A postal inspector recently used a simple device to catch three men suspected of stealing checks from mailboxes in Pelham and New Rochelle.

The device, a key trap, led to a federal grand jury indictment Nov. 26 against three Bronx men, Jonathan Ranfeil Jimenez, Martin DeJesus Reyes Maria and Mayobanex Reyes, on charges they stole more than $61,000 in a check washing scheme.

The men are accused of mail theft, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identity theft and, for Jimenez and Maria, use of a stolen post office key.

In September 2018, postal inspector Michael Memoli installed a hidden camera near a mailbox outside the Pelham post office.

A few weeks later, two men were photographed using a postal key to get into the mailbox, and one could be seen carrying an Adidas duffel bag.

Memoli installed a key trap, a device that makes a key get stuck in a lock and requires special tools to remove.

The trap worked. On Oct. 1, 2018, an off-duty Pelham police officer called for back-up when he saw two men trying to open the mailbox. Officers chased and caught the men and recovered an Adidas duffel bag with about 300 pieces of mail.

Memoli retrieved the trapped key and traced the serial number to a key that had been missing from the New Rochelle post office.

He also reviewed surveillance footage from mailboxes in New Rochelle, taken shortly before the two men were arrested in Pelham. The images show two men stealing mail and placing it in an Adidas duffel bag.

Police identified the suspects as Jimenez and Maria.

Using traditional investigative tools –police reports, postal records, bank records, surveillance footage, photographs and interviews – the inspector identified eight people who had mailed checks in Pelham, New Rochelle and Staten Island that ended up in strangers’ bank accounts.

The stolen checks appeared to have been “washed,” whereby checks were soaked in solvent to remove the ink and then filled in with new payee names and amounts. Then the checks were deposited into bank accounts, using ATM cards and personal identification numbers of other people.

A New Rochelle woman, for instance, used a mailbox on Main Street to mail a check from her J.P. Morgan Chase bank account. On Sept. 7, 2018, Jimenez, Maria and Reyes were allegedly at a Bank of America ATM machine on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan. One of them, according to the criminal complaint, deposited the woman’s check into an account of an individual who is not named in the complaint. The check had been altered, making the stranger the payee and the amount $8,700.

Other stolen checks were allegedly deposited by the three suspects in bank accounts of several strangers, using ATM machines on Lenox Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan.

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Lewisboro Town Justice Marc A. Seedorf has pleaded guilty to tax evasion for failure to pay $160,000.

Seedorf did not file tax returns for 11 years, from 2005 to 2015, according to the criminal information, concealed income from a lawsuit settlement and from a private law practice, and at one point had amassed $487,000 in tax liabilities.

Seedorf orchestrated a scheme from 2009 to 2019, the criminal information states, to evade paying taxes “largely by failing to file personal income tax returns, ignoring the IRS’ repeated requests for documents and records, and taking steps to conceal the existence of … assets.”

Seedorf, of South Salem, has served as town justice since 1998. He worked as a prosecutor for the Bronx district attorney after graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1981, and has maintained a private law practice for 33 years.

He formed a solo practice in the Bronx in 2012. Then from 2013 through 2015 he did not report his income, according to the criminal information.

He also failed to report more than $1.5 million from a 2012 lawsuit settlement. The criminal information does not identify the case, but Westchester Supreme Court records show a $2.8 million award in a medical malpractice settlement that year, in the death of his wife, Donna. The award included legal fees and payments to his three children.

Seedorf asked the law firm that represented him to deposit his portion of the settlement in the firm’s attorney trust account, according to the criminal information, “as part of his effort to conceal the funds from the IRS.”

Then he instructed the firm to transfer most of the funds to his own firm’s accounts and to his brother-in-law, but not to his personal bank account.

He put some of the money in his investment account, made mortgage payments on a home that was facing foreclosure and paid down $357,100 of his federal tax liability.

He told an IRS revenue agent who had begun an audit in 2014 that he had borrowed money from his law firm’s escrow account to pay the taxes. He did not disclose the lawsuit settlement.

He never provided records that the IRS demanded for an audit, the criminal information states, and he did not respond to mail, telephone and email messages from the agency.

In pleading guilty to one count of tax evasion, Seedorf faces up to five years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 24 by U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel in White Plains federal court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Coffman is in charge of the prosecution.

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The founder and general manager of Savant Capital Management LLC in Middletown has been sentenced to 22 months in prison for securities fraud.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel on Nov. 27 also ordered Brian Roberson, 43, to pay back $205,000 to his victim and submit to supervision for five years after his release.

Roberson’s attorneys had recommended 10 months in prison.

“Unfortunately, his desire to provide for his family, coupled with his unique background and characteristics, led Mr. Roberson to engage in fraudulent behavior,” Manhattan attorneys Michael D. Bradley and Margaret M. Shalley said in a sentencing memorandum.

“While his background in no way excuses his involvement, nor in any way diminishes its seriousness, it does render his actions all the more understandable and provides substantial mitigation in determining an appropriate sentence.”

The circumstances include growing up in a Bronx neighborhood riddled with crime and poverty; living with an alcoholic mother who beat him with a wire hanger and whose affair with another man devastated his father; a brother who sold drugs and skipped town to avoid a murder charge; sexual molestation by a family friend; and being sent to Ohio to live with an aunt and five cousins in a cramped apartment with no working bathroom, where a stranger stabbed him twice and threw him out a window.

