Florida Man Sentenced for Position In Employees’ Compensation Fraud Conspiracy

A federal decide has sentenced Ramon Paz of Lakeland, Florida to 33 months in federal jail for conspiracy to commit wire fraud to keep away from paying for staff’ compensation insurance coverage.

In accordance with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace, Center District of Florida, Paz owned and managed an organization that provided development companies and labor for development contractors and subcontractors. Below Florida legislation, Paz’s firm was required to have enough staff’ compensation insurance coverage protection. Paz’s firm had agreements with contractors and subcontractors to make use of staff presupposed to be Paz’s staff at development websites, and these staff have been usually undocumented aliens who have been truly working for and below the each day supervision and path of the contractors. Paz or others would then often obtain “payroll checks” from contractors that have been cashed at varied monetary establishments to pay Paz’s purported “staff” and different associated bills.

In the course of the time interval charged, Paz falsely and fraudulently represented in insurance coverage functions that his firm had a really restricted payroll and a really restricted variety of staff who labored on development jobsites. Paz additionally falsely and fraudulently despatched wire communications to quite a few contractors representing that his firm’s “staff” had full staff’ compensation protection.

In actuality, Paz’s firm obtained and cashed greater than $21 million in checks from varied development contractors for these purported “staff.” These payroll figures far exceeded the very restricted payroll figures that Paz had reported to his staff’ compensation insurance coverage firm. Because of this, these staff, in actuality the workers of different entities, carried out work on jobsites with out enough insurance coverage protection. As well as, the insurers misplaced premiums they might have charged had they been conscious of the true variety of staff their insurance policies have been thus being manipulated to cowl.

Because of these misrepresentations, prosecutors stated Paz’s firm additionally disclaimed accountability for guaranteeing that jobsite staff have been legally approved to work within the nation and that required state and federal payroll taxes have been being paid for these staff. The contractors who truly paid these staff’ wages and used their companies have been thus additionally capable of keep away from accountability for these duties as effectively.

This case was investigated by Homeland Safety Investigations and the Florida Division of Monetary Providers. It’s a part of a prolonged investigation by these companies into the usage of shell corporations and “ghost” staff within the development business.

The courtroom additionally entered an order of forfeiture in opposition to Paz within the quantity of $500,731, the proceeds of the wire-fraud conspiracy. Paz had pleaded responsible on February 8, 2023.

Subjects
Florida
Fraud
Workers’ Compensation
Talent