Posted on 08/20/2015 11:17:31 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Federal authorities indicted the former president of a Florida teachers’ union on fraud charges on Thursday, even as he faces additional charges in his home state over allegedly illegal campaign contributions to Hillary Clinton.
The Justice Department charged former Broward Teachers Union (BTU) president Patrick Santeramo with two counts of mail fraud for his alleged role in embezzling more than $35,000 in payments from a local school district.
“It is alleged that after the BTU received the $80,000 payment from the School Board of Broward County, Santeramo authorized payments from the [union’s] Accountability Program account for himself and at least one other employee of the BTU to which they were not entitled,” DOJ said in a press release announcing the indictment.
Those funds were supposed to go toward training programs and leave time for teachers working on “accountability projects,” DOJ said. Instead, Santeramo pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in payments from Broward schools.
As he faces those charges, Santeramo is also awaiting trial in Broward County on 20 criminal counts, including racketeering, grand theft, fraud, money laundering, and charges involving illegal campaign contributions.
The latter involves alleged schemes to illegally direct tens of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, among other political efforts.
According to Florida authorities, Santeramo approached BTU colleagues beginning in 2007 asking them and their family members to contribute to Clinton’s campaign and that of then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink.
“Fraudulent reimbursements were used to conceal and launder these contributions by disguising them in the BTU books and records using false account classification designations such as: ‘miscellaneous expense, building expense, organizing, staff training, new education program, office supplies, lobbying, communications, negotiation and bargaining, other committees, steward training and special events,’” according to the criminal complaint against Santeramo.
Authorities charge that 26 individuals were involved in the scheme, which also involved contributions to the 2010 campaign of Broward County School Board member Nora Rupert.
Santeramo also allegedly used BTU’s operating account to reimburse members for contributions to the union’s political action committee, effectively concealing political donations as business expenses. “The total amounts of these political contributions were sent” to the national American Federation of Teachers union, according to the indictment.
Santeramo’s trial on those and other Florida charges is scheduled to begin in October.
What did Hillary know and when did she know it?
Better question- will she be forced to return the ill gotten donations- or will she donate to a charity of her choosing- perhaps the Clinton Foundation.
That is one helluva statute of limitations
Don’t they have Dinesh D’Souza in re-education for doing something like this?
They mentioned mail fraud counts, violations of Title 18, USC, Section 1341.
My guess is the scheme to defraud is a long story and the indictment included mailing counts for activity within the five year limit.
As long as the scheme continued over a period of time, the earlier acts are included (jury appeal), but the actual felony counts would have been the later mailings. - Example as follows.
In furtherance of this scheme, Joe Blow, on or about July 5, 2010, caused to be delivered via the US mail, within the central district of Florida, a letter (lots of detail here describing the letter), all in violation of 18 USC 1341.
As long as the indictment is filed prior to July 2015, the statute of limitations does not kick in.
That is how the prosecutor can go back beyond the statute of limitations to describe the scheme. The parallel statute is 18 USC 1343, Wire Fraud, used for money transfers and electronic communication to further the scheme. Those older fraudulent acts are part of the scheme. That is why Mail Fraud and Wire Fraud are such powerful weapons to use against Schemers.
Fraud itself has five elements - An Intentional, Misrepresentation of a Material Fact, upon which a person placed Reliance, resulting in Damages.
With Mail fraud there are only two elements, A scheme or artifice to defraud and mailings.
Lots of money has moved in the last five years. A green light to Dept. of Justice could change a lot of lives.
The same Miami media that EVERY DAY reported on Enron executive Ken Lay's "friendship" with George W Bush.
got hypocrisy?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.