my felony was signing power of attorney for my boss on condominum riders and for a supplement for his line of credit for a multi-million dollar development project he was working on. He was out of the country on vacation and I signed for him for his closing, which was “routine” per his lawyers and was time-sensitive… he later went into foreclosure, when they did forensic accouting. They discovered he materially misrepresented his assets to obtain the loan. Not only that, he and the lawyers he worked with misrepresented some of his finances on multiple other projects, I was a junior project manager for 4 of the 20 projects that also went into foreclosure that he falsified loan documents on to fund the projects, as they never sold during the housing crisis in 2008, he later dissolved his company. I went back home. and went to work back in IT. two years later I receive a summons on my door.
The feds claimed I “should have known better” than to sign power of attorney, I should have known that he was fraudulently acquiring funds from the bank, I won’t name here, because the Vice President was his buddy and received kick backs and that I, at 22, and one of many other people on his staff, kept quiet because he was paying our salaries. So I was willfully blind, and on top of that liable because signing power of attorney you are taking responsibility even though you are acting in a person stead,
My response: I signed where they told me to sign. My boss was facing 20 years, and took a plea deal and cooperated to get it knocked down to 13, side note: while we were out on bond… he did it again, and got arrested, and got another 3 years added to his sentence. he trumped up my involvement, they later realized he wasn’t being truthful, and they dropped 9 of the 11 charges, but the US attorney didn’t want to completely absolve my “behavior” as the stance on financial crimes has been seen as weak.
it was a lot of money, my boss was about 12 million dollars, they held me responsible for 2.8 million and i got 2 years ( I plead before trial, with no plea deal and no reduction of sentence because I didn’t cooperate). The lawyers got 2 years each as well knocked down from 5 for cooperating. None of his rich business partners, who definitely should have known, were charged, They were mad at me for not pleading and testifying against others who were unindicted, but I can’t lie or account for something I had no knowledge.
Morale of the story don’t blindly trust your boss or lawyers, no matter how rich and connected they are, have full knowledge of everything you are involved in that you will be held liable, seek 3rd party council, and don’t do power of attorneys.
I lost a decade of my life to this situation. so when you get an indictment saying you worked in concert to defraud banks and you have no idea what they are talking about it can be true. Not everybody is sketchy.
The funny think is when I offered to do a polygraph, stating I had no active knowledge at the time of the events, they said they weren’t admissible in court.
I’m also an open book. I went into elaborate detail about the charges, co-defendants etc. I shouldn’t have to answer Jill in accounting about something that has no pertinence to her.
Case in point, my friend’s wife kicked him out the house. he is homeless, I let him stay with me. So I reported it to my supervised release officer. the first thing I was asked, do they know you are a felon? Its ridiculous.