When he returned to New York, his family relocated to Middletown. But when he was 15, his mother moved out to live with the man with whom she had an affair.

“Brian once again felt abandoned, unloved and rejected by his own mother,” the sentencing memo states.

Fifteen years later, he was running Savant, and in 2010, according to the indictment, his scheme began.

Roberson persuaded Kevin Wedwaldt to invest $255,000, and later another $15,000, to put into a clearing house account while they developed a high-frequency trading algorithm.

But Roberson, according to the indictment, took $48,000 for himself and put $233,000 in the clearing house account.

By early 2011, work on the algorithm halted, according to the indictment, because Roberson had stopped making payments to the vendor writing the program.

Wedwaldt demanded the return of his investment but got back only $50,000.

Roberson had used the rest of the money to cover trading losses and to put into family bank accounts.

“Roberson ultimately used the investor’s funds for his and his family member’s personal benefit,” the indictment states, “including the purchase of expensive jewelry.”

While Roberson is apologetic and regrets the pain he caused Wedwaldt, his lawyers state in the memo, his “mistakes and poor decisions” have also caused him and his family financial difficulties and cost him his marriage.

Roberson had a strong relationship with his father, who died in 2016, according to his lawyers. He has “always been a loving and attentive father” and he wants to have the same type of relationship with his children as he had with his father.

He hopes to develop a relationship with his first daughter, who he gave up to adoption. He is trying to support his second daughter, who struggles with drug addiction. His third wife has filed for divorce and for sole custody of their two girls and a boy, all under age 10.

Assistant federal prosecutors Jeffrey C. Coffman and James F. McMahon recommended a tougher sentence: 27 to 33 months in prison, restitution and a fine of up to $100,000.

“The defendant’s fraud … resulted in real harm to a real person,” they state in their sentencing memorandum.

Wedwaldt had invested half of his retirement savings. Now 66, he has moved to another state, where the cost of living is lower, and taken a job as an airplane mechanic.

The prosecutors noted that Roberson had failed to file a financial affidavit with the probation office, and after his arrest in 2018 he cashed four checks totaling $68,356.

“His conduct suggests that he is attempting to conceal assets,” according to the prosecutors, “perhaps in an effort to avoid being made to pay restitution to his victim, who has suffered substantial financial harm.

“This conduct also reflects on the defendant’s potential for rehabilitation and foretells how he will not adjust well to supervision.”

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Two Hudson Valley men who were arrested Wednesday believed they had been handling money from a health insurance fraud, according to a grand jury indictment filed this week.

Arnold Klein and Leon Klein, both of Monroe, were charged in White Plains federal court with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“In truth,” the indictment states, “the party from whom they agreed to launder these funds was a confidential source, who approached Arnold Klein and Leon Klein at the direction of law enforcement, seeking their assistance in laundering the proceeds of a purported health care fraud scheme.”

Both men pleaded not guilty in their initial appearances Dec. 11 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul E. Davison. They were released from custody on $250,000 personal recognizance bonds.

Their attorneys, Susan Rose Necheles and Steven Y. Yurowitz, did not respond to an email message asking for their clients’ side of the story.

From July 2016 to August 2017, according to the indictment, the confidential source gave four checks to Arnold Klein, ranging from $50,000 to $130,000, and described as proceeds of a health care fraud.

Arnold Klein had allegedly directed the source to write the checks on the source’s business account and make them payable to a nonprofit organization whose bank account Klein controlled. The nonprofit organization is not identified.

Arnold and Leon Klein allegedly agreed to launder $255,000 and then deposited the checks in the nonprofit’s account.

The Hudson Valley residents returned the money in a series of installment payments, in cash or checks from the nonprofit’s account, the indictment states, minus a commission fee.  In some instances, Arnold Klein gave the source charitable donation receipts on behalf of the nonprofit organization.

The government contends that the Kleins acted “with the intent to conceal and disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership and the control of property believed to be the proceeds of … unlawful activity.”

The indictment includes a forfeiture clause, seeking return of $255,000 or any property traceable to the money.

Assistant prosecutor Shiva H. Logarajah is handling the case.

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A former human resources officer at FujiFilm has pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny for stealing more than $400,000 from the company.

Maria Mecca, a resident of Greenwich, Connecticut, entered the guilty plea in Westchester County Court before Judge Michael Martinelli, according to a statement by Westchester County District Attorney Anthony A. Scarpino Jr. Martinelli ordered Mecca to be freed on bail and to make restitution. She is due back in court for sentencing on March 18, 2020.

Scarpino said that Mecca was working as a human resources officer for FujiFilm at its headquarters in Valhalla when she committed the larceny. The company offered its employees a benefit program called FujiFilm Achiever’s Points. The incentive program rewarded employees who demonstrated outstanding performance with points, which could be accumulated and eventually redeemed for gift cards.

Programs such as the one used by FujiFilm operate in a similar manner to frequent-flyer programs used by airlines and bonus-point programs by credit card companies in that accumulated points can be redeemed for items of value.

According to Scarpino, in her position as a human resources officer, Mecca had clearance to issue the benefit points to company employees. Over a 2½-month period, she issued 41,784,000 points to herself. The points had a value of $417,840, which she then used to buy gift cards for herself.

Mecca’s theft was discovered when monitors of the Achiever’s Portal system noticed that something suspicious was going on with Mecca’s account.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Gwen Galef, chief of the Economic Crimes Bureau in Scarpino’s office.

