Former W. Bridgewater Teacher Faces 10 Years in Child Porn Conviction

13 Years In Prison For New Bedford Drug Dealer

BrocktonPost

BOSTON--A New Bedford man with a long criminal history was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brockton for multiple counts of distributing crack cocaine and retaliating against a government informant.

 Daniel Smith, 48, of New Bedford, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns to 13 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.   

Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of cocaine base, one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, and one count of retaliating against a government witness.

 Had the case proceeded to trial prosecutors said evidence would have proven that Smith sold two “8-balls” of crack cocaine to an individual cooperating with the government in May, 2008.  

These sales were controlled, monitored, and recorded by federal agents.  

In June 2008, law enforcement agents seized 21 bags of crack cocaine when they executed a search warrant at Smith’s apartment.  

Later, Smith learned that the person to whom he had sold crack to in May was cooperating with the government.  

In September 2008, he left that individual a threatening message in which Smith said, among other things, that he was “gonna bust [the individual’s] f—ing face in . . . .”  

After he was arrested, Smith admitted that he had been dealing drugs in New Bedford for years and that he had threatened the cooperating witness because he was “pissed that he was a f—ing rat.”    

       

45 Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested in Conn., Mass.

BrocktonPost

HARTFORD--During a four-day targeted enforcement operation in Connecticut and Massachusetts that ended Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 44 convicted criminal aliens. 

Operation Threats Against the Community began Feb. 24 and targeted 44 illegal immigrants, 18 who had multiple criminal convictions and 24 who had felony convictions, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.

An additional individual was arrested who had two outstanding arrest warrants in New York and Texas. 

Of the 45 arrested, 40 were arrested in Connecticut and five were arrested in Massachusetts.

Many of these criminal aliens had prior convictions for serious or violent crimes, such as indecent assault and battery of a child, sexual assault, possessing and selling dangerous drugs, drunken driving and larceny charges.

The 45 arrests took place in the following locations:

Connecticut:

• Bridgeport
• Danbury
• Darien
• Derby
• East Hartford
• Hamden
• Hartford
• Meriden
• Naugatuck
• New Britain
• New Haven
• New London
• Shelton
• Stamford
• Stratford
• Trumbull
• Waterbury
• Willimantic

Massachusetts:

• Holyoke
• Longmeadow
• Pittsfield
• Springfield

Numerous federal, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts assisted with these arrests.

Of those arrested, there were 38 men and seven women who are nationals of the following countries: one from Bosnia, two from Brazil, one from Canada, one from Colombia, five from the Dominican Republic, one from El Salvador, one from England, one from Guatemala, one from Guyana, one from Haiti, one from Honduras, 17 from Jamaica, two from Mexico, one from Montserrat, two from Peru, one from the Philippines, three from Poland, one from Portugal, one from Russia and one from Tanzania. 

They range in ages from 21 to 57.

Forty-four of the 45 individuals were arrested administratively for being in violation of immigration law, and all are being held in custody pending immigration removal proceedings. 

The individual with an outstanding warrant for arrest will be turned over to the New York State Police via the extradition process.

Some of those arrested during this operation include:

• A national of the Dominican Republic who was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, gaming, smuggling of U.S. currency, knowingly receiving stolen property and malicious destruction of property.

• A national of El Salvador who was convicted of assault and battery of a minor and failing to register as a sex offender.

• A national of Jamaica who was convicted of carrying a weapon without a permit, risk of injury to a minor, eight counts of the illegal discharge of a firearm and three counts of assault on a police officer.

• A national of Haiti who was convicted of assault in the second degree, two convictions for assault in the third degree, sale of illegal narcotics and resisting arrest.

• A national of Canada who was convicted of indecent assault and battery of a minor.

• A national of Jamaica who was convicted of assault, sale and possession of controlled substances.

In November 2011, ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted a similar enforcement operation that yielded 53 arrests of convicted criminal aliens in Massachusetts.

This enforcement action was spearheaded by ERO's Criminal Alien Program, which is responsible for locating, arresting and removing at-large criminal aliens. The officers who conducted the operation received substantial assistance from ERO's Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) located in Williston, Vermont.

ERO is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that targets serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, such as those charged with or convicted of homicide, rape, robbery, kidnapping, major drug offenses and threats to national security. 

ERO also prioritizes the arrest and removal of those who game the immigration system including immigration fugitives or those criminal aliens who have been previously deported and illegally re-entered the country.

