Checkmate Financial Defendant, Melvin Webman Sentenced
According to "R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Henry Gutierrez, Postal Inspector in Charge, United States Postal Inspection Service, announced that defendant, Melvin Webman, was sentenced earlier today by United States District Court Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga in Miami, Florida to a term of 102 months in prison and a term of three years of supervised release."
What did Mr. Webman do which resulted in a 102 month prison term?
Well according to the indictment,
"Webman and others engaged in the solicitation of investments through CheckMate Financial, Inc. to support a supposed mobile check cashing operation. Webman and others fraudulently induced investors around the country to invest in CheckMate Financial. Webman and others misrepresented that CheckMate Financial had at least one mobile check cashing unit that was in operation cashing checks in Florida. In fact, however, CheckMate Financial did not have a mobile check cashing unit that was in operation cashing checks in Florida, or anywhere else" (my emphasis)
Now how do you sell the idea that you have a mobile check cashing unit? What sort of sound does this truck make? "Come out, come out, bring out your checks"?
But there is in fact a serious business story that can be told: the Unbanked of America and how to service them. The fraud criminal will use the terms, concepts, and words used by these authorities to construct an illusion which has just enough tissue to survive a surface look.
