Description: Miami, Florida criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. 4999, which provides is part:




LII U.S. Code Title 18 PART I CHAPTER 95 § 1956

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18 U.S. Code § 1956 - Laundering of monetary instruments

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(a)
(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity—
(A)
(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity; or
(ii) with intent to engage in conduct constituting a violation of section 7201 or 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; or
(B) knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part—
(i) to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity; or
(ii) to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under State or Federal law,
shall be sentenced to a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both. For purposes of this paragraph, a financial transaction shall be considered to be one involving the proceeds of specified unlawful activity if it is part of a set of parallel or dependent transactions, any one of which involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, and all of which are part of a single plan or arrangement.

Carlos Alberto Padron, Age 55, of Miami, Florida, pled guilty to money laundering on June 20, 2023. According to the agreed upon factual proffer, that was made part of the court docket, Padron participated in two separate money laundering conspiracies while on supervised release from a prior federal prison sentence. Between July 2022 and August 2022, Padron and his co-defendant Ovidio Gonzalez Roche laundered $249,901 in Medicare fraud proceeds related to two fraudulent durable medical equipment companies located in Pompano Beach, Florida, Newtech Medical Supply LLC and Spraig Medical Supplies LLC. Padron and his co-defendant Ovidio Gonzalez Roche picked up nearly $229,920 in cash in parking lots in Miami-Dade County after the money was laundered.

Between April 2021 and December 2021, Padron also participated in laundering $2,185,392 in Medicare fraud proceeds related to two other durable medical equipment companies: Unlimited Medical Supply (Pembroke Pines, Florida) and Best Medical Supply (North Fort Myers, Florida). Padron was involved in managing the nominee owner of those two DME companies and he also received some of the approximately $260,000 in withdrawals of Medicare fraud proceeds from the nominee owner.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga sentenced Padron to 70 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release to be served consecutively to his sentence on the supervised release violation. Padron was also ordered to pay $2,435,293 in restitution. On June 7, 2023, U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez sentenced Padron to 20 months in prison on the supervised release violation. The United States seized and successfully forfeited over $2.3 million in connection with the health care fraud conspiracy.

Padron’s co-defendant Ovidio Roche Gonzalez, who was only charged with the 2022 money laundering conspiracy, was sentenced to 21 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Markenzy Lapointe; Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri, FBI, Miami Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Omar Pérez Aybar, HHS-OIG, made the announcement.

FBI Miami and HHS-OIG Miami investigated this case. AUSA Timothy Abraham is prosecuting this case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Stone and Mitchell Hyman are handling asset forfeiture.

Outcome: Defendant elected to plead guilty.

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