A San Antonio man was sentenced Friday to more than five years in federal prison for stealing thousands of credit card receipts from the Emily Morgan Hotel.

The theft allowed conspirators to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise in three states, authorities say.

Cody Quincy Jones, 34, pleaded guilty in April to ID theft fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated ID theft.

Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery gave him 41 months for the ID theft fraud charge and 41 months for the access device count, to run concurrently.

The judge imposed 24 months on the aggravated ID theft charge, to run consecutively.

Authorities said Jones and another man, Randy Ray Flaharty, 31, took boxes of monthly credit card receipts of hotel guests from a storage room.

The receipts, officials say, were used to manufacture counterfeit credit cards in document “boiler rooms” and card “chop shops,” which they then used to buy $300,000 worth of merchandise in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, including trailers, televisions, all-terrain vehicles and tires, for resale.

The hotel didn’t learn of the thefts until August 2008, and since then, a Secret Service-led task force has ascertained it was San Antonio’s largest identity theft case, with at least 17,000 receipts stolen.

In November, the ringleader, Ruben “Hollywood” Costello, 36, pleaded guilty to ID theft fraud conspiracy, access device fraud, and conspiracy to launder money.

He admitted using a network of associates to maintain the scheme, and used an Elmendorf trucking company he ran, RD&N Hauling, to launder the money.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom McHugh described Jones as one of Costello’s lieutenants, “one of those who had his fingerprints all over it.”

Flaharty also pleaded guilty last year, and like Costello, awaits sentencing.

The cardholders never realized their credit card accounts had been compromised until months, even years, after they stayed at the hotel. But the damage made it hard for some of them to get loans and left lingering headaches in trying to straighten things out, officials said.

If you have been charged with a crime such as DWI, arson, auto theft, etc., please contact the Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for a free consultation.

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An operator of used car lots and one of his employees were arrested Friday on charges they tried to defraud $1.3 million from Sterling Bank in San Antonio.

Ahmad Hussein Khalil, 42, was indicted Wednesday with Jessica Devina Seanz, 31, on a charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

FBI agents allege the pair took advantage of a “floor plan” line of credit that Sterling had given Khalil so he could purchase for his business, Prestige Imports Inc. in San Antonio and Lotus of Austin.

The indictment lists 52 vehicles accounting for nearly $1.3 million in fraud perpetrated between Jan. 23 and July 15, 2008.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Nowak released both defendants on $50,000 unsecured bond and set arraignment for June 7.

“There were no individuals harmed,” said Khalil’s lawyer, Van Hilley.  “The alleged harm is to the bank . . . We’ll enter a not guilty plea until we have a chance to review discovery, which is pretty significant.”

The indictment said the terms of the line of credit allowed Khalil to get monetary advances based on the lesser of a vehicle’s actual purchase price or NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) trade value.

“The defendants defrauded the bank by presenting inflated purchase prices when they presented titles and purchase orders for financing,” the indictment said.

Khalil is also accused of selling two vehicles “out of trust”-selling of a car that has been paid for with a loan and then not using the sale proceeds to pay back the lender.

Assistant U.U. Attorney Mark Roomberg told the judge that the pair, if convicted, face up to 30 years in prison.

If you have been charged with a crime such as DWI, arson, auto theft, etc., please contact the Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for a free consultation.

The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn is located at 111 Soledad St, Suite 1700, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6600 & my website can be found on Google | Yahoo | Bing | Manta | San Antonio SEO | Merchant Circle | Citysearch | Lawyerdirections | Findlaw | Yelp | YP.com | Website | Directions | Avvo DWI | Avvo | Gravatar | SEO Company | Attorney Marketing | San Antonio SEO | San Antonio Website Design

A West Texas businessman has pleaded guilty to trying to swindle $3.7 million from a U.S. agency that tries to stimulate American exports, and he implicated the jet-setting grandson of one of Mexico’s former defense secretaries in the scheme.

Gilberto Baez Garcia, 41, is cooperating and entered the plea this month in El Paso to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and money laundering conspiracy.

He admitted that between 2002 and 2008, an El Paso company he co-owned, Valcomar, tried to bamboozle $3.7 million from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which backs loans to foreign businesses so they’ll buy products made by U.S. workers.

Baez’s plea documents implicate five others, including Jaime Galvan Guerrero, 39, a member of a prominent family in Mexico’s Chihuahua state.

Galvan, of Delicias, Chihuahua, is a grandson of Felix Galvan, now deceased, who was defense secretary under then President Jose Lopez Portillo.  Jaime Galvan and his family run businesses that provide most of the dairy products to Mexico’s social assistance agency, DIF.  They also have close connections to ex-Chihuahua Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza Terrazas.

Gilberto Baez’s plea deal said Valcomar and others fed the Export-Import Bank fraudulent information so it would back private bank loans for heavy machinery for Mexican companies, including one of Galvan’s.  The plea deal said the borrowers and Valcomar split the proceeds, didn’t buy U.S. machinery and let the loans go into default, which forced the Export-Import Bank to make good on them.

Galvan, who is free on $100,000 bail, is scheduled for trial in El Paso on July 1 on conspiracy and fraud charges.

Baez awaits sentencing July 17, and he faces up to 30 years in prison and restitution of $2.5 million.