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Ability Beyond, a nonprofit provider of employment and residential services support to people with disabilities, reported that seven of its wheelchair accessible vans were vandalized outside of its office in Bethel.

The nonprofit, which has dual headquarters in Bethel and Chappaqua, said the vandalism occurred around midnight on Dec. 21. Thieves stole the catalytic converters from each vehicle’s engine, rendering them inoperable, and repairs cannot be made until after the holiday season. Ability Beyond uses the vehicles to transport clients to and from its occupational and recreational programs.

Thieves often target catalytic converters due to the precious metals – platinum and palladium – they contain. 

“As a nonprofit organization, any unexpected expense hurts, and having vans out of service during the busy holiday season has created a challenge for our transport team,” said Jane Davis, president and CEO of Ability Beyond. “We are shuffling schedules and vehicles to minimize the impact for the people we serve.”

The Bethel Police Department is analyzing security camera footage of the vandalism, but has yet to make any arrests. Ability Beyond has invited the public to make donations to cover the costs of the repairs.

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The feds are not buying William R. Grogg’s story that he can’t produce tax records from his publishing companies because the people who had them died.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman filed an indictment against Grogg on Jan. 15 in federal court in White Plains accusing him of willfully failing to turn over payroll taxes and corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the Internal Revenue Service.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Grogg, of Millbrook, responded in a brief telephone interview. “I haven’t gotten a copy of it. I haven’t been notified. I haven’t heard from the IRS for years. … I assumed it had all been taken care of.”

Grogg has owned, managed or controlled printing companies in and around Poughkeepsie since 1987, according to the indictment.

In 1994, the IRS assessed a $368,640 civil penalty against him for failing to collect, account for and pay employee payroll taxes at Hamilton Reproductions, where he was president. By 2014, the penalty had grown to more than $1 million.

In 2014, the IRS small business division opened an examination of Netpublications Inc. and MCA-Netpub Inc. In 2016, the case was referred to the criminal investigation office.

Grogg had hired a payroll company to calculate employees’ wages and taxes, including income taxes and Social Security and Medicare contributions.

The taxes were withheld from the paychecks, the government claims, but they were not payed to the IRS. Grogg, as the person responsible for paying the taxes, also did not file quarterly tax returns.

“Instead, Grogg spent the withheld payroll taxes … on personal and business expenses.”

The government claims he failed to turn over $843,984 in payroll taxes.

The IRS demanded corporate records for its investigation, but Grogg, according to the indictment, made several false statements in correspondence and in interviews.

He allegedly stated that records did not exist because his company had been in bankruptcy and that there were no payroll records for the years requested.

He purportedly told investigators that Netpublications and MCA were originally owned by a Canadian businessman, for whom he worked, and that he took over in 2014 or 2017. Business records that had been stored by an associate of the Canadian had been destroyed in a flood.

Grogg had claimed that the Canadian businessman died in 2017, according to the indictment, and the associate died “at an unspecified point in time.”

The Canadian and the associate were solely responsible for filing and paying MCA’s payroll taxes, in the government’s telling of Grogg’s story, and after the associate’s death no one has been responsible.

Grogg has also struggled with his personal finances, filing seven bankruptcy petitions from 2011 to 2019. The most recent is a Chapter 7 liquidation case filed last September, in which he declared $908,046 in assets and more than $3.9 million in liabilities.

The assets consist mostly of his home. The liabilities include nearly $1.4 million in taxes to the IRS and New York state.

Assistant prosecutor Benjamin A. Gianforti is in charge of the government’s criminal case.

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The Fairfield Police Department announced the arrest of Robert Mayer, the town’s former chief financial officer, for allegedly taking documents from the town hall on the day after he was fired.

Mayer, who had served as Fairfield’s CFO since 2012, was terminated from his job on Jan. 15 by the recently elected First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick. According to police, Mayer allegedly returned to Sullivan Independence Hall in the early morning hours of Jan. 16 and removed several files of municipal documents, including some related to the ongoing investigation of the “fill pile” controversy.

After an investigation resulted in an arrest warrant, Mayer surrendered at Fairfield Police Headquarters on Jan. 31 and was charged with third-degree burglary, third-degree larceny and tampering with evidence. Mayer was released on a $10,000 court-set bond and is scheduled to appear today in Bridgeport Superior Court. The Fairfield Police Department said Mayer’s case will be prosecuted at the chief state’s attorney’s office in Rocky Hill “due to the sensitive nature of this case.”

Prior to becoming Fairfield’s CFO, Mayer was chief of staff to Kupchick’s predecessor, Mike Tetreau. Earlier in his career, he was CEO of the health care company Health America and the CFO of Sierra Health Services.

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A White Plains businesswoman has been charged in an alleged bribery scheme that netted her company a $8.4 million contract for $891,000 in kickbacks.

Gabriela Bratkovics was arrested last month and charged in Manhattan federal court with conspiracy, honest services fraud, bank fraud and bribery.

Federal court documents do not disclose her hometown but she signed a confession of judgment that was filed in Westchester Supreme Court, pledging her White Plains house as security for a $1 million personal recognizance bond that enabled her release from custody.

Evan Brown and Richard Wong, whose hometowns were not disclosed, also were arrested and accused of the same crimes. They posted $500,000 bonds.

Bratkovics and Brown are co-founders of a unspecified temporary staffing company, where she was the chief executive officer, according to the criminal complaint, and he was the chief financial officer. She also controlled another temporary staffing company allegedly used in the scheme.

