Thursday, December 4, 2008

Michigan Contractor Sentenced For Embezzling From Pension Funds

Frank Vallecorsa, 77, of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, was sentenced yesterday to 1 day in prison, plus 4 months in a federal halfway house and 6 months of home confinement with an electronic bracelet for embezzling $745,000 from two pension funds from the company he controlled, American International, Inc. Vallecorsa, who plead guilty to the charge in May, was also ordered to make full restitution. According to the criminal complaint, between February 2001 and June 2003, Vallecorsa looting the two pension plans for which he was the sole trustee. According to prosecutors, he took the money in order to prop up his failing business. Vallecorsa was also separately involved in a bribery scandal of a local airport official and his wife in exchange for winning $30 million in contracts. In that case, he agreed to testify against the official, Wilbourne Kelley III and his wife, Barbara Kelley, and was ordered to pay a $1.5 million fine and was banned for life from receiving federal contracts.

Read the story here, here and here.

Read the DOJ press announcement of his guilty plea here.

No comments: