Five defendants who were convicted of a conspiracy scheme to defraud the retirement accounts of elderly and retired Florida school district employees have been sentenced after three defendants pleaded guilty and two defendants were found guilty by a federal jury.
Michelle Spaven, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, announced the sentences of the following defendants:
Lambert Aguebor, 33, of Miramar, Florida, has been sentenced to 71 months in federal prison after previously being found guilty by a federal jury of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering.
Floyd Bostic, 42, of Tallahassee, Florida, has been sentenced to 87 months in federal prison after previously being found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, 16 counts of money laundering, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Grace Aguebor, 36, of Miramar, Florida, has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Ronald Vargas, 38, of Osteen, Florida, has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Sarina Levy, 34, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, has been sentenced to six months and one day in federal prison, to be followed by six months of home detention, after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Americans are fed up with the constant barrage of scams that maliciously target the elderly,” said Acting United States Attorney Spaven. “With the assistance of our dedicated law enforcement partners, we are committed to investigating and aggressively prosecuting those who seek to steal the hard-earned savings of our senior citizens.”
Evidence presented at trial and court records show that Vargas worked as a Retirement Specialist at a Tallahassee-based company that administers a retirement 401(k) savings program whose participants are comprised largely of Florida school district employees or prior employees.
Between January 2022 and March 2022, Vargas conspired with siblings Grace Aguebor and Lambert Aguebor to steal the retirement funds from the accounts of elderly retired school district employees, some of whom were deceased.
Through his position, Vargas had access to the retired employees’ personally identifiable information and oversaw the processing of withdrawal requests from the 401(k) accounts.
Vargas provided Grace and Lambert with PII of elderly 401(k) participants whose retirement accounts appeared to be dormant, so the PII could be used to prepare fraudulent withdrawal request forms for these accounts.
The fraudulent withdrawal request forms were faxed to the company where Vargas worked so he could process them. Grace and Bostic personally faxed some of the fraudulent withdrawal request forms; in other cases, the fraudulent forms were given to other conspirators, including Levy, to fax.
Once Vargas processed the forms, the stolen retirement funds were transferred to bank accounts controlled by Grace, Bostic, and other conspirators. In total, the conspirators withdrew and attempted to withdraw retirement funds from 25 different 401(k) accounts, resulting in a net total of $1.1 million being stolen.
Evidence presented to the jury showed that Bostic also served as a money launderer who received over half of the stolen funds into his personal bank accounts and those of his Tallahassee-based music promotion businesses.
Bostic then transferred some of the stolen funds between his bank accounts to conceal or disguise their nature, location, source, or ownership. Evidence also showed that Bostic used stolen funds to purchase a residence and pay for his personal and business expenses.
Bostic also withdrew over $400,000 of stolen funds in cash at various banks and ATMs in Tallahassee and central Florida. The jury also saw evidence that Bostic communicated and coordinated with Lambert Aguebor about transferring the stolen funds and arranging meetings in central Florida.
In addition to their prison sentences, the defendants were ordered to pay restitution totalling approximately $1,000,000 to the victims. The defendants’ imprisonment will be followed by three years of supervised release.
