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In San Antonio, a mother and son have surrendered to federal authorities based on an alleged million dollar fraud scheme involving a local church owned by a different family member announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Lee Dotson, and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge William Cotter.
A 12-count federal grand jury indictment, returned last week, charges 23–year-old Brennan R. Diaz and 44–year-old Deborah A. Diaz with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of money laundering, The indictment also charges Brennan Diaz with four substantive counts of bank fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of money laundering. Deborah Diaz is charged with two substantive counts of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment, between February 2015 and October 2015, the defendants conspired to defraud the La Obra Milagrosa Church (aka “The Miracle Center Church”) of more than $1 million. Both defendants were associated with the TMC Church which was owned by Brennan’s grandfather. Neither defendant had authority to sign TMC Church checks. The indictment alleges that Brennan Diaz wrote, and fraudulently forged his grandfather’s signature on, approximately 50 TMC Church business checks made payable to himself. Defendant Deborah Diaz allegedly forged her father’s signature on three TMC Church business checks made payable to herself. The total amount of those fraudulent checks is estimated to be $1,094,100.00.
Upon conviction, bank fraud calls for up to 30 years in federal prison; money laundering calls for up to ten years in federal prison; conspiracy to commit bank fraud calls for up to 30 years in federal prison; and, aggravated identity theft calls for mandatory two years in federal prison. Brennan Diaz surrendered to federal authorities this morning. He was released this afternoon on a $30,000 bond pending trial. Deborah Diaz surrendered to authorities on Friday. She is currently on a $50,000 unsecured bond pending trial.
This joint investigation is being conducted by the Financial Crimes Section of the U.S. Secret Service South Texas Regional Task Force and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. Other agencies involved in the Task Force include the San Antonio Police Department, Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and Texas Department of Public Safety-Criminal Investigations Division. Assistant United States Attorney Thomas P. Moore is prosecuting this case on behalf of the Government.
A federal jury in El Paso convicted self-proclaimed licensed investment broker Roberto Trinidad Del Carpio Frescas of carrying out a Ponzi scheme that resulted in an estimated minimum $15 million loss announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Lee Dotson and El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.
Late Friday afternoon, jurors convicted Del Carpio, age 39, of Chihuahua, MX, of 24 counts of wire fraud and ten counts of money laundering.
Evidence presented during trial revealed that the defendant held himself out to have superior knowledge and ability as an investor in stocks, bonds, futures in oil, gas, precious metals and currency. Though he was not licensed in the state of Texas as a dealer, or registered as an investment adviser, Del Carpio formed several companies in Texas including SMI International Institute Corporation (aka Stock Market Investment), Del Carpio Trading Institute LLC, and one in the Cayman Islands, Del Carpio Holdings, to facilitate his scheme.
From August 2010 until January 2012, Del Carpio conspired with others to collect money from over 100 known investors in Mexico and the United States. Del Carpio pocketed most all of the funds he collected though he did pay minimal amounts of money to “early” investors as a return on their investment and to encourage his victims to invest more of their money with him.
Del Carpio faces up to 20 years in federal prison for wire fraud and up to ten years in federal prison for money laundering.
Del Carpio has remained in federal custody since his arrest in February 2015. Sentencing is expected to occur within the next 60 days before United States District Judge David C. Guaderrama in El Paso.
Del Carpio’s co-defendant, 60-year-old David Brian Binder of Pittsburg, PA, is charged by indictment with one count of accessory after the fact and one count of wire fraud. Binder, who is currently out on bond, is scheduled for jury selection and trial on April 18, 2016, before Judge Guaderrama in El Paso. Upon conviction, Binder faces up to 20 years in federal prison for wire fraud and up to ten years in federal prison for accessory after the fact.
It is important to note that an indictment is merely a charge and should not be considered as evidence of guilt. Binder is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
If you feel you may have been victimized as a result of the above mentioned scheme, please contact the U.S. Secret Service at (915) 532-2144 or the El Paso Police Department.
This investigation was conducted by agents with the U.S. Secret Service and the El Paso Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys Ian Hanna and Stanley Serwatka are prosecuting this case on behalf of the Government.
DALLAS (AP) — Two North Texas men face health care-related fraud charges that prosecutors say cost a U.S. Department of Defense agency $65 million.
Richard Robert Cesario of Plano and John Paul Cooper of Southlake remained in custody pending a detention hearing Thursday in Dallas.
Both were arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, receipt of illegal remuneration and payment of illegal remuneration.
The scam targeted TRICARE — DOD's health system for military beneficiaries. The indictment says Cesario and Cooper operated a Dallas company that marketed compounded pain and scar creams. Neither man has medical licensing or education.
Prosecutors say the company opened in 2014, ceased operations in mid-2015 and the alleged kickbacks scheme ran until this month.
Messages left with the company, CMG RX, weren't immediately returned Wednesday.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas regulators plan a more than two-week undercover effort to help stop alcohol sales to minors during spring break.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission says the stings begin Tuesday and run through March 15. TABC officials say the operation will target retailers along popular travel corridors between major Texas cities and the Gulf Coast.
The Texas drinking age for alcohol is 21. Undercover agents will be accompanied by underage volunteers who will attempt to buy alcohol.
A similar operation during 2015 spring break involved TABC agents visiting more than 900 retailers. Regulators say more than 90 percent were abiding by Texas alcoholic beverage laws.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A judge says four San Antonio women were wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting two young girls in a case that criminal justice advocates have long championed.
Texas District Judge Pat Priest on Tuesday ordered a new trial for the so-called "San Antonio 4," but he didn't declare them innocent, which would make them eligible for state compensation for the wrongfully convicted.
Elizabeth Ramirez, Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera, and Anna Vasquez were accused by two of Ramirez's nieces, ages 7 and 9, of attacking them in 1994. The girls alleged the women held them by their wrists and ankles, sexually assaulting them and threatening to kill them.
One of the nieces has since recanted, and experts have raised questions about a key forensic expert's testimony.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' highest criminal court tossed the second and final felony charge against former Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday, likely ending a case the Republican says helped sink his short-lived 2016 presidential bid.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the abuse-of-power charge, which was filed after Perry threatened — and then carried out — a veto of state funding for a group of public corruption prosecutors after the Democratic head of the unit refused to resign.
In its 6-2 ruling, the court said veto power can't be restricted by the courts and the prosecution of a veto "violates separations of powers." A lower appeals court had dismissed the other charge, coercion by a public servant, in July.
Perry is pleased that the charges have been finally thrown out, said his attorney Tony Buzbee, who called it a "shame that it took that long to get something as weak and misguided as this to be dismissed."
"It was a bunch of foolishness from the beginning. I feel bad for him because he was put through this for no reason," Buzbee said.
Perry, the longest-serving governor in Texas history, left office in January 2015 while facing the felony indictment handed down the previous summer by a grand jury in Austin, a liberal bastion in otherwise mostly deeply conservative Texas.
The former governor made just one court appearance in the case, which stems from 2013, when he publicly threatened to veto the $7.5 million in state funding for Public Integrity Unit prosecutors. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who headed the investigative group, had rebuffed Perry's calls to resign after she was convicted and jailed for drunken driving.
Perry dismissed the case as a "political witch hunt," while legal scholars from across the political spectrum raised objections about it. Still, the Republican judge overseeing the case repeatedly refused to throw it out on constitutional grounds, prompting Perry's appeals.
One of the judges who dissented in Wednesday's ruling, Republican Cheryl Johnson, said the decision could leave the public with an uneasy perception that the system went out of its way to clear one of the most powerful governors in Texas history.
"The constant references to 'Governor Perry' could well be seen by the public as an inference that appellant's position in life entitles him to special privileges and special treatment by this court that others might be denied," wrote Johnson, referring to how judges addressed Perry during deliberations.
Michael McCrum, the San Antonio-based special prosecutor who secured Perry's indictment, long maintained that the matter was built on evidence — not politics — and deserved to go to trial. He can appeal, but that would be a lengthy process. Combined, the original charges carried a potential maximum penalty of 109 years in prison.
Despite his legal problems, Perry formally announced he was running for president in early June, hoping to convince GOP primary voters he deserved a second chance after his 2012 bid was undone by a series of public gaffes. But his second White House campaign lasted barely three months, and Perry formally dropped out of the race in September.
