Former Jail Guard Sentenced in Steroids Case

BUFFALO—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Michael Trautmann, 49 of Cheektowaga, New York, who was convicted of distributing anabolic steroids, was sentenced to probation by Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael L. McCabe, who handled the case, in the fall of 2010, Trautmann obtained and distributed steroids while employed as a Detention Officer at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York.

The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Christopher M. Piehota; and the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Gregory Null.

Former USA Drug Vice President of Advertising Sentenced to 33 Months for Mail Fraud and Money Laundering Charges

LITTLE ROCK—Christopher R. Thyer, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, announced that Garret Sorensen, age 43, of North Little Rock, Arkansas, a former vice president of advertising for USA Drug, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Billy Roy Wilson to 33 months’ imprisonment with three years’ supervised release.

Sorensen’s trial was scheduled to begin May 2, 2012, before United States District Judge Billy Roy Wilson. Instead, Sorenson entered a plea of guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of money laundering. The remaining 31 counts against Garrett Sorensen were dismissed.

The fraud charges stem from transactions made by Sorensen between 2005 and 2007. During this time, Garret Sorensen was employed by USA Drug as the vice president of advertising. In late 2005, Sorensen, Katherine Sorensen, and Shannon Walters formed Multi-Media Management (MMM), which they represented to be a media placement company. Garret Sorensen then began to funnel all insert and direct mail advertising for USA Drug through MMM. Sorensen did not notify USA Drug management of his interest in, and operation of, MMM. By funneling the insert and direct mail advertising through MMM, Sorensen was able to obtain a profit of approximately $500,000. This was accomplished by overstating insert quantity, billing for inserts that were not placed, and by charging USA Drug an inflated “service fee.” In addition, Sorensen included in MMM bills charges for the direct mailing of advertising materials for which no service charges had ever been paid by USA Drug before.

Over $248,000 of the MMM proceeds were dispersed directly to or for the benefit of Garret and Katherine Sorensen. With those funds, the Sorensens purchased, among other things, a boat, a Jeep, a Rolex watch, and a Chevrolet Suburban. The purchase of the boat from Bradford Marine served as the basis for the money laundering charge to which Sorensen pled guilty.

The charges against Katherine Sorrensen and her sister, Shannon Walters, were dismissed by separate agreement.

The investigation was conducted by the Little Rock Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Patricia Harris, Angela Jegley, Patrick C. Harris, and Jane W. Duke.

Former Executive Director of South Amboy Housing Authority Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison

Previously Pleaded Guilty to Federal Election Fraud and Tax Evasion

TRENTON—Thomas J. O’Leary, the former executive director of the South Amboy Housing Authority, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for his role in a scheme to funnel illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic primary election campaign of Joseph Vas for U.S. Congress in 2006, as well as evading taxes, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

O’Leary, 50, of South Amboy, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson in Trenton federal court to charges of conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission for his participation in a scheme to funnel thousands of dollars through straw contributors to Vas’ campaign and to one count of tax evasion.

According to the indictment and information to which O’Leary pleaded guilty and statements made in court:

O’Leary admitted he participated in a scheme with co-defendant Francis X. Gartland, an insurance broker based in Towson, Maryland, to use “straw” or “conduit” contributors to make contributions to the 2005-2006 Vas congressional campaign for the 13th Congressional District. Gartland, through his various companies, was the insurance broker of record for the city of Perth Amboy and the Perth Amboy Board of Education. Gartland received thousands of dollars in commissions for those representations and split a portion of the commissions with O’Leary. The purpose of the straw contributions to Vas, then the mayor of Perth Amboy and a New Jersey State assemblyman, was to ensure that Gartland maintained the lucrative insurance brokerage representations with the city of Perth Amboy and the Perth Amboy Board of Education.

O’Leary acknowledged that he recruited five straw contributors to contribute $2,000 each to Vas’ federal campaign committee. He reimbursed the straw contributors by cash or check with funds provided by Gartland. Straw contributions are prohibited by the Federal Election Campaign Act. O’Leary also admitted that for tax year 2006, he evaded the assessment of thousands of dollars of federal income tax by concealing income and other benefits that he received from Gartland.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Wolfson sentenced O’Leary to three years of supervised release and fined him $12,000.

Vas and Melvin Ramos, Vas’ former mayoral aide and the treasurer of Vas’ campaign, were convicted on October 8, 2010, following a jury trial, of charges of mail fraud, fraud and misapplication of funds, false statements, and federal election crimes. Vas and Ramos were sentenced to 78 and 37 months in prison, respectively, by U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton on April 12, 2011. In addition to the prison terms, Judge Wigenton sentenced Vas and Ramos to three years of supervised release and ordered them to pay $90,000 in restitution to Perth Amboy. Vas was also ordered to pay a $73,200 fine.