ENG InfoTech Corp., a staffing company in Fairfield, New Jersey has shown Bratkovics as its CFO and Brown as the CEO.

Wong worked for a large bank in Manhattan, according to the criminal complaint, where he was responsible for negotiating contracts and managing vendors.

In June 2013, the bank agreed to a master service agreement with a temporary staffing company. The deal was signed by Bratkovics.

After the services began, Wong allegedly began discussing kickbacks, and in December 2013 the payments allegedly began.

In 2015, he proposed a $250 per week per employee flat rate, according to the complaint.

“I think this is fair,” an email from Wong to Bratkovics states, “and we don’t need to haggle among friends … especially when you have more opportunities in the pipeline.”

Over five years, beginning in January 2014, Bratkovics and Brown allegedly paid Wong $891,000 in cash, checks and wire transfers. The staffing business received more than $8.4 million for its services.

Forty wire transfers were sent in Bratkovics’ name from her two companies, the government claims, to Wong’s personal bank accounts.

Bratkovics wanted Wong to set up a corporation for receiving the payments, according to the complaint.

“It takes five minutes,” she stated in a July 2018 email. “You told me last time it would be the last time. This is putting me in a really bad position, I think we are playing with fire. I would really appreciate it if this (is) truly the last time we are doing it this way.”

By then, the bank had notified Wong that he was being fired. But the bank continued to use the staffing company to December 2018, and Wong allegedly continued to receive kickbacks.

Katherine Reilly and Dina McLeod, assistant U.S. attorneys, are in charge of the prosecution.

Bratkovics is represented by Manhattan attorney Daniel J. Horwitz. He did not respond to an email asking for his client’s side of the story.

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Former employees of New Rochelle Hyundai allegedly used their positions as insiders to steal $700,000 from a bank and $500,000 from the dealership.

James Castellano, 52, who was the office manager, and Israel Viloria, 39, who was the used car manager, have been accused of grand larceny and a scheme to defraud, according to a press release from Westchester County District Attorney Anthony A. Scarpino Jr.  Castellano was also accused of tax fraud and falsifying business records.

The details resemble charges made in a 2018 lawsuit filed by an insurance company, but in that case the dealership’s controller, office clerk and DMV clerk also were implicated.

The alleged criminal scheme ran from September 2016 to July 2017. Castellano and Viloria allegedly sold vehicles owned by New Rochelle Hyundai and pocketed the proceeds. The sales were made through Global Auto Sales, a dealership owned in part by Viloria.

They disguised the scheme, according to the press release, by listing vehicles that New Rochelle Hyundai did not own in the dealership’s records, thus enabling JPMorgan Chase to make funds available to buy the vehicles.

“The cash flow into New Rochelle Hyundai accounts,” the press release states, “helped cover up the actual theft of vehicles which Viloria and Castellano were selling on the side.”

The district attorney also accused Castellano of depositing about $300,000 in his personal bank account in checks that were payable to the dealership. He also was charged with failing to pay taxes on the money.

The insurance lawsuit covers the period from September 2016 to June 2017.

Two years ago, the dealership submitted a $155,346 insurance claim for employee theft caused by five employees. Federal Insurance Co. of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, reimbursed the dealership for $101,000.

Federal Insurance then sued the former employees in Westchester Supreme Court to get the money back.

The lawsuit identifies Viloria as Israel Viloria-Martinez of New Rochelle. The other defendants are Castellano, of Valley Stream; Monique Nicole Williams, the office clerk from New York City, Leonard Flocco, the controller from Patterson, and Viviana Bayas, the DMV clerk from East Elmhurst.

Federal claims that the insiders used their positions with the dealership to buy vehicles using funds from New Rochelle Hyundai, sold the vehicles and kept the proceeds.

The court docket lists no responses from the former employees and no resolution of the case.

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The owner of a Bridgeport tax preparation service who faced federal charges of preparing fraudulent returns for her clients has waived her right to indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and assisting the filing of a false tax return.

Veronica Huitzil, the owner of Huitzil Tax Services, was accused of putting together tax returns between 2014 and 2018 that contained multiple intentional falsehoods, including nonexistent dependents, losses for fictitious businesses and inflated or fabricated charitable deductions, medical expenses and employee business expenses. With her guilty plea, Huitzil agreed that her actions resulted in a fraud totaling $898,665.

Huitzil faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison. She is released pending sentencing on May 6. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Connecticut noted that many of her clients will need to amend their filed tax returns, adding that the amount of Huitzil’s restitution may be reduced as her clients resolve their own tax liability with the Internal Revenue Service.

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Steven L. Henning, a former accountant from Stamford who had forged stellar academic and business credentials, has been sentenced to federal prison for more than four years for operating a $2 million intellectual property fraud in Westchester County.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel sentenced Henning on Jan. 30 to 51 months in prison and three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay back $938,246 to his victims.

His attorney, Michael K. Burke, had recommended one year and a day in prison, arguing in a sentencing memo that his client’s “conduct reflects an aberration in his otherwise distinguished career.”

Assistant federal prosecutor Margery B. Feinzig called for up to five years and three  months in prison.

“He deliberately chose to use his intelligence, education and career success to exploit, manipulate and defraud,” she wrote in a sentencing memo.

Henning has a doctorate in accounting and economics, an MBA in general management and a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance.

