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A federal jury in Atlanta has convicted Erick Powell, a former operator and co-owner of the National Vocation Group job-staffing company, of wire fraud. A second defendant and co-owner, Ahmad McCormick, pleaded guilty to wire fraud on August 31, 2017. “Powell and his co-defendant used their company to dupe hundreds of job-seekers into paying high fees for unnecessary training with the expectation of placement in jobs that did not exist,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak. “The jury’s verdict is a strong message to other criminals that law enforcement will find and prosecute any person or company seeking to take advantage of the hard-working citizens of this district.” Click to read more:

In what Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers call an unusually comprehensive analysis of nationwide data, they conclude that the rate of lawnmower injuries persists at close to 6,400 a year, most of them requiring surgery and hospitalization, and costing an average of $37,000 per patient. A report of the study, tracking eight years of data between 2006 and 2013, was published in the Sept. issue of Public Health Reports. “Despite consumer education programs and warning labels, lawnmower injuries in the United States remain a serious public health concern,” says Deborah Schwengel, M.D., assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s senior author. She is also associated with Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Overall the new analysis showed that the most frequent injuries were to men (43,567 of 51,151, or 85.2 percent), and that children up to age 4 were six times more likely to have a foot/toe or lower extremity injury and 1.7 times more likely to have an amputation than those age 15 and above. Conversely, older teens and adults age 15 and above were 8.3 times more likely to have an injury to the hand or upper extremity. This, the researchers say, suggests that young children are more likely to get injured by running into the yard while a family member operates the lawnmower or by getting their foot trapped in the machine while sitting in the operating member’s lap, and that the majority of teens and adults sustain injuries from sticking their hands into the mower to clear debris. Click to read more:

Taxpayers were cheated. Workers were swindled out of a fair shake. Law-abiding businesses were forced to cut corners or go belly up. A year-long investigation by Miami Herald and McClatchy Newspapers published in September found all this and more in Florida’s construction industry during the recession. Read More here:

Evelio Suarez learned the ropes of shadow banking during the last decade’s real estate boom while working for La Bamba, a chain of check-cashing stores that was once a sponsor of the Miami Heat. But rather than quit the business after his boss and other employees at La Bamba were sent to prison, Suarez launched his own chain in Hialeah catering to people who couldn’t cash checks at conventional banks. Now, Suarez, 53, could be facing a long prison sentence himself. Suarez ran a trio of stores that cashed at least $500 million in fraudulent checks in 2013-14, federal prosecutors say. Arrested in late June, he is fighting charges of conspiring to commit money laundering, bribing a bank employee and tampering with a grand jury witness. Click to read more:

An OSHA violation from a job in West Broward has Crown Roofing facing $129,336 in fines for not protecting workers from a fall hazard, the Department of Labor has announced. Actually, considering this is classified as a Repeat violation, the fine comes from Crown's history as much as May's inspection of the worksite at 2918 NW 124th Way, west of Tamarac. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says it has written up Crown Roofing 13 times since 2014 for fall hazards. Workers doing residential construction more than six feet off the ground must be protected from falls by guardrails, safety nets or individual fall prevention equipment. Click to read more:

Newberry business owner who last year pleaded guilty to tax fraud involving $1.7 million and harboring undocumented immigrants, was sentenced late Monday to one year and one day in prison. Mac Johnson, 51, also agreed to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service as part of the plea he entered in February 2018, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release. The case represents a get-tough approach to tax fraud and other offenses, said Mary Hammond, special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Tampa field office. The sentencing should send a “tough message” to business owners who try to gain an unfair advantage by not paying employment taxes, she said in the release. By withholding the taxes, Johnson was able to undercut the competition, the release said. Rod Smith, Johnson’s attorney, said full restitution has already been made. Smith said he believes the judge was impressed with that and with Johnson admitting to the charges. Court records show Johnson paid $1.18 million. About 60 people attended the sentencing hearing to support Johnson, Smith said. “The judge made a difficult decision. I think the judge did the best he could to balance out all that occurred,” Smith said. “The other thing that was critically important to us was to keep the businesses operating. The employees will still have their jobs.” Johnson owns roofing, tree service and trash-container businesses. He devised a scheme to conceal the amount of wages earned by undocumented employees to avoid paying more than $1.7 million in federal income, Medicare and Social Security taxes, and more than $1 million in Florida worker compensation premiums. Click to read more:)

Federal investigators are seeking to learn if the Related Group, Miami’s biggest developer, lowered costs on an affordable-housing project by hiring subcontractors who failed to pay employment taxes, the Miami Herald has learned. The strategy involves treating workers as outside contractors instead of in-house employees. That allows companies to skip paying costly employment taxes. Click here to read more:

Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis today announced the recent arrest of Juan Jose Castro, owner of JACM Construction Corp., after his alleged attempt to operate a shell company with the sole intent of circumventing the state’s workers’ compensation laws. A “shell company” is an entity that conducts no significant business operations and can be used as vehicle to conduct fraudulent financial transactions, such as workers’ compensation fraud. Castro obtained a workers' compensation policy for JACM Construction Corp. April 25, 2017. When obtaining the policy, Castro provided his business operated with an estimated annual payroll of $112,000.00 for work classified under the description of wallboard installation and carpentry. Click here to read more:

Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis today announced the recent arrest of Jose Esmelin Martinez and Uzziel Isaias Jaramillo, owners of Esmelin Corporation aka as Esmelin Roofing Contractor (ERC). Martinez and Jaramillo allegedly concealed nearly $1.2 million in payroll on their workers’ compensation policy renewal application in an alleged attempt to illegally lower their premium costs. Click to read more:

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Here’s a corollary: If the court decides something but doesn’t issue a written opinion, do we hear about it? Let's look at who/what made news, and who/what did not. Original article no longer available

Fort Lauderdale-based Tom Krips Construction and Lake Worth-based Etherna Services each got cited by OSHA for its role in a crane crushing a worker’s foot and ankle as it was being disassembled in May. This happened during work at Lago-Mar Place, 1750 S. Ocean Ln., in Fort Lauderdale. The Department of Labor announced the proposed fines Friday. Krips got $29,877 in proposed fines for, according to OSHA’s Citation and Notification of Penalty: “failing to follow the disassembly procedures established by the manufacturer;” “employees were under the boom while in the process of removing the pins for disassembly;” and “not providing training on disassembly procedures to the Disassembly Director.” Click here to read more:

Orlando, FL (WorkersCompensation.com) - Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater today announced the recent arrest of Leon “Chuy” Jimenez, owner of Chuy Construction Inc. (Chuy Construction) after a fraud investigation revealed that Jimenez allegedly operated a shell construction company for the sole purposes of selling the company's workers' compensation certificate. A shell company conducts no significant business operations and is used as vehicle to conduct fraudulent financial scams, such a workers' compensation fraud. The Department of Financial Services' Bureau of Insurance Fraud received a tip from the Florida Carpenter's Union alleging that Jimenez might be engaged in illegal activity and launched an investigation. Click here to read more: