Free Republic

Former ACORN bigwig Dale Rathke racked up a $157,000 American Express bill that he couldn't repay around the time he was caught embezzling from the group founded by his brother Wade, The Post has learned. Rathke was a big spender with multiple credit cards who rang up purchases at luxury shops, traveled by limo and frequented five-star hotels and restaurants, court papers show. American Express filed a claim against Rathke in 2003 in Louisiana civil district court. Among the court papers is a partial credit history that indicates Rathke had several different cards from different companies. He used them to...

WILKES-BARRE – A bookkeeper for an organization that raises money for cerebral palsy victims has been charged with embezzling more than $100,000 from the organization over a 10-year period. Ann Patricia Hudanick, 58, of Matson Avenue, Wilkes-Barre, was arraigned this morning before District Judge William Amesbury on a charge of theft by unlawful taking. She was released on $25,000 unsecured bail. According to an arrest affidavit, Hudanick worked for Creating Unlimited Possibilities, formerly known as United Cerebral Palsy of Luzerne County. She admitted she stole the money to feed an addiction to bingo, which she played at least five times...

Baltimore, Nov 11, 2008 (CNA).- The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has not yet been able to determine if grants made to ACORN were used for fraudulent voter registration, but has cut off all funding to the community organizing group, Bishop Robert Morin announced on Tuesday. Shortly after addressing the full assembly of U.S. Catholic bishops, Bishop Morin spoke to reporters about what the bishops had learned concerning the use of grants from the CCHD to the group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which is currently under investigation in 13 states for voter fraud. CCHD originally...

The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced that MILAGROS RODRIGUEZ pleaded guilty yesterday in White Plains federal court to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from customer accounts at Hudson City Savings Bank. According to the Information to which RODRIGUEZ pleaded guilty, statements made during the plea proceeding, and other documents publicly filed in the case: From approximately April 2002 through March 2009, RODRIGUEZ, who was employed as a teller and later as a branch...

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that BRIAN H. MADDEN was indicted today on charges that he misappropriated and embezzled over $4.7 million of escrow, client, and other operating funds from three title insurance agencies that he controlled and operated in New York. The three-count Indictment returned today by the Grand Jury adds a money laundering charge to the wire fraud and insurance fraud charges for which MADDEN was previously charged in a Complaint and arrested on May 19, 2009. According to the Indictment filed today in Manhattan federal court and the...

SAVANNAH, GA—Edmund A. Booth, Jr., United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, announced today the return of a seventy-seven count indictment by the federal grand jury against Savannah attorney Benjamin Sheftall Eichholz, age 58, charging an alleged scheme to embezzle more than $950,000 from employee pension benefit plans established to provide retirement benefits to present and former employees of the Eichholz Law Firm. The charges against Eichholz include Embezzlement from Employee Pension Benefit Plans in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 664; Money Laundering in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1957; Mail Fraud...

The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systematic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate. Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN...

CHICAGO, IL—The co-owner and president of a Chicago-based company that invested union pension funds was charged in an information filed by the United States Attorney's Office with allegedly embezzling approximately $24 million. The information alleges that, between approximately 2002 and September 2006, John A. Orecchio stole the funds while acting as the investment manager at his firm, AA Capital Partners, formerly located 10 S. LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois. Orecchio, 43, formerly of Arlington Heights, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of embezzling funds owned by an employee pension benefit plan in an information that was...

ATLANTA, GA—PAMELA D. JONES, 36, of Tucker, Georgia, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Orinda D. Evans to serve 18 months in federal prison on charges that she embezzled more than $139,000 from ServeHAITI, a charitable organization that receives federal funds. United States Attorney David E. Nahmias said, “This defendant was the Assistant Treasurer for ServeHAITI, a charitable organization that provides medical, financial, and other assistance to impoverished areas in Haiti. Abusing her position, she embezzled more than $139,000 and used the money for her own selfish purposes, depriving the needy people who were intended to benefit. Stealing...

PHOENIX, AZ—Based on an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Globe woman was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday afternoon for allegedly embezzling approximately $1.18 million from a Gila County credit union. Marlene Aguilera Pena, 45, has been charged with 25 counts of embezzlement from the now defunct Marian Miami Federal Credit Union, of Miami, Ariz. Pena was hired by the credit union in 1994 and became its manager in 2000. The indictment alleges that beginning in January 2001, through at least December 2006, Pena operated a scheme to defraud the credit union. The indictment goes on...