He was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado and Southern Methodist University.He also served as an academic fellow for the chief accountant of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

He was a partner-in-charge of a litigation group at Marks Paneth Accountants & Advisors in Manhattan, specialized in anti-fraud and forensic accounting services and served on the executive committee.

In 2008, while working for the accounting firm, he formed an intellectual property business that eventually became known as OpportunIP, with offices in Tarrytown and Purchase.

From 2012 to 2017, according to court records, he persuaded two people to invest $2 million in the company. He used phony licensing agreements for deals that did not exist and fabricated bank account statements purporting to show more than $2.5 million in assets he did not have.

In 2017, Marks Paneth placed him on administrative leave and began an internal investigation.

Henning moved on to Global Economics, an accounting firm in Chicago where, the prosecution says, he “continued his charade.”

He convinced the firm to hire him for $240,000 in draw payments, by claiming to have a pipeline of $2 million in billable revenue and imminent commitments for another $2 million. The documents that backed his claims were fraudulent and forged.

Burke argued that Henning did not benefit from his conduct at OpportunIP. He invested nearly $384,000 of his own money, he took no salary and he has paid back $900,000 to one of the investors. When the company was failing, he “made very poor decisions and created documents to try and show that the deals were further along.”

Though he got $240,000 in salary from Global Economics, he had only represented business leads as “more developed and further along in the process than they were.”

Henning violated the law, Burke stated, “but he should not be judged solely by his worst moments and conduct. His life is so much more than that, and full of good.”

He is a devoted family man. He is active in church and was engaged in service projects in low-income neighborhoods. He had never been professionally disciplined and he has no prior criminal record. He was committed to his work at Marks Paneth, “until OpportunIP unraveled.”

A long prison term, Burke argued, would not protect the public from further crime.

“As for deterrence,” he stated, “conviction has ended his career,” he has lost his CPA license and he has millions of dollars in court judgments against him.

Feinzig argued that Henning’s conduct was not a temporary lapse in judgment or an aberration.

He lied “nearly daily” for five years, during the OpportunIP scheme. The fraud was difficult to detect because of his “stature, demeanor, intelligence and knowledge of accounting.”

One of his victims was a former student he had mentored. The other victim is a lawyer with training in identifying fraud who described Henning as “cerebral and recognized as an expert in his field of accounting,” who could fool even sophisticated investors and lie in compelling detail.

“Henning had every opportunity to lead a successful, law-abiding life,” Feinzig stated, “but instead he deliberately chose to use his intelligence, education and career success to exploit, manipulate and defraud.”

Moreover, she stated, Henning manipulated “the very people who trusted him, were most likely to believe him and were not likely to question him.”

Nothing in the record, she said, reflects that Henning has reckoned with his conduct or is sorry for his actions.

Seibel ordered Henning to surrender to the federal Bureau of Prisons on March 23.

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The threat of being kidnapped while overseas is a genuine concern for many U.S. business professionals and travelers.

Last year, the U.S. State Department released a list of 35 countries where American citizens run the greatest risk of being kidnapped, with countries including Haiti, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey being among the places where Americans are advised to proceed with caution, if at all.

While most people would prefer never to undergo the physical and emotional trauma of being abducted and imprisoned for ransom, there are some who are willing to pay to experience the situation in order to be prepared on how to react to this type of assault. Many business professionals have consulted with Adam Thick, whose company Extreme Kidnapping provides the kidnapping experience along with critiques on how the abducted subject can respond to being taken.

Thick began his service in 2002 as a service for thrill seekers who were curious about what it is like to be kidnapped. Over the years, he generated U.S. and European media attention for this unlikely entertainment.

“Some people do it for a new and novel experience,” Thick said. “Others do it for the adrenaline rush. Some do it for the same reason one goes to a haunted house: you want to be scared. And some people like the loss of control.”

Of course, most people are not eager to lose control of their freedom, and Thick noticed some of his clients weren’t entirely getting abducted for fun.

“Over those years I noticed occasional clients that talked about kidnapping prevention, traveling abroad, and asking me about kidnapping and ransom insurance,” he continued. “I would tweak their kidnappings to accommodate them, with an eye to threat assessment, prevention and risk management.”

In 2009, Thick expanded Extreme Kidnapping’s services to focus on business professionals traveling abroad. Today, approximately one-third of his operations focus on this client base and he has consulted with individuals and companies in New York and Connecticut who send their workforces into countries where personal safety is not always guaranteed.

When Thick and his crew are engaged by a business professional to conduct a kidnapping, it begins with the subject being grabbed from a public place and taken to a location where they will be held for up to 24 hours. The faux kidnappings either take place near Thick’s corporate headquarters outside of Alexandria, Louisiana, or he can bring his team to any location across the country. But unlike the entertainment kidnappings that race nonstop, the business version includes pauses while Thick evaluates the subject’s reaction to what is taking place.

“Some typical responses are being very tense and forgetting to breathe,” he said. “We can tell if someone is too tense and not breathing and we will try to calm them down a bit and remind them to breathe. This is usually during the initial kidnapping, at the point of contact and the time period immediately after. Once they are restrained and in captivity, I wouldn’t say there is a typical response — people vary, and their approach to the situation varies as well.”

Thick pointed out there are basic reactions for a kidnap victim during captivity.

“One thing you don’t want to do is try to fight back during the kidnapping,” he continued. “This is a mistake. In real life, it can get you seriously injured or killed. Once you have been kidnapped, you also don’t want to antagonize your kidnappers — talking back, spitting, resisting and not following orders will all result in negative consequences. Things you see in the movies are not what you want to emulate when it comes to kidnapping. In real life, situational awareness is paramount.”