Largely as a result of these initiatives, for three years in a row, ERO has removed more aliens than were removed in fiscal year 2008. 

Overall, in FY 2011 ERO removed 396,906 individuals nationwide — the largest number in the agency's history. 

Of these, nearly 55 percent or 216,698 of the people removed, were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors — an 89 percent increase in the removal of criminals since FY 2008. 

This includes 1,119 aliens convicted of homicide; 5,848 aliens convicted of sexual offenses; 44,653 aliens convicted of drug related crimes; and 35,927 aliens convicted of driving under the influence. 

ERO achieved similar results with regard to other categories prioritized for removal. 

Ninety percent of all ERO's removals fell into a priority category and more than two-thirds of the other removals in 2011 were either recent border crossers or repeat immigration violators.

S. Dartmouth Man Guilty In Widower Loan Scam

BrocktonPost
BOSTON - A South Dartmouth man was convicted by a federal jury Wednesday of trying to bilk an elderly widower out of part of his retirement savings and all of an $85,000 loan falsely taken to buy land in Maine.
Richard Souza, 46, of South Dartmouth, was convicted Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston and is scheduled for sentencing May 23, according to a state from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.
The money used in the crime originally came from the retirement savings of an elderly widower whom Souza had befriended.
Souza persuaded the man to use approximately a quarter of his retirement savings to purchase a property in Maine, as well as to take out a loan of over $85,000 by using the property as collateral.
Souza took the loan proceeds for himself and removed the majority of the proceeds from his account to avoid reporting rules that require banks to report cash transactions of over $10,000.
In 2006, Souza withdrew the majority of the proceeds of the Maine property loan in six separate cash
withdrawals of $9,000 each from five different Sovereign Bank branches in the New Bedford area during a two hour period.
Souza faces up to five years in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

Illegal Catch Gets Conn. Fisherman $10,000 Fine

BrocktonPost
BOSTON--A Connecticut man was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Boston for trafficking in and making false records for 12,140 pounds of illegally harvested Atlantic striped bass.
Daniel B. Birkbeck, 47, of North Stonington, Conn., was sentenced to serve one year of probation and pay a $10,000 fine as part of a plea agreement, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.
Birkbeck agreed to forfeit $5,000 in lieu of forfeiting the boat and truck that he used to commit the fishery crimes.
In November 2011, Birkbeck pleaded guilty to a felony charge of transporting and selling 12,140 pounds of striped bass in interstate commerce from Rhode Island to Massachusetts and knowing that the bass were harvested illegally.
Birkbeck, who is licensed as a commercial fisherman in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, harvested striped bass in Rhode Island waters after the Rhode Island commercial fishing season had closed and transported those fish to Massachusetts for sale.
Birkbeck falsely reported to the Massachusetts Division of MarineFisheries that he had legally harvested the striped bass in Massachusetts waters.
The Lacey Act makes it a crime for a person to knowingly transport and sell fish in interstate commerce when the fish was taken or possessed in violation of state law.
Furthermore, the act also makes it a crime for a person to knowingly make or submit a false record, account, or label for fish which has been transported in interstate commerce.
Commercial fishing for striped bass in Massachusetts and Rhode Island is governed by a quota system overseen by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
The quota system was enacted in response to declining striped bass populations.
Since 2003, Massachusetts' commercial striped bass quota is about five times that of Rhode Island, and thus, the commercial striped bass season is open longer in Massachusetts than in Rhode Island.

36 Face Racketeering Charges In NY Insurance Scam

BrocktonPost
BROCKTON
Law enforcement officials in New York announced Wednesday charges against 36 defendants involved in a systematic scheme to defraud private insurance companies of more than $279 million under New York’s no-fault automobile insurance law.
The indictment includes racketeering charges against eight members and associates of a criminal organization consisting primarily of individuals of Russian descent who were the owners and controllers of fraudulent medical clinics, as well as 10 licensed doctors and three attorneys.
The alleged scheme identified Wednesday is the largest single no-fault automobile insurance fraud ever charged, and the first case of its kind to allege violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO Act, officials said in a prepared statement.
All of the defendants were arrested this morning in connection with today’s charges.
Thirty-five were taken into custody in New York and New Jersey and were expected to be arraigned in Manhattan federal court this afternoon.
One defendant was arrested in Duluth, Minnesota and will be arraigned Friday in a Minnesota federal court.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Today’s charges expose a colossal criminal trifecta, as the fraud’s tentacles simultaneously reached into the medical system, the legal system, and the insurance system, pulling out cash to fund the defendants’ lavish lifestyles," he said in the statement.
"As alleged, the scheme relied on a cadre of corrupt doctors who essentially peddled their medical licenses like a corner fraudster might sell fake IDs, except those medical licenses allowed unlawful entry, not to a club or a bar, but to a multi-billion-dollar pool of insurance proceeds,” Bharara said.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk said: “Our investigation uncovered a pattern of lucrative fraud exploiting New York’s no-fault auto insurance system to the tune of more than a quarter-of-a-billion dollars."
The criminal enterprise, while it lasted, was obscenely profitable, Fedarcyk said, adding the scheme not only unjustly enriched the defendants and defrauded insurance companies.
NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said: “Our undercover officers were treated like thousands of other ‘patients’ receiving therapy, tests, and medical equipment they didn’t need."
The following allegations are based on the unsealed indictment and other documents filed today in Manhattan federal court:
Under New York state law, every vehicle registered in the state is required to have no-fault automobile insurance, which enables the driver and passengers of a registered and insured vehicle to obtain benefits of up to $50,000 per person for injuries sustained in an automobile accident, regardless of fault--the “No-Fault Law”.
The No-Fault Law requires prompt payment for medical treatment, thereby obviating the need for claimants to file personal injury lawsuits in order to be reimbursed.
Under the No-Fault Law, patients can assign their right to reimbursement from an insurance company to others, including medical clinics that provide treatment for their injuries.
New York state law also requires that all medical clinics in the state be incorporated, owned, operated, and/or controlled by a licensed medical practitioner in order to be eligible for reimbursement under the No-Fault Law.
Insurance companies will not honor claims for medical treatments from a medical clinic that is not actually owned, operated, and/or controlled by a licensed medical practitioner.
From at least 2007 through 2012, the so-called No-Fault Organization--the group of arrestees--has engaged in a massive and sophisticated scheme to defraud automobile insurance companies of hundreds of millions of dollars by, among other things, creating and operating medical clinics that provided unnecessary and excessive medical treatments in order to take advantage of the No-Fault Law.
In order to mislead New York authorities and private insurers, the true owners of these medical clinics “Clinic Controllers”, almost all of whom were also members and associates of a criminal organization consisting primarily of individuals of Russian descent, paid licensed medical practitioners, including doctors, to use their licenses to incorporate the professional corporations, through which the medical clinics billed the private insurers for the bogus medical treatments.
These doctors effectively operated as “straw owners” of the clinics.
The Clinic Controllers paid thousands of dollars in kickbacks to runners who recruited automobile accident passengers to receive medically unnecessary treatments from the no-fault clinics.
They also instructed the clinic doctors/straw owners to prescribe excessive and unwarranted referrals for various “modality treatments” for every patient they saw.
The treatments included physical therapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic treatments—as many as five times per week for each—and treatments for psychology, neurology, orthopedics, and audiology.
Clinic doctors also prescribed unnecessary MRI’s, x-rays, orthopedics, and medical supplies. The Clinic Controllers received thousands of dollars in kickbacks for patient referrals from the owners of the modality clinics (“Modality Controllers”), who were members and associates of the same criminal organization to which the members of the No-Fault Organization and Clinic Controllers belonged.
The Clinic Controllers also referred patients to personal injury lawyers who filed bogus lawsuits on behalf of the patients and coached them on what injuries to claim in order to get as many treatments as possible. The personal injury lawyers also paid the Clinic Controllers thousands of dollars in kickbacks for these referrals.
In order to conceal and disguise the millions of dollars in claims paid by the automobile insurance companies, the members of the No-Fault Organization laundered the money through shell companies and corrupt check-cashing services.
Often, checks would be written from the No-Fault or Modality Clinics with the payee line left blank, and in amounts less than $10,000 in order to avoid potential financial institution reporting requirements and other scrutiny.
The checks were then cashed through check-cashers who made the checks payable to shell companies they controlled in order to conceal the true nature and purpose of the checks. The cash was then returned to members of the No-Fault Organization to fund kickbacks and for their personal use.
At other times, the members and associates of the No-Fault Organization paid themselves through their own shell companies and then used the criminal proceeds to fund expensive vacations and to purchase luxury goods.
A chart identifying each defendant, the charges, and the maximum penalties, is below. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken.
Count Charge Maximum Penalty
Count one RICO conspiracy (mail fraud and money laundering) 20 years
Count two Conspiracy to commit health care fraud 10 years
Count three Conspiracy to commit mail fraud 20 years
Count four Conspiracy to commit money laundering 20 years
Defendant Age/Residence Alleged Role in the Scheme Charges Maximum Penalty
Mikhail Zemlyansky 35/Hewlett, NY Clinic/modality controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Michael Danilovich 38/Brooklyn, NY Clinic/modality controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Yuriy Zayonts 40/Staten Island, NY Clinic/modality controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Mikhail Kremerman 41/Staten Island, NY Clinic/modality controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Matthew Conroy 42/Melville, NY Attorney Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Michael Barukhin 32/Brooklyn, NY Clinic/modality controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Mikhail Ostrumsky 42/Brooklyn/NY Clinic controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Boris Treysler 42/Brooklyn/NY Clinic controller Counts one, two, three, four 70 years
Andrey Anikeyev 37/Fort Lee, NJ Modality controller Counts two, three, four 50 years
Vladimir Grinberg 35/Staten Island, NY Modality controller Counts two, three, four 50 years
Vladislav Zaretskiy 40/Staten Island, NY Clinic/modality controller Counts two, three, four 50 years
Yevgeniy Shuman 33/Brooklyn, NY Clinic manager Counts two, three, four 50 years
Dmitry Slobodyansky 41/Brooklyn, NY Modality controller Counts two, three, four 50 years
Alexander Sandler 57/East Brunswick, NJ Clinic controller Counts two, three 30 years
Gregory Mikhalov 56/Brooklyn, NY Modality controller Counts two, three 30 years
Michael Morgan 33/Port Washington, NY Modality controller Counts two, three 30 years
Mark Danilovich 60/Brooklyn, NY Modality controller Counts two, three 30 years
Jeffrey Lereah 56/Suffern, NY Modality manager Counts two, three 30 years
Dmitry Lipis 44/Brooklyn, NY Clinic manager Counts two, three 30 years
Lynda Tadder 34/Brooklyn, NY Clinic manager Counts two, three 30 years
Maria Diglio 47/Garden City, NY Attorney Counts two, three 30 years
Sol Naimark 53/Flushing, NY Attorney Counts two, three 30 years
Sergey Gabinsky 54/Brooklyn, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Tatyana Gabinskaya 57/Brooklyn, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Joseph Vitoulis 42/Valley Stream, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Lauretta Grzegorczyk 64/Staten Island, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Eva Gateva 48/Bronx, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Zuheir Said 64/Bronx, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
David Thomas 42/Hopewell Junction/NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Billy Geris 53/Morganville, NJ Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Mark Shapiro 46/Brooklyn, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Robert Della Badia 72/South Salem, NY Doctor Counts two, three 30 years
Michelle Glick 33/Duluth, MN Acupuncture practitioner Counts two, three 30 years
Pavel Poznansky 52/Brooklyn, NY Acupuncture practitioner Counts two, three 30 years
Chad Greenshner 45/Flushing, NY Chiropractic practitioner Counts two, three 30 years
Constantine Voytenko 40/Brooklyn, NY Chiropractic practitioner Counts two, three 30 years

Sex Offender Faces 10 Years For Non-Registration in Mass.

BrocktonPost
Boston--A Kentucky man convicted of a sex offense in 1996 was charged and arrested Thursday, Feb. 23 in federal court with failure to register as a sex offender.
Robert Lee Bowdre, 41, of Louisville, Kentucky., and recently of New Bedford, Mass., was
charged in a criminal complaint with failure to register as a sex offender, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The criminal complaint alleges that between June 17, 2011 and Feb. 8, 2012, Bowdre, who allegedly was required to register as a sex offender, traveled from state-to-state for business, and knowingly failed to register and update his registration.
According to court documents, Bowdre was convicted in 1996 of 1st degree rape and 1st degree sodomy in Kentucky.
If convicted on these charges, Bowdre faces up to 10 years in prison, to be followed by
up to a lifetime supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
Bowdre remains in custody on the federal charge and is scheduled for a detention hearing March 1 in U.S. District Court in Boston.