The former governor spent more than $2 million on top defense lawyers. His latest White House campaign raised barely half that much in its first month, and it quickly became so cash-strapped that it could no longer afford to pay staffers in key states with early presidential primaries or caucuses.
Perry blamed the criminal indictment for his sluggish fundraising. But polls showed he was badly trailing in the race despite numerous visits to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He was the first candidate leave a GOP field jammed with 17 presidential hopefuls at the time.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is heading to Texas to campaign on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
A spokeswoman for Richardson said the Democrat is scheduled to speak Monday at an immigration forum in San Antonio hosted by Clinton. He is then slated to address volunteers at a Clinton phone bank and will tour local businesses.
Richardson announced in August he would support the former Secretary of State said after speaking with her and former President Bill Clinton. He said they had "patched up" disagreements from the 2008 election.
The former governor, who served in Clinton's administration, had endorsed then Sen. Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says after meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that he's confident the two will continue strengthening "economic and cultural bonds" between their governments.
The two leaders met Monday in Houston to discuss progress on a joint energy task force announced last year. That agreement is designed to help Texas benefit from recent energy reforms in Mexico.
Neito was in Texas to attend a meeting this week of top oil and gas executives from around the world. Executives from ConocoPhillips and General Electric are among the invited speakers.
It was not clear whether Abbott and Nieto discussed border security. Mexican officials, who have long opposed militarization of the border, have been critical of Abbott's $800 million border security package he signed into law last year.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A top Texas health official is stepping down after co-authoring a study that drew strong backlash from Republican leaders for suggesting that cuts to Planned Parenthood are restricting access to women's health care statewide.
Rick Allgeyer, director of research at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, was facing possible discipline for the study published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine. He was eligible for retirement and will leave in March, agency spokesman Bryan Black said Thursday.
Black said that Allgeyer — who has worked in Texas government for more than 20 years — broke policy by working on the study on taxpayer time. Other co-authors included one of Allgeyer's subordinates at the health commission, University of Texas researchers and an Austin attorney who represented Planned Parenthood in lawsuits over being excluded from the program the study examined.
"He should have never been putting in time on this study during the normal business day, he was paid to perform state business," Black said in an email.
Published in one of the nation's most prominent medical journals, the study found that fewer women in Texas have obtained long-acting birth control, such as intrauterine devices, after the GOP-controlled Legislature barred the nation's largest abortion provider from a state women's health program in 2013. Births paid for under Medicaid also increased among some women.
Republicans who were behind Planned Parenthood's ouster rebuked the study and have demanded that Texas Health Commissioner Chris Traylor explain why Allgeyer and another state employee were involved. Black did not address the status of Imelda Flores-Vazquez, a program specialist, who worked under Allgeyer and joined the agency in 2014. Black said neither state employee told superiors they were working on the study, which Black has said was a violation at the 55,000-person agency.
Allgeyer did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
Leading the backlash to the study is Republican state Sen. Jane Nelson, a powerful state budget-writer and architect of Texas' current women's health program. She dismissed the findings as biased and invalid, in part because the research was funded by the nonprofit Susan T. Buffet Foundation, which is a major supporter of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups.
Nelson has said the study ignored other state health services for women and says more Texas women filed claims for long-acting contraceptives in 2014 than 2012, when Planned Parenthood was still part of the state program. She wrote a letter to Traylor last week that ordered his agency to review the study and provide an analysis on Medicaid births.
"Critical evaluation is essential to good government, but women should not be misled into thinking the services they need are not available to them," Nelson wrote.
Planned Parenthood officials have said the study showed the impact of "politically motivated" decisions.
Texas barred Planned Parenthood from state planning services the same year that then-Gov. Rick Perry signed tough abortion restrictions that shuttered clinics across the state.
Those restrictions will go before the U.S. Supreme Court next month in a major abortion rights case that could impact similar measures adopted in other GOP-controlled states.
HOUSTON (AP) — Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. declined by 27 this week to 514.
The Houston company said Friday 413 rigs sought oil and 101 explored for natural gas amid depressed energy prices. A year ago, 1,310 rigs were active.
Among major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas declined by 12 rigs, Oklahoma and North Dakota each dropped three, Louisiana fell by two, and Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Wyoming dropped one apiece.
Alaska, Arkansas, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia were all unchanged.
The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
