EMMANUEL ROY – FOUNDER OF TOUT HAITI – SENT TO JAIL FOR 84 MONTHS FOR CRIMINAL FRAUD IN FLORIDA & NEW YORK

February 5, 2013|By Paula McMahon, Sun Sentinel

Two lawyers who acted so despicably in a South Florida case that they were held in contempt of court and ordered to repay $275,800 in fees to a client, have managed to create more trouble for themselves and even could end up serving time in federal prison.

By thumbing their noses at a federal judge, Peter Mayas, of Miramar and Plantation, and Emmanuel Roy, of New York and South Florida, are now in about as much of a legal mess as trained lawyers can get themselves into in a courtroom.

In the latest twist, a judge found they have attempted to hide assets, lied to the court and tried to thwart him. The judge now recommends that Roy and Mayas face sanctions for their behavior and for wasting the court’s time.

The odyssey began when Roy and Mayas — who weren’t authorized to practice law in federal court in South Florida — nonetheless represented a defendant, Patrick Coulton, in a criminal case in 2008.

They managed to wring $275,800 worth of cash and property out of Coulton’s family for a minimal amount of work they weren’t qualified to do, the judge ruled.

Roy even flew to England to personally remove a $23,000 wedding and engagement ring set from the finger of Coulton’s wife, Pamela, during a breakfast meeting in London, according to court testimony. Roy gave the rings to his mother-in-law, witnesses testified.

Paul Petruzzi, the Miami lawyer appointed by the court to take over Coulton’s representation in August 2010 after Roy and Mayas abandoned him in prison, said the case wasn’t about making money for him — it was about trying to ensure justice was done.

“Guys like Roy and Mayas are the reason people hate lawyers,” Petruzzi said, saying the case turned into a personal mission for him.

Petruzzi said he doesn’t plan to accept any payment for the 2 1/2 years of work he put into the case.

“When Coulton’s wife told me how it felt to be robbed by the lawyer she hired to represent her husband — to lose her home, her rings, her vehicle, only to have him abandoned in prison — that’s when it stopped being about just getting the money back for her,” Petruzzi said.

When Roy and Mayas had extracted as many valuables as possible from the Coultons — including their Coconut Creek townhome, a Porsche Cayenne, more jewelry and tens of thousands of dollars in cash — they helped him plead guilty, handled his sentencing and then ditched him in prison, U.S. Magistrate Judge William C. Turnoff ruled in September 2011.

The judge issued a scorching 33-page ruling, found Roy, 45, and Mayas, 48, in contempt of court and called their conduct “disgusting, abhorrent” and the “most outrageous” he’d seen in 25 years on the bench.

Roy is now disbarred in Florida and New York, and Mayas is suspended from practicing law, for now.

The judge said they broke the most fundamental rules of lawyering and gave them 10 days to repay all the money, with interest, to the Coulton family or file sworn documents detailing their assets.

But both men ignored the order for months and the judge even had to have Roy arrested in New York to force him to show up in federal court in Miami in August.

On Friday, the judge issued his second report in the case — 37 pages this time — summarizing the extraordinary sequence of events that unfolded during eight lengthy court hearings he was forced to hold last year to try to get to the bottom of Roy’s and Mayas’ continuing misconduct.

The judge ordered that the two men still have have to repay the original $275,800, plus interest that has been growing since 2011.

He also found that both men had attempted to hide property and other assets, in violation of his earlier order, to try to avoid paying what they owe to the Coultons. In August, Mayas eventually turned over the keys to his gated Monarch Lakes home, which is in foreclosure, and his 2001 BMW to Coulton’s current lawyer, in partial payment of the debt.

The judge also urged the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate both men for perjury — for lying during the court proceedings — and also to investigate their alleged roles in the possibly fraudulent “sale” of Mayas’ former Miramar home to his friend in an effort to conceal assets. The judge said that was a sham transaction.

