On April 3, 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida, issued a Press Release, 25 Defendants Charged In Separate Schemes That Resulted In Thousands of Identities Stolen And Millions Of Dollars In Identity Theft Tax Filings, giving a special shout out to J. Scott Dennis, Chief, North Miami Beach Police Department, for bringing down one of “25 defendants in in 19 separate cases” involving identity tax fraud.
The Press Release noted:
“According to the Federal Trade Commission, Florida had the highest rate of identity theft in the United States in 2013. While identity theft in Florida ranks highest in the United States, the identity theft rate in Miami has reached near epidemic proportions. Florida’s rate of 192.9 complaints per 100,000 residents – the highest in the United States – is dwarfed by the Miami rate of 340.4 complaints per 100,000 residents.
In an attempt to combat the rising wave of stolen identity tax refund scams, and armed with recent directives from the Department of Justice’s Tax Division, making prosecutions faster and easier, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida established the South Florida Identity Theft Tax Fraud Strike Force (Strike Force) in August 2012.”
Among the agencies included in the Strike Force are both the North Miami and North Miami Beach Police Departments, as well as the Miami-Dade Police Department, Aventura Police Department, several Police Departments in Broward County, and other state and federal agencies.
In this latest news release, U.S. Attorney Wilfredo A. Ferrer and the Strike Force announced “the most recent results of their investigative efforts.” One of the 25 defendants charged on March 28, 2014 is a resident of North Miami Beach. Twenty-four year old Giovanni Francois Noel was indicted for possessing at least fifteen social security numbers and stealing the identification of at least seven other persons. Ferrer announced:
“Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the Strike Force, with special commendation to the IRS-CI and the NMBPD. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John R. Byrne.”
CONGRATULATIONS TO CHIEF DENNIS AND OUR NORTH MIAMI BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT!
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In other DOJ/US Attorney news, on April 4, 2014, Ferrer’s office announced that campaign finance fraudster, Russell A. Adler, who was charged on March 7, 2014, has pled guilty to “conspiracy to violate the Federal Elections Campaign Act.”
When the charges were filed, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Jose A. Gonzalez stated, “This investigation is not over as we are committed to ‘following the money trail’ and pursuing the evidence wherever it leads.”
Obviously, he meant business.
Adler’s guilty conscience also persuaded him to rat out his law partner in the law firm of Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler, P.A. (RRA), Scott W. Rothstein (who doesn’t have enough legal problems as it is), claiming that Rothstein “enlisted some of the attorneys and administrative personnel of RRA, and other persons associated with RRA, including Adler, to make political contributions to various political campaigns which were unlawfully reimbursed to them by RRA.”
Adler will be sentenced on June 27, 2014 and is facing “a maximum statutory sentence of up to five years in prison.”
Considering that Russell A. Adler’s illegal contributions were made “to the presidential primary campaign of John McCain and the United States Senate campaign of Charlie Crist,” this probably wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. After the sentencing, he’ll have plenty of time to reflect on his own stupidity.
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Memo to Miami-Dade County’s State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle: Crimes of identity theft, tax fraud and election fraud can be prosecuted. THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE! You should be taking notes.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
