Defendant Received More Than $700,000 From Criminal
Activities
WASHINGTON
– John T. Fitzgerald, a former vice president of the Washington, D.C. office of
an investment banking firm, was sentenced today to two years in prison on
federal charges stemming from a scheme in which he accepted kickbacks for
construction management contracts he steered to another firm, as well as other
fraudulent activities.
The
announcement was made by Alessio Evangelista, Acting U.S. Attorney in this
case, Andrew W. Vale, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington
Field Office, and Kimberly Lappin, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal
Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation’s (IRS-CI) Washington, D.C. Field
Office.
Fitzgerald, 48, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty in December 2017, in
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to charges of wire fraud
and tax evasion. He was sentenced by the Honorable Amy Berman Jackson.
Following his prison term, Fitzgerald will be placed on three years of supervised
release. During that time, he will be required to perform 500 hours of
community service. Additionally, the judge ordered Fitzgerald to pay $713,806
in restitution, representing his share of proceeds from the scheme, and an
identical amount in a forfeiture money judgement. He also has agreed to pay
$114,411 in taxes to the IRS.
A
co-defendant, Bryan D. Wright, 55, of Laytonsville, Md., pled guilty in
February 2016 to one count of conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and one count
of conspiracy to engage in money laundering. He is to be sentenced on April 10,
2018.
In his
guilty plea, Fitzgerald acknowledged that he began work at the investment
banking firm in 2008 and oversaw its real estate development activities and
investments. His responsibilities included oversight of a commercial
development project in Hanover, Md., known as the Station Ridge development
project. The investment banking firm was the managing investor-owner of the
project, which ultimately included three buildings for use as offices by
various tenants.
In or
around mid-2011, Fitzgerald admitted, he began to invoice the general
contractor on Station Ridge through a company Fitzgerald owned and thereby
obtained roughly $41,000 for himself on the project.
Later in
2011, Fitzgerald installed Wright as construction manager on Station Ridge, and
the two agreed to an invoicing and kickback scheme that lasted into 2013.
Wright was president of P&E Services, LLC. Between 2011 and 2013, through
their scheme, Wright and Fitzgerald took $769,000 from the investment banking
firm employing Fitzgerald and another $417,000 from the general contracting
company (which was reimbursed by the investment banking firm). Wright, through
P&E and other companies, paid Fitzgerald nearly $600,000 in proceeds from
the Station Ridge project, roughly half of the total amount that P&E
Services obtained.
In a
related scheme involving purported projects on the Bridgewater office building
in Fairfax, Va., which was another development project of the investment
banking firm, Wright and Fitzgerald submitted invoices for work that was not
completed, and obtained additional money from Fitzgerald’s employer. Once again, Fitzgerald and Wright split the
proceeds between them, with Fitzgerald receiving approximately $70,000.
In his
guilty plea, Fitzgerald admitted that the total loss to his employer as a
result of his conduct on these projects was over $1.3 million, and his share of
the illegal proceeds was $713,806. The tax charges stem from Fitzgerald’s
failure to report the income in calendar years 2012 and 2013.
In
announcing the sentence, Acting U.S. Attorney Evangelista, Assistant Director
in Charge Vale, and Special Agent in Charge Lappin commended the work of those
who investigated the case from the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the
Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. They acknowledged the work of
those who handled the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including former Assistant
U.S. Attorney David A. Last, Paralegal Specialists Tasha Harris, Aisha Keys,
and C. Rosalind Pressley; Legal Assistants Angela Lawrence and John Lowell, and
Litigation Technology Specialist Ron Royal. Finally, they acknowledged the work
of Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Marston, Kendra D. Briggs, and Zia Faruqui,
who investigated and prosecuted the case.
No comments:
Post a Comment