Indictment: Cedric Cromwell failed to report alleged bribes as income
BOSTON — Cedric Cromwell, former tribal council chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, has been charged with filing false tax returns on top of pending bribery and extortion charges.
A federal grand jury in Boston returned a superseding indictment Monday with the new charges, acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell announced in a statement Tuesday night, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation divisions in Boston.
Cromwell, an Attleboro resident, was charged with four counts of filing a false tax return, bringing the total number of charges he faces to12. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges on April 1 before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston.
The superseding indictment alleges that between 2014 and 2017 Cromwell failed to report a total of $177,392 on his tax returns. That includes $39,000 of personal income in 2014; $57,374 in 2015; $26,884 in 2016; and $54,134 in 2017.
Cromwell's attorney, Tim Flaherty, said Wednesday that the "recent indictment relates to tax irregularities that have no overlap and no connection to the early allegations."
“Chairman Cromwell looks forward to presenting a vigorous defense to the extortion and bribery claims and continues to state his innocence," Flaherty said.
Cromwell was charged with bribery and extortion in November along with David DeQuattro, 54, the owner of a Rhode Island architecture firm, in connection with the tribe’s plans to build a resort and casino in Taunton.
Cromwell, 55, and DeQuattro were each indicted on two counts of accepting or paying bribes as an agent of an Indian tribal government and one count of conspiring to commit bribery, according to Mendell's statement. Cromwell was also indicted on four counts of extortion under color of official right and one count of conspiring to commit extortion.
When Cromwell filed his personal income tax returns for tax years 2014 through 2017, he failed to report bribes that he allegedly received from DeQuattro’s company, Robinson Green Beretta Corp., which was contracted to serve as the tribe’s “owner’s representative” for the casino project, according to the superseding indictment.
The indictment alleged that DeQuattro provided Cromwell with a stream of payments and benefits valued at about $57,549.37. In exchange, DeQuattro’s company was paid approximately $4,966,287.16 under the contract between July 2014 and February 2018.
Cromwell did report receiving $180,377 in salary from the tribe in 2017 in his federal personal income tax returns, which he filed jointly with his wife, the indictment states.
Cromwell is accused of failing to report payments for consulting services he performed for a company that developed and supplied forest carbon offsets.
While being questioned in a civil lawsuit in 2018, Cromwell said he was a consultant/owner for three limited liability companies, and more specifically a “consultant on carbon sequestration and an Indian Country liaison to Tribal Carbon Forestry Markets,” according to the indictment.
Cromwell was paid the consulting income through an intermediary identified as “P-Co.”, which was formed by a lawyer who was one of Cromwell’s business associates, the statement says. That associate was the only authorized signatory on a bank account identified as the “P-Co. Shell Company Account,” according to the indictment.
Cromwell also failed to report income made by his company, One Nation Development, which was paid through the P-Co. account and the bank account of a Florida limited partnership that originated with an investment holding company in Las Vegas, the indictment said.
On multiple occasions between December 2014 and January 2016, the Las Vegas investment holding company wired money to the Florida limited partnership, which wired money to the P-Co. Shell Company Account. P-Co. then wired money to the One Nation Development account controlled by Cromwell, the indictment alleges.
The only authorized signatory on the investment holding company’s bank account was the CEO of a Las Vegas-based architecture firm hired to be the architect for the tribe’s casino project, the indictment says.
If found guilty, Cromwell could face up to three years in prison, one year of supervised release and a fine of $100,000,according to the statement. Cromwell and DeQuattro could have to forfeit any property constituting or derived from proceeds traceable to the offenses.
Cromwell was first elected to the tribal council in 2009 and was reelected in 2013 and 2017.
When Cromwell was initially charged with extortion and bribery, the council voted to remove him from his post as chairman. But some tribe members had already been pressuring the tribal council for the previous few years to remove Cromwell.
Petitions bearing the signatures of 100 registered tribal voters were certified April 2019 calling for Cromwell’s resignation or removal, along with the removal of Treasurer Gordon Harris.
For several months before the indictment was returned, a grand jury subpoenaed the tribe multiple times for records from 2013 to 2020. Those records include Cromwell’s personnel records, the tribe’s financial records and expenditures, election records and internal communications between the tribe's Gaming Authority and its partners, including the Robinson Green Beretta Corp. and Genting Malaysia, the tribe’s financial backer that invested $440 million into the casino project.
In October 2020, another petition signed by 35 tribe members requested Cromwell's removal.
"Cromwell’s conduct is a breach of public tribal trust and an abuse of authority," the petition stated. "Cromwell has been dishonest and exercises a lack of integrity by his unwillingness to be transparent about the $500 million dollars that was borrowed from the investors. He is and has been a target of a federal investigation and has not been transparent about it either."
Cromwell would not be the first tribal council chairman to be convicted of filing false tax returns if he is found guilty. The council's prior chairman, Glenn Marshall, was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison after pleading guilty to embezzling nearly $400,000 from the tribe to pay his own bills, making illegal campaign contributions, filing false tax returns and fraudulently receiving Social Security benefits while holding a full-time job.
“The new charges are extremely serious, and we are watching the proceedings closely,” Tribal Council Vice Chair Jessie “Little Doe” Baird said in a statement. “Of course, we will continue to work with the U.S. attorney’s office.”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment