Three Orlando residents are facing up to 25 years behind bars, along with the forfeiture of over $8 million and two local properties, after pleading guilty to wire and tax fraud charges.
On Friday, April 4, U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced that Eduardo Anibal Escobar (44), Carlos Alberto Rodriguez (45), and Adelmy Tejada (57) have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud.
Escobar, Rodriguez, and Tejada are each facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud offense and up to five years’ imprisonment for the tax fraud offense. In addition, they will be required to forfeit at least $8,764,652 in proceeds that were obtained via wire fraud and two homes in Orlando that were purchased with those proceeds.
The three defendants will also be required to make the following restitution payments: $12,992,908 to four insurance companies for unpaid workers’ compensation insurance premiums; $397,895 to two of the companies for workers’ compensation claims that they paid; and $36,957,616 for unpaid employment taxes on approximately $146,077,535 in payroll that was not reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Sentencing dates for Escobar, Rodriguez, and Tejada have not yet been scheduled.
According to court records, over a period of time spanning from January 2015 through August 2024, the defendants “engaged in a scheme to defraud involving misrepresentations concerning workers’ compensation insurance.”
The defendants employed workers who were not legally authorized to work in the United States in order to avoid paying for adequate workers’ compensation insurance, and to avoid paying the required payroll taxes.
In order to carry out the scheme, the defendants obtained workers’ compensation insurance policies in the names of companies that they registered with the state of Florida. These policies covered a small handful of employees and a minimum payroll.
The defendants then reached agreements with hundreds of construction subcontractors, who then represented to construction contractors that they were employed by the defendants’ companies.
The subcontractors provided the defendants with the names of the contractors for whom they wanted to perform construction work. The defendants then proceeded to send documents to the contractors, which fraudulently showed that the subcontractors worked for the defendants’ companies and were covered by their workers’ compensation insurance.
As a result, the subcontractors were able to obtain contracts with, and perform work for, the construction contractors, who then wrote payroll checks to the defendants’ companies for the work performed by the subcontractors.
Upon receipt of the payroll checks, the defendants distributed payment to the workers after keeping 6% to 8% as a “fee.” Most of those workers were “undocumented aliens” who were working illegally in the U.S.
Over the course of the scheme, a little over $146 million in payroll flowed through the defendants’ companies, and they were paid at least $8,764,652 in fees.
The defendants used the scheme to cheat the workers’ compensation insurance companies out of premiums. If the insurance companies had been aware that the polices were going to be used for over $146 million in payroll, they would have charged nearly $13 million in additional annual premiums.
Additionally, if the total payroll of the defendants’ companies had been properly reported to the IRS, then the total payroll taxes due would have been approximately $37 million.
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the Florida Department of Financial Services. It is part of a continuing investigation by those agencies on the use of shell companies and “ghost” employees in the construction industry.