To avoid kidnapping, Thick stressed the practice of situational awareness with all senses being on alert while abroad.

“Too many people are buried in their smartphones and actually walk into glass doors, so it’s no wonder kidnappers are so successful,” he quipped.

He also warned against calling attention to oneself, especially where a designer suit or expensive wristwatch would give the impression of being a wealthy American. He also urged arranging for transportation and cautioned against jumping into taxis, observing that “you never know who the driver works for or if he gets extra ‘commissions’ for delivering unsuspecting tourists or travelers to kidnappers.”

Another measure Thick recommended was purchasing a handcuff key and concealing it on one’s person, thus offering a possible chance to escape if handcuffed. Extreme Kidnapping offers corporate workshops on escaping captivity, and he was adamant that this skillset could not be absorbed from YouTube videos.

“Watching it and doing it are two different things,” he said. “Many people think that watching the video equates to being able to actually do it in real life. Until you try it, and succeed, you don’t know what you are doing. It’s good to know the theory, but you have to physically put it into practice and the various restraints one can encounter in a kidnapping will take practice to get out of.”

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Harrison trash hauler Ralph Mancini has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court for bilking customers out of more than $800,000.

Mancini, 57, admitted in a Nov. 13 change-of-plea hearing that he overbilled 17 customers from 2008 to 2016, according to a news release from U.S. District Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman.

Berman said invoices fabricated the tonnage of the collected waste and thereby charged customers for collection and dumping services that had not been performed, as owner and operator of County Waste Management.

Berman did not identify the victims, but said they included educational institutions, department stores and grocery stores.

Mancini formed County Waste Management in 2000. The trash hauling company serves Westchester and Putnam counties in New York and Fairfield County in Connecticut. It is based in his house in Harrison, and the trucks are kept at a used car lot in Bedford Hills.

Mancini is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 14 by U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Roman.

Berman praised the FBI investigative work and cited assistance from the Westchester County Department of Public Safety and the Westchester County Solid Waste Commission.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Loss is handling the prosecution. Mancini is represented by White Plains attorneys Marc S. Oxman and Kerry A. Lawrence.

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The mastermind of a phony mortgage debt relief scheme who ran a make-believe foundation in Valhalla was sentenced Feb. 28 to 11 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Roman also sentenced Jacqueline Graham, 54, to five years of supervised release and ordered her to repay $694,450 to her victims and to forfeit $138,942 in ill-gotten gains.

“As the overwhelming trial evidence demonstrated,” prosecutors state in a sentencing memorandum, “Graham was the mastermind behind a highly complex and sophisticated, massive, years-long national fraudulent scheme.”

The prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of nearly 22 years to more than 27 years. Graham’s attorneys recommended one year and a day.

The mortgage scheme was based in Valhalla at an organization originally called the Pillow Foundation and later as the Terra Foundation. But it was not an official tax-exempt organization.

Graham and other conspirators offered to reduce or eliminate homeowners’ mortgage debts, in exchange for monthly fees for various services.

From 2011 to 2012, they filed more than 60 mortgage discharge papers with county clerks, on $38 million in loans, making it appear as if their clients had paid their debts. The documents were false, the deception was discovered, the mortgages were reinstated and the clients had to pay substantial fees.

Her co-conspirators pleaded guilty to wire and bank fraud charges. Anthony Vigna, an attorney from Thornwood, was previously sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Bruce Lewis, formerly of Alaska and Washington state, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

John Ruzza of Mahopac, Rocco Cermele of Yonkers, and Paula Guadagno of Verplank have not been sentenced.

Graham was the only one to contest the charges, and last June a federal jury in White Plains found her guilty.

One of Graham’s victims is battling three types of cancer, lost the family home and paid out $25,000 in fees, assistant prosecutors David R. Felton, Michael D. Maimin and James McMahon stated in their sentencing memo.

Graham advised the woman to declare bankruptcy and “promised her that she would save so much money that she would be able to wear Armani shirts,” according to the sentencing memo. After the woman was evicted and her credit rating plummeted, Graham extracted more fees for bogus credit restoration services.

She defrauded a military veteran who works as a florist and landscaper out of $501,100.

Graham’s attorneys – Bruce D. Koffsky of Stamford and Peter J. Schaffer of the Bronx – depict her as the product of a broken home and two physically abusive marriages. Despite the history of domestic violence, she found a good partner for her third marriage and raised four children and cared for a grandson.

She has numerous medical ailments. She has no previous criminal history. She was recruited to the Terra Foundation by co-defendant Bruce Lewis, when her own property was in foreclosure.

The picture that emerges from support letters submitted to the court, her attorneys state, “is of someone who is committed to family, friends, and those less fortunate; a conscientious parent, a hard worker and a portrait strikingly at odds with the image of a participant in this conspiracy.”

They argue that her role was “virtually indistinguishable from that of her co-defendants,” and they recommended the same sentence that Vigna got — a year and day.

But Graham was more culpable than her partners, according to the prosecutors, because she personally befriended and defrauded at least one victim; she controlled Terra’s bank accounts; she instituted the policy of charging victims for fraudulent services; she tried to conceal her role by demanding that her name be removed from key documents; she hid some of her ill-gotten gains in Germany; and she alone refused to accept responsibility for her conduct.

