Engineer Ends Trial by Pleading Guilty to the Federal Crime of Conspiring to Steal Trade Secrets
A South Carolina man who joined in a conspiracy to steal trade secrets from aircraft companies faces sentencing in federal court after admitting guilt during his trial.
“Gilbert Basaldua stole an aircraft company’s intellectual property in order to avoid having to spend millions of dollars and years of research to develop an icing wind tunnel testing plan that could win FAA certification,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Estes. “On the second day of his jury trial however, Basaldua could not overcome the overwhelming evidence presented against him and learned that his theft of another company’s intellectual property would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Packaging Company Ex-Controller Sentenced to Prison for Stealing Funds
According to information presented to the court, Mazur was employed as the Controller for Gateway Packaging Corporation, which was located in Export, PA. From December 2012 until December 2017, she issued herself and her husband a total of approximately 189 fraudulent credit card refunds, totaling $195,063.80, through the company’s point of sale terminal. Her thefts were so extensive, they caused the failure of the company, which is now out of business. In order to conceal her fraud, Mazur supplied the owners with false financial statements that understated the company’s true sales figures.
Multiple Defendants Indicted in Alleged Intellectual Property Theft Scheme
According to court documents, Bill Omar Carrasquillo, 35, of Swedesboro, New Jersey; Jesse Gonzales, 42, of Pico Rivera, California; and Michael Barone, 36, of Richmond Hill, New York, operated a large-scale cable theft scheme between at least March 2016 and at least November 2019, in which they fraudulently obtained cable television accounts and then resold copyrighted content to thousands of their own subscribers. According to the indictment, the defendants also made fraudulent misrepresentations to banks and merchant processors in an effort to obtain merchant processing accounts. The defendants allegedly earned more than $30 million from the scheme.
Atlanta Man Sentenced to Jail for Bribing U.S. Marine Corps Official in Exchange For $2,000,000 In Transportation Contracts
According to the Factual Basis, in 2019 FITZPATRICK was a senior account manager at Company A, a bus brokerage company that provided transportation to the United States Marine Corps Reserves. That same year, FITZPATRICK started a competing transportation brokerage company called National Charter Express.
In 2019, FITZPATRICK agreed to pay kickbacks to Erik Martin, a civilian employee of the United States Marine Corps Reserves, in exchange for Martin directing business to Company A, and then later, National Charter Express. The conspiracy resulted in at least $2,000,000 in transportation contracts being corruptly awarded to companies associated with FITZPATRICK. In exchange, FITZPATRICK wired and attempted to wire Martin over $250,000 in bribes.
Seven Former Postal Service Employees Charged in Federal Probe of Credit Cards Stolen from the Mail
Indictments unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago allege that credit cards and other financial instruments were stolen from the mail and provided to others in exchange for cash or other items. Some of the defendants unlawfully obtained USPS customers’ personal identifying information, including dates of birth and Social Security numbers, which was then used to fraudulently activate the stolen cards, the charges allege. The newly charged USPS employees delivered mail in Chicago or processed and sorted the mail at a USPS facility in suburban Palatine.
Chicago Man Charged in Federal Court With Engaging in Unauthorized Trading That Caused $30 Million in Losses
According to the charge, Wakefield worked as the head of fixed income trading in the Chicago office of a broker-dealer. From 2017 to 2019, Wakefield knowingly and fraudulently engaged in unauthorized speculative trading in U.S. Treasury bonds using his employer’s trading accounts, causing more than $30 million in losses to the employer and its counterparties, the information states. Wakefield attempted to conceal the unauthorized trades and losses by entering fake off-setting trades into a clearing broker’s order system, creating the false impression that he had profitably traded through a different clearing broker, the charge alleges.