The federal election crime charges pertaining to Gartland involving O’Leary are pending before Judge Wolfson. In December 2010, Gartland also was charged in a 27-count superseding indictment along with Michael J. Ritacco, the former superintendent of the Toms River Regional School District, with charges relating to bribery and tax fraud. The superseding indictment charged Gartland and Ritacco with scheming with others, including co-conspirators Frank Cotroneo and Frank D’Alonzo, to pass a stream of cash payments and other benefits totaling between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 from Gartland to Ritacco in exchange for Ritacco’s official action and influence in matters relating to the Toms River Regional School District’s insurance business. The superseding indictment also contains two counts charging separate conspiracies to defraud the IRS and seven counts of making and subscribing false federal personal income tax returns—for tax years 2004 to 2006 for Ritacco and 2004 to 2007 for Gartland. Cotroneo and D’Alonzo both pleaded guilty in federal court to bribery and tax charges related to this scheme on October 18, 2010, and await sentencing. Ritacco previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced September 14, 2012, to 135 months in prison. Gartland pleaded guilty on April 2, 2012, to charges of mail fraud, separate conspiracies to defraud the IRS and the United States government, and perjury. He will be sentenced in November 16, 2012.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward; and IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Victor W. Lessoff, with the investigation leading to today’s sentence.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee M. Cortes, Jr. of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Special Prosecutions Division in Newark.

Nebraska Man Sentenced for Cattle Theft

JEFFERSON CITY, MO—David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a Smithfield, Nebraska man has been sentenced in federal court for a cattle scheme in Callaway County, Missouri.

Allen John Foos, 48, of Smithfield, was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan on Thursday, September 27, 2012, to two years and 11 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Foos to pay $244,676 in restitution to his victims.

On January 23, 2012, Foos pleaded guilty to causing stolen livestock to be transported across state lines. Foos admitted that he used an alias to order cattle from the Callaway Livestock Center using order buyers (middlemen). In some cases, Foos obtained the cattle and then sold them without paying the sale barn. In other cases, Foos eventually paid the sale barn for the cattle by using the proceeds from a later cattle transaction. The amount of loss in the cattle scheme totaled $244,676.

For example, according to his plea agreement, Foos purchased 167 head of cattle using the alias of J&M Cattle Company of Shelton, Kansas. A $116,944 check for payment bounced; although $49,995 was later paid by wire transfer, the remaining balance has never been paid. This is the transaction related to the specific charge contained in the April 4, 2011, indictment to which Foos pleaded guilty.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence E. Miller. It was investigated by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Packers and Stockyards Administration, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Identity Theft That Lasted Decades

Living a Lie

When Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Blanco—a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Jacksonville—interviewed an individual suspected of driver’s license fraud in 2011, he wasn’t initially sure if the man was the victim or the perpetrator of identity theft.

That’s because the man—now imprisoned and officially known as John Doe—had a stack of government-issued identification acquired during the 22 years he had been using a living victim’s identity. That included a passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, and identification allowing him unescorted access to a port and military installation.

“He was extremely convincing that he was the victim,” said Blanco, a veteran trooper with more than 30 years on the force. “When you have 20 forms of identification and it’s in your possession,” Blanco explained, “it’s hard to not believe you are the person you say you are.”

But John Doe was indeed an imposter, and while he was living under another man’s name, the real victim was living a nightmare. It all started in 1989 when the victim’s car was broken into and his wallet was stolen. His identity had been compromised.

John Doe began using the victim’s name, even when he went to prison for aggravated battery. As a result, Blanco said, “if you run John Doe’s fingerprints, even today, they will come back with the victim’s name.”

When the victim, a Miami resident, applied to become a corrections officer, he had to explain why his records showed a felony conviction. He urged officials to compare his fingerprints to those of John Doe’s. When the victim applied for a passport, he was denied because the passport office claimed he already had one—the one that John Doe had applied for and received.

When Blanco was able to talk with the real victim, he heard two decades worth of frustration. The victim had filed a police report years before, but John Doe had never been caught or stopped. Blanco remembers the victim telling him, “This guy has been living my identity. He’s gotten my license suspended and he’s had kids in my name.”

When Blanco realized that he was dealing with a massive and long-running case of identity fraud, John Doe was arrested. The JTTF opened an investigation, and John Doe was eventually indicted federally on numerous counts of aggravated identity theft and fraud.

JTTF investigators had to rule out any threat to national security, because John Doe had access to the Mayport Naval Station as well as JaxPort, the Jacksonville Port Authority. Although he was just working at those locations, Special Agent Paxton Stelly, who supervises Jacksonville’s JTTF, pointed out that John Doe had passed the background checks required to gain access there. “He appears to have manipulated the system with ease,” Stelly said.

Last month a jury convicted John Doe—who continues to insist he is the real victim in the case—and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Despite DNA testing and a thorough investigation, his real identity remains a mystery.

“It will continue to be a mystery unless he makes an admission to us,” Blanco said, adding, “I don’t know what he’s going to do when he gets out of prison, because the man doesn’t have an identity.”