Roy invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in response to every one of more than 80 questions put to him in less than one hour in court in Miami in September.

He also apparently tried to hide his ownership of several assets, including property in Brooklyn and a Mercedes Benz S430 that his girlfriend testified belonged to her, the judge found.

In an unrelated case, Roy was found guilty Friday in federal court in New York of five mortgage fraud charges dating back to 2005. He is free on bond in New York, pending sentencing later this year.

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3 thoughts on “EMMANUEL ROY – FOUNDER OF TOUT HAITI – SENT TO JAIL FOR 84 MONTHS FOR CRIMINAL FRAUD IN FLORIDA & NEW YORK

  1. Depuis quelques temps des criminels et des mercenaires sans principe et prets a tout ont infiltres la presse haïtienne et la Diaspora. Le cas le plus recent est celui d’Emmanuel Roy alias EJR III un criminel inculpe a New York pour cinq chefs d’accusations de fraudes. Vous trouverez l’inculpation officielle a cette adresse:

    Emmanuel Roy, a suspect in a mortgage-fraud scheme is escorted by FBI agents after being taken into custody in New York, October 15, 2009. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidEmmanuel Roy, lors de son arrestation par le FBI a New York le 15 Octobre 2009.
    Le criminel Emmanuel Roy alias EJR III reconnu coupable de cinq chefs d’accusations de fraude a été comdamne a quatre vingt sept (87) mois de prison. Trouvez ici la copie de sa condamnation:

    Ce sont ces criminels arrêtes par le FBI et comdamne par la justice que le media Touye Ayiti (Tout-Haiti) utilise pour infiltrer et discrediter les institutions de la diaspora, la presse et les institutions d’Haiti.

    C’est carrement révoltant que ce reseau de criminels salissent l’image de la diaspora, la presse et les institutions haïtiennes. La diaspora et la presse doivent faire attention a leurs associations. Quand radio caraïbes, le président du Sénat Simon Desras et d’autres personnalités de la diaspora s’associent a Tout Haiti base de ces criminels pour organiser des activités a New York, on doit sincèrement se demander ou va notre pays? Pis, je me demande pourquoi Lucien Jura porte parole de la présidence peuvent s’associe a ces gens en participant aux activités de Tout Haiti a New York? Des corrections sont plus que nécessaires. On ne peut pas crédibiliser ce genre d’entreprises criminelles.

  2. FRAUD FOR THE AGES
    sea of foreclosures makes
    mortgage scams easier than ever
    During the housing boom, easy money
    and no-documentation loans were a
    magnet for fraudsters. Instead of leaving
    them without a market, the crash has
    provided a glut of foreclosures, stricken
    borrowers and desperate lenders to take
    advantage of.
    2
    special report
    NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH:
    Emilio carrasquillo has identified many cases of mortgage fraud in
    chicago, like this house on South Wood Street,
    june 29, 2010.
    REUTERS
    /JOHN GRESS
    The house on the 53rd block of South Wood Street in Chicago’s
    Back of the Yards doesn’t look like a $355,000 home. There is
    no front door and most of the windows are boarded up.
    Public records show it sold in foreclosure for $25,500 in January
    2009, then resold for $355,000 in October. In between, a $110,000
    mortgage was taken out on the home, supposedly for renovations.
    This June, the property went back into foreclosure.
    To Emilio Carrasquillo, head of the local office of non-profit lender
    Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS), the numbers don’t
    add up. He believes this is a case of mortgage fraud.
    It may not make the blood boil like murder or rape, but mortgage fraud is a crime that cost an estimated $14 billion in 2009 and could be hampering an already fragile recovery in the housing market. The FBI has been fighting back, assembling its largest ever team to fight it. They have their work cut out for them, though, as a tsunami of foreclosures is making classic scams easier and spawning new ones to boot. “There’s no way any property in this neighborhood should sell for that kind of money,” said Carrasquillo, standing outside the house on Wood Street in this poor, predominantly black area of Chicago’s
    South Side. “Even if it was in great condition.”
    Carrasquillo has identified a number of properties in Back of the Yards that sold for between $5,000 and $30,000 last year and then came back on the market for up to $385,000. He said property prices are being artificially inflated, allowing fraudsters to walk away with vast profits and making it harder for honest local people to buy a home.

    Mortgage fraud takes many forms, but a well-organized scam
    frequently involves a limited liability company (LLC) or a “straw buyer.” In this scheme, fraudsters use a fake identity or that of someone else who allows them to use their credit status in return for a fee. The seller pockets the money the buyer borrows from a lender to pay for the home. The buyer never makes a mortgage payment and the property goes into foreclosure.

    In other words, the money simply disappears, leaving the lender with a large loss. Since the U.S. government is now backing much of the mortgage market in the absence of private investors, that means “taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for fraud,” said Ann Fulmer, vice president of business relations at fraud-prevention company Interthinx.
    HOUSE OF CARDS: a
    foreclosed home is shown in chicago.
    a tsunami of forclosures is making classic
    scams easier and spawning a whole deck of new ones,
    j REUTERS
    /JOHN GRESS
    B

  3. Miami federal judge orders arrest of NY lawyerPair of attorneys accused of bilking, then abandoning Broward client

    By Rafael A. Olmeda, Sun Sentinel 6:37 p.m. EDT, July 6, 2012

    MIAMI— A federal judge on Friday ordered the arrest of a New York lawyer accused of bilking a South Florida client out of $275,800 then abandoning him after a guilty plea.

    Emmanuel Roy didn’t show up at the federal courthouse in Miami for Friday afternoon’s contempt hearing, an absence that was not taken lightly by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Turnoff. Although he stopped short of finding Roy in contempt of court, Turnoff issued a bench warrant for the wayward attorney.

    He is going to be arrested and brought before me,” Turnoff said.

    Roy and another attorney, Peter Mayas of Plantation, were ordered earlier this year to return the excessive legal fees to the family of Patrick Coulton, a Coconut Creek man who was arrested in March 2008 on federal drug and money laundering charges. With the attorneys present, Coulton pleaded guilty four months after his arrest. He is serving a seven-year sentence.

    The payments came in the form of cash, jewelry, a Porsche and a Coconut Creek townhouse. After the guilty plea, according to court documents, the attorneys ditched the client.

    But Mayas said he was only assisting Roy and never presented himself as Coulton’s lawyer.

    “When a lawyer represents a client, they sign a contract, a retainer,” Mayas said outside court Friday. “Mr. Coulton never retained me as his lawyer.” He conceded that he was present during at least one legal proceeding for Coulton, but said it was only to assist Roy and not as Coulton’s lawyer.

    Unimpressed with the distinction, Turnoff said Mayas’ denial – uttered in court under oath on May 31 – sounded so much like perjury that he all but invited federal prosecutors to arrest Mayas before he could leave the federal courthouse in downtown Miami. They did not.

    Mayas, who is not authorized to practice law in federal court, showed up without a lawyer to represent him Friday and said he could not afford to hire one. He insisted that he never took any money from Coulton.

    “Not one check was made in my name,” he said. “Not one payment went to me. Why am I being harassed?”

    As for Roy’s culpability, Mayas washed his hands.

    “I never said Mr. Roy did not take this man’s money,” he said. “He probably did.”

    After learning of the attorneys’ alleged conduct, Turnoff ordered the men to repay their former client. But serving the two men proved troublesome. Mayas said he could not attend one hearing earlier this year because it was held a week after he underwent heart surgery and was on doctor-ordered bedrest. He brought medical records to court Friday to bolster his account.

    Roy had problems of his own – he was arrested in 2009 in New York and charged in a $6.8 million mortgage fraud case. He is out on bond and able to travel out of state.

    Roy’s New York attorney, Raymond Sussman, could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

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