“Graham,” the prosecutors stated, “was at the very top of the Terra fraud.”

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It was a foregone conclusion last year, when Guy T. Parisi pleaded guilty to mail fraud, that he would lose his law license.

Now a panel of five Second Appellate Court justices has formally disbarred the once-prominent Westchester lawyer and struck his name from the roll of attorneys allowed to practice their profession in New York.

Parisi clearly saw the consequences of his actions during his sentencing last May.

“My life as a lawyer and a counselor, which I cherished and worked so hard to maintain for over 47 years, is now gone,” he told U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas.

Parisi, of Rye, had served for many years as counsel to the Westchester County legislature and for the county Republican Party.

In 2017, Alfred Mallard Jr. hired Parisi to take over as administrator of the estate of his father, who had died in 2000. The previous administrator had embezzled $1.4 million from the estate, and stocks worth about $6 million were being held by the state comptroller as unclaimed funds.

Parisi created an asset recovery company and then used his position as estate administrator to hire the company, without informing Mallard, to get the assets back. The scheme enabled him to charge a fee that was far greater than what he was entitled to as estate administrator.

He could have pocketed from $550,000 to $1.5 million, according to court documents, but the comptroller’s office discovered the deception before Parisi could cash in.

His attorneys had recommended no jail time, arguing that the swindle was an “extreme aberration in an otherwise honorable and law-abiding life.”

Parisi was suffering from several serious diseases, including prostate cancer, cardiac conduction disorder and hypertension, attorney James Walden noted at the sentencing hearing.

“He’s been disgraced,” Walden said. “He will lose his law license. He’s losing his livelihood. He can never practice law again.”

But James McMahon, an assistant prosecutor, discounted the “collateral consequences” argument.

“Practicing law is a privilege,” McMahon told the court. “It is not something that you lose as a punishment. You lose it because you have shown that you no longer deserve to have that privilege.

“And I think the same thing is true with respect to reputation in the community. One can earn a positive reputation,” he stated, “but if one no longer deserves to have it, one loses it. That’s not punishment.”

Karas rejected the prosecution’s recommendation for up to 41 months in prison as too much, particularly given Parisi’s health.

He also found that punishment would not act as a “specific deterrence” to preventing Parisi from carrying out another scheme.

But he agreed with McMahon’s rebuttal.

Lawyers already know that if they break the law they will lose their privilege to practice law, Karas said. That collateral damage should not be given much weight in the sentencing.

“My concern,” Karas said, “is general deterrence. My concern is this notion that society looks to lawyers to be the one group of people who won’t defraud the client.”

Karas said lawyers need to understand “that saying I’m going to lose my law license, that’s not enough of a punishment.”

Karas sentenced Parisi, 72, to six months in prison and two years of supervised release.

Parisi did not oppose a motion by a state court grievance committee to strike his name from the roll of attorneys. Instead, the appellate judges noted, he submitted an application to resign as an attorney, attesting “that he could not successfully defend against the charges of professional misconduct stemming from his plea of guilty.”

On Feb. 26, the appellate court formally disbarred him.

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A Chappaqua businessman allegedly used $1.5 million from family businesses to underwrite a lavish lifestyle and evade nearly $400,000 in federal income taxes.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman accused Antonio Nikc of tax evasion in a court filing March 3 in federal court in White Plains.

Nikc “ran these businesses and managed his personal finances in a manner designed to conceal his sources of income and prevent the IRS from calculating or assessing his tax due,” the government claims.

The family companies operate large rental buildings in New York and Connecticut, including Southwood Gardens LLC, Waterbury Ridgegate LLC and Nikac Enterprises (using a different spelling of the family’s surname).

The businesses are based at Prospect Towers apartment building in Waterbury, Connecticut.

The feds claim that Nikc treated the businesses’ bank accounts as personal accounts, to pay for oceanside condominiums in Miami, marina fees for a boat docked in Miami, airline tickets, luxury car payments, college tuition for his children, jewelry, clothing and restaurants.

He allegedly failed to file income tax returns for 2010 through 2014 and paid no income taxes for those years. As he was using business funds to pay personal expenses, the government alleges, he concealed income by not maintaining assets in his own name.

The government claims he should have paid $395,745 in federal income taxes over the five-year period.

Nikc pleaded guilty at his arraignment. Magistrate Judge Lisa M. Smith released him on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond and ordered him to continue with mental health treatment, as a condition of release.

Nikc’s attorney, David A. Ring of New Haven, declined to discuss the case.

In 1996, Nikc was tragically enmeshed in an Albanian blood feud.

Nikc witnessed his pregnant wife, Rigaletta Nikc, 31, and his father, Marc Nikac, 58, killed by Nikc’s cousin, Gjelosh Rukaj, in the driveway of the family’s Chappaqua home.

Rigaletta Nikc and Rukaj had been lovers, according to news accounts, and in 1991 she gave birth to their daughter. They agreed to keep the child’s paternity a secret, but in 1996 Rukaj filed a paternity suit.

Antonio, who was in the driveway during the shooting, managed to get inside the house unscathed. Rukaj was shot in the chest and drove himself to the New Castle police station to report the shooting.

Rukaj’s lawyer claimed that his client was lured to the home and ambushed because he had filed the paternity suit and dishonored the Nikcs.

Rukaj was found guilty of murder in 1998 and sentenced to prison for 20 years to life. He has been released from custody, according to a New York inmate record.