There’s been an enormous amount of speculation from all corners as the the motivation behind Sarah Palin’s resignation as Governor of Alaska. The speculation has covered the full spectrum from the leftist talking points that she can’t take political heat to her supporters declaring that she’s preparing for national office. Her detractors have pretty much stayed on message, repeating over and over again that she’s weak, can’t take the heat and is deserting her post. However today a new twist has been revealed via Obama propagandist. The new twist is that the resignation came just before a Sarah Palin federal...

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK—Today, BRYAN ROSS BENTON, 24, and TYSON CHARLES MARTIN, 20, both of Stillwater, Oklahoma, have each been sentenced to ten months in federal prison for stealing money from a City National Bank branch in the Country Mart East Supermarket at 4510 Southeast Lee Boulevard in Lawton, announced John C. Richter, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. BENTON was sentenced on June 17; MARTIN was sentenced this morning. On May 27, 2009, a third defendant, TODD VINCENT RUDISILL, 22, of Lawton, was sentenced to 27 months in prison in connection with the theft and his embezzlement...

United States Attorney Julia C. Dudley announced today that Rebecca Dawn Long, age 36, of Jonesville, Virginia, was sentenced yesterday, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Big Stone Gap, to charges stemming from her embezzlement of $487,685.00 from The Peoples Bank in Lee County, Virginia. At the conclusion of today’s sentencing hearing, Chief United States District Judge James P. Jones rejected Long’s request for probation and sentenced her within the advisory guideline range to imprisonment for a term of 41 months. He also ordered her to make full restitution to the Peoples Bank....

MARSHALL, TX—U.S. Attorney John M. Bales announced today that a former bank official has pleaded guilty to embezzling funds in the Eastern District of Texas. TRACY CULP, 44, of Texarkana, TX, pleaded guilty to theft embezzlement by a bank employee today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Chad Everingham. According to information presented in court, from October 1, 2005 through June 6, 2007, during which time Culp was employed as the vice-president and branch manager of the Cass County Bank in Queen City, Texas, he devised a scheme to embezzle funds from the bank by creating fraudulent loans and diverting the proceeds...

BALTIMORE—U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz sentenced Donna L. Gatewood, age 43, of Baltimore, today to 15 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for embezzlement by a bank employee, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. Judge Motz also ordered Gatewood to pay restitution of $154,521.74. According to her guilty plea, Gatewood was employed as an accounting clerk at a bank from about October, 1998 until September, 2007 and was responsible for reconciling transactions in the bank’s general ledger and suspense accounts. In or before March of 2006, Gatewood discovered that...

SAN FRANCISCO—Alex Yan was sentenced yesterday to 27 months in prison and ordered to pay $235,695.31 in restitution for bank embezzlement, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced. Mr. Yan pleaded guilty on February 9, 2009. According to the plea agreement, Mr. Yan admitted to embezzling money while he was a Business Relationship Officer with United Commercial Bank. Mr. Yan agreed that he violated the trust of clients who typically dealt with him directly, in order to take money from their accounts without arousing much suspicion. Mr. Yan also agreed that he used other tactics to avoid detection, such as...

In New York yesterday, Joe Biden, Obama's overseer of the spending of the "stimulus" package, acknowledged the following: ... some of this money is going to be wasted ... Obama's words in February: ... unprecedented responsibility and accountability on the spending. Without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud...

THE FIRST BULLETIN Tuesday that a Bucks County woman and her 9-year-old daughter had been kidnapped made national news because it was all just so unbelievable - a car crash on a busy street, mysterious men in a black Cadillac and a mom who made a frantic 9-1-1 call while trapped inside a trunk. Yesterday, the world learned exactly why the saga of 38-year-old Bonnie Sweeten and her 9-year-old daughter, Julia Rakoczy, was so incredible. It just wasn't true. And in an ending that was ironic beyond belief, mother and daughter were tracked down last night in America's ultimate land...

Three relatives have been charged in connection with an embezzlement scheme at George Mason University, and investigators say they stole as much as $200,000. University police say Jose Rosado, a supervisor with Campus Living Villages-- a company that manages the dorms at GMU-- hired as many as five ghost employees. All of them were members of his extended family. ... According to Jim Short, president of Campus Living Villages, Jose Rosado was a supervisor who had been working for the company since 1998.... Explaining how the scheme worked, Short said some employees who don't have bank accounts choose to get...

Think your income tax check is safe when you send it off to the IRS? Think again. An ABC News investigation has uncovered case after case of checks being stolen, manipulated and cashed by contract employees responsible for processing them, resulting in delayed payments and heavily disrupted lives. "It was beyond my wildest imagination that this theft would be an inside scam," Brad Miller of Garland, TX told ABC News. Last year, Miller sent a cashier's check for more than $20,000 to the IRS, where it ended up in the hands of a Bank of America employee in Dallas who...