The trials and convictions of Carlos Hill
December 05, 2007
Cash Plus boss Carlos Hill was convicted of racketeering, mail fraud and of making a false statement in the US in the 1990s and was sentenced to near 30 years in prison, court documents obtained by the Observer have shown.
Beginning in April 1990 when he pleaded guilty in the District Court of New Jersey to one count of racketeering conspiracy, Hill was at the centre of a long list of court proceedings during which he fired a court-appointed attorney but saw his appeals against his sentences for racketeering and mail fraud rejected by the Courts of Appeal in New Jersey and Texas.
A US District Court of New Jersey document signed by Hill as the defendant on April 26, 1990 shows that he entered a guilty plea saying that he "conspired with co-racketeers to commit fraud in interstate commerce regarding mortgages and other collateral instruments".
Yesterday, local handwriting expert Beverley East, whose firm Strokes and Slants does work for a number of Jamaica's leading private sector companies and law firms, examined the signature on the New Jersey District Court document and compared it with Hill's signature on a lawsuit he filed against the Observer last month and found them to be one and the same.
Hill filed the suit after the newspaper published a summary of a court case between the US Government and one Carlos Hill in the November 9 edition of the Observer's Caribbean Business Report.
The article accompanied another looking at issues relating to Cash Plus, one of the many alternative investment schemes that are now at the centre of controversy in Jamaica.
The New Jersey court document also listed Hill's birth date as 6/20/47, the same date of birth on the Cash Plus boss' TRN.
In the New Jersey Court document Hill named his lawyer at the time as Bradford Bury and declared that he (Hill) had "not been forced, coerced or threatened in any manner by any person to plead guilty". He also stated that he was not told that other persons would be prosecuted if he refused to plead guilty.
"I offer my plea of guilty freely and voluntarily and of my own in this application and in the certification of my lawyer which is attached to this application," the document signed by Hill said, adding that the statements made in the document are true.
In an interview published in the Sunday Gleaner on November 25, Hill admitted to running afoul of the US authorities but said it was nothing that he could not stand up and defend.
"My family migrated to the United States in 1967 where, at a young age, I ended up in banking," he told the newspaper. "I worked with one of the largest minority banks in New Jersey, where, later on, I would end up being the president. I eventually got bored and got my own company.
"We were doing portfolio loans and were very successful at it. We would later run into problems, in that, we loaned out too much money and weren't able to fulfil some of our obligations. I was in violation and the US Justice Department asked me if I would co-operate. The year was 1986. If you have never had a failure in life then you will never be able to appreciate what true success is."
He said he had learnt from that ordeal and was a much better person today. "The US authorities shocked me by giving me back my loan portfolio in the end, and I have made good use of it," he added.
But according to the case file reported in 1996 Westlaw (WL 33648765), Hill, at his April 26, 1996 plea hearing in New Jersey, "confessed that he and his co-conspirators used various corporate entities, including Citywide Mortgage Corporation and Citywide Financial Services, to engage in an 'advance fee scheme'".
Added the Westlaw report: "More specifically, defendant solicited and accepted money from customers (an 'advance fee' of about (US)$25,000 - (US)$35,000) based on a fraudulent promise to arrange funding for loans which never materialised. As a result of this scheme, Hill and his collaborators defrauded nearly 500 victims out of an estimated (US)eight million dollars."...
Author: Observer Reporter
Source: Jamaica Observer
