Articles Tagged with Fort Lauderdale fraud defense

The Federal Trade Commission released a report earlier this year revealing Florida ranks No. 1 for complaints of fraud, and No. 2 for identity theft – the No. 1 fraudulent practice. From January through December last year, there were 270,000 complaints of fraud, amounting to 1,306 complaints of fraud per 100,000 population. fraud defense lawyer

So it’s no real surprise that our criminal defense attorneys are handling an increasing number of cases involving defendants accused of some type of fraud. As the FTC notes, the most common categories of fraud were:

Debt collection fraud;

  • Imposter scams;
  • Identity theft;
  • Phone & mobile fraud;
  • Bank and lending fraud.

These offenses can be charged at either the federal or state level, though they are more often federal cases because of the fact that many extend across state lines. Such was the case out of Fort Lauderdale involving four men accused of mail fraud. The Sun Sentinel reports the men were accused of participating in a sweepstakes mail fraud scheme that conned more than 100,000 people out of $25 million. Continue reading

Social Security fraud is addressed under federal statutes – specifically, 42 U.S.C. 1383a. In part, the law defines fraud as having knowledge of the occurrence of any event that would affect one’s initial or continued right to any such benefit or the initial or continued right to any such benefit of any other individual in whose behalf or she applied for or received the benefits, along with a failure to disclose it.checks1

Violation of this law carries a maximum five years in prison, plus an order for restitution.

Despite this, a Deerfield Beach woman who allegedly committed Social Security fraud for more than three decades was sentenced to house arrest, probation, community service and restitution. This was after defendant Claudia Carpenter, 60, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of government funds. The Sun-Sentinel reported Carpenter admitted to the court when entering her plea that she failed to tell the Social Security Administration when her mother died in 1984. Instead, she continued collecting her mother’s disability checks – about $900  each month – which were automatically deposited to their joint bank accounts. Years later, she started taking the money out of automatic teller machines. Continue reading

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