If you have been charged with a crime such as DWI, arson, auto theft, etc., please contact the Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for a free consultation.

The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn is located at 111 Soledad St, Suite 1700, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6600 & my website can be found on Google | Yahoo | Bing | Manta | San Antonio SEO | Merchant Circle | Citysearch | Lawyerdirections | Findlaw | Yelp | YP.com | Website | Directions | Avvo DWI | Avvo | Gravatar | SEO Company | Attorney Marketing | San Antonio SEO | San Antonio Website Design

With his federal trial about to start this week, a San Antonio real estate broker has pleaded guilty for his role in a $2 million mortgage fraud scheme that was targeted during a national crackdown in 2009.

Darnell Mason, 54, opted to send jurors home Monday by pleading guilty to a charge of making a false statement on a loan application and two counts of wire fraud.

With his plea, prosecutors now will focus on Mason’s lead co-defendant Justin Zhu, a mortgage broker accused of helping Mason concoct a scheme that exploited 100 percent-financed “State Income” loans, which require no down payment and do not require the lender to verify the applicant’s income.

Zhu faces trial in late August before Senior U.S. District Judge Harry Lee Hudspeth.

The scheme involved recruiting straw homebuyers, who were paid up to $3,000 in kickbacks for signing their names on loan paperwork for 17 properties whose loans were later allowed to go into default. The scheme was uncovered by the FBI and Internal Revenue Service during “Operation Stolen Dreams.”

Mason listed PLV Realty, which he owns, as the realty company on the loan paperwork so he could make the commissions, then took control of the properties, made initial mortgage payments and later let them go into foreclosure, court records said.

As part of his plea deal, Mason specifically admitted fraud related to a home at 8326 Starcrest.

Mason admitted he falsely told lenders that co-defendant Jimmy Elizondo worked for another company Mason runs, Property Management LLC, and that Elizondo had been hospitalized for depression and fell behind on his mortgage payments.

Elizondo, a former reserve officer for the Somerset Police Department who pleaded guilty to conspiracy for his own role, was one of a handful of straw buyers set to testify that it was a scam.

Mason faces up to 30 years for the false statement count, and a maximum of 20 years on each wire fraud count when he’s sentenced Sept. 20 by Hudspeth, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom McHugh.s

If you have been charged with a crime such as DWI, arson, auto theft, etc., please contact the Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for a free consultation.

The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn is located at 111 Soledad St, Suite 1700, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6600 & my website can be found on Google | Yahoo | Bing | Manta | San Antonio SEO | Merchant Circle | Citysearch | Lawyerdirections | Findlaw | Yelp | YP.com | Website | Directions | Avvo DWI | Avvo | Gravatar | SEO Company | Attorney Marketing | San Antonio SEO | San Antonio Website Design

A Texas pastor convicted of making counterfeit green cards has been sentenced to a year in prison and faces the possibility of deportation.

Felipe DeJesus Coronel Pacheco was sentenced Friday in a San Antonio federal Court. The 55 year old pleaded guilty to charges of making fake immigration documents.

Coronel was a Mexican born pastor of an Austin church who had a legitimate permanent residency card. He now faces the prospect of deportation.

Coronel did not list previous arrests for drug charges and drunk driving on his citizenship application. He told the judge he felt badly for doing damage to the country that provided him food, work and education.

Prosecutors say Coronel and an associate sold 60 – 100 fake green cards while being investigated by federal authorities.

The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn is located at 111 Soledad St, Suite 1700, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6600 & my website can be found on Google | Yahoo | Bing | Manta | San Antonio SEO | Merchant Circle | Citysearch | Lawyerdirections | Findlaw | Yelp | YP.com | Website | Directions | Avvo DWI | Avvo | Gravatar | SEO Company | Attorney Marketing | San Antonio SEO | San Antonio Website Design

A former executive for Santikos Theaters has been indicted on charges that he wired money from the company’s bank accounts to make $147,000 in payments towards his own bills and credit cards.  Jason Todd Bryant was an assistant controller at the company from February 2005 through January 2008 and is charged with four counts of wire fraud.  He faces arraignment March 31 before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primono.

In December, Ryszard Richard Cieplechowicz, a former director of business development, was sentenced to five years of probation for using shell company to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars by overcharging the theaters for drinking cups.  He has since admitted his acts duped the firm into sending his shell company two checks totaling $800,000 for cups.

The loss to Santikos was more than $461,000 but the government agreed that Cieplechowicz only owed $200,000 in restitution after the remainder was recovered.

Sec. 32.03.  AGGREGATION OF AMOUNTS INVOLVED IN FRAUD.  When amounts are obtained in violation of this chapter pursuant to one scheme or continuing course of conduct, whether from the same or several sources, the conduct may be considered as one offense and the amounts aggregated in determining the grade of offense.

The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn is located at 111 Soledad St, Suite 1700, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6600 & my website can be found on Google | Yahoo | Bing | Manta | San Antonio SEO | Merchant Circle | Citysearch | Lawyerdirections | Findlaw | Yelp | YP.com | Website | Directions | Avvo DWI | Avvo | Gravatar | SEO Company | Attorney Marketing | San Antonio SEO | San Antonio Website Design