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A Caribbean bank is suing Mastercard for $1.5 million, claiming that the Purchase company improperly canceled a debit card license when the bank was indicted for money laundering.

Loyal Bank Limited, based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sued Mastercard International Inc. on March 11 in federal court in White Plains.

Despite its cooperation with the authorities and Mastercard, the complaint states, “Mastercard terminated Loyal Bank’s license in May 2018, thereby driving Loyal Bank straight into liquidation.”

Mastercard spokesman Seth Eisen responded that the company has just seen the filing and is reviewing it.

The electronic payment services company and the bank began working together in 1999, when Mastercard licensed Loyal Bank to issue cards under the Maestro brand. In 2007, Loyal Bank was authorized to issue branded debit cards using the Mastercard trademark.

In 2018, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn indicted Loyal Bank, Loyal Agency and Trust Corp., Adrian Baron and Linda Bullock on money laundering charges. An undercover agent had met with Baron and Bullock to set up bank accounts to hold money purportedly derived from stock manipulation schemes.

Mastercard quickly terminated Loyal Bank’s license and seized $1,511,959 from an escrow account to satisfy the termination fee.

Loyal Bank argues that indictments do not allege that the bank was aware of criminal activity by Baron or Bullock, who are described only as “officers,” or that it condoned their behavior or engaged in any transactions with “real customers” that violated U.S. law.

Mastercard is not mentioned in the indictment.

“Therefore, the allegations in the indictments did not damage or threaten to damage the goodwill or reputation of Mastercard,” the Loyal Bank complaint states. “The unproven allegations against Loyal Bank contained in the indictments did not provide a good faith basis for Mastercard to suspend the license agreement.”

But Baron and Bullock were not just any bank officers. Bullock was Loyal Bank’s CEO and previously the head of compliance, according to a superseding indictment. Baron, who worked from offices in Budapest, Hungary and the Caribbean, was the bank’s chief business officer and previously the CEO. Both were directors of Loyal Agency.

The undercover agent’s meetings with Baron and Bullock were recorded. He allegedly told them that he needed to conceal, from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the IRS, his ownership of company stock.

The agent emphasized that he needed the bank’s debit card service, according to the superseding indictment, “to provide kickbacks to U.S.-based brokers as part of his stock manipulation deals.”

The agent bought six off-shore companies from Loyal Agency and opened corporate accounts for each entity at Loyal Bank. Then the bank allegedly shipped 11 debit cards to another undercover agent in Belize who was posing as an associate of the lead agent.

Baron pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States. He was fined $25,000 and sentenced to time served for a period he spent in custody in Hungary before he was extradited.

His conviction was the first ever under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 law that was enacted to prevent U.S. taxpayers from using foreign accounts to evade taxes.

Charges against Bullock, Loyal Bank and Loyal Agency are pending.

Loyal Bank is represented in the Mastercard lawsuit by Manhattan attorneys Michael Tremonte, Robert Knuts and Heather Y. Han.

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IBM has teamed with the Irish company Fenergo on an original equipment manufacturing  agreement focused on financial crime risks.

According to the companies, the new endeavor will combine Fenergo’s client lifecycle management product with IBM’s RegTech portfolio of anti-money laundering and know-your-client solutions. The result is a new artificial intelligence application suite that will address risk and compliance issues while helping to repel digitally-borne financial criminals.

The companies noted that more than $10 billion in global fines were levied on companies and financial institutions last year for failing to comply with anti-money laundering, know-your-client and sanctions regulations.

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Lewisboro Town Justice Marc A. Seedorf has pleaded guilty to tax evasion for failure to pay $160,000.

Seedorf did not file tax returns for 11 years, from 2005 to 2015, according to the criminal information, concealed income from a lawsuit settlement and from a private law practice, and at one point had amassed $487,000 in tax liabilities.

Seedorf orchestrated a scheme from 2009 to 2019, the criminal information states, to evade paying taxes “largely by failing to file personal income tax returns, ignoring the IRS’ repeated requests for documents and records, and taking steps to conceal the existence of … assets.”

Seedorf, of South Salem, has served as town justice since 1998. He worked as a prosecutor for the Bronx district attorney after graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1981, and has maintained a private law practice for 33 years.

He formed a solo practice in the Bronx in 2012. Then from 2013 through 2015 he did not report his income, according to the criminal information.

He also failed to report more than $1.5 million from a 2012 lawsuit settlement. The criminal information does not identify the case, but Westchester Supreme Court records show a $2.8 million award in a medical malpractice settlement that year, in the death of his wife, Donna. The award included legal fees and payments to his three children.

Seedorf asked the law firm that represented him to deposit his portion of the settlement in the firm’s attorney trust account, according to the criminal information, “as part of his effort to conceal the funds from the IRS.”

Then he instructed the firm to transfer most of the funds to his own firm’s accounts and to his brother-in-law, but not to his personal bank account.

He put some of the money in his investment account, made mortgage payments on a home that was facing foreclosure and paid down $357,100 of his federal tax liability.

He told an IRS revenue agent who had begun an audit in 2014 that he had borrowed money from his law firm’s escrow account to pay the taxes. He did not disclose the lawsuit settlement.

He never provided records that the IRS demanded for an audit, the criminal information states, and he did not respond to mail, telephone and email messages from the agency.

In pleading guilty to one count of tax evasion, Seedorf faces up to five years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 24 by U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel in White Plains federal court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Coffman is in charge of the prosecution.

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