor said the fraudulent defendant's operation grew out of a web of counterfeiters who began in Tampa in the 1990s and refined their craft over the years, gradually evolving into spinoff groups that operated throughout the state.

The fraud defendant was the second of the intertwining groups to be prosecuted. Another faction is awaiting prosecution, and the detective said he is actively investigating another group whose members have not yet been arrested.

The investigation started at ground level — banks would catch individuals here and there cashing counterfeit checks. It was akin to arresting drug dealers on the street corner — the lowest rung on the ladder — without ever touching the kingpins.

But in 2007 the Sheriff's Office and other agencies decided to go higher — to find who was at the top.

The Sheriff's Office put the fraud defendant's group and the others under surveillance during "Operation Checkmate" for a year. Postal inspectors assisted as well. When people were arrested, detectives tried to get them to explain the scam.

Authorities say they learned two of the arrested of Tampa led one group accused in the scam. Both are awaiting trial in Pinellas. Another group was led by a man, 56, who was sentenced in Hillsborough County to 12 years in prison, alongside two sons who were sentenced to 10 and six years.

The detectives said they began to see how the different factions, like different families, had their own personalities. One group gave its associates money and praise, like benevolent bosses at a family business. Another group, on the other hand, hired homeless people or others down on their luck and sent them directly into banks — only to abandon them if they were arrested, he said.

The fraud defendant was a harsh and distrustful boss, according to the detective. That made it easier to convince his associates to talk, they said.

The detective said he isn't finished. His message to those he's still investigating: "We're going after the top people."

Have you been arrested on fraud or bad check charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.

For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com