Orlando, Florida – U.S. District Choose Gregory A. Presnell has sentenced Keith Ingersoll (46, Orlando) to 9 years and one month in federal jail for wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, tried wire fraud, and aggravated identification theft. The court docket additionally ordered Ingersoll to forfeit $9,814,993.36 in proceeds traceable to the offense and ordered him to pay $12.748 million in restitution to the victims. Ingersoll had pleaded responsible on October 18, 2022.
In accordance with court docket paperwork, in a single conspiracy, Ingersoll and his co-conspirators fraudulently obtained $12.7 million from a sufferer between 2016 and 2021. The co-conspirators falsely represented that the funds offered by the sufferer could be used as refundable deposits for particular actual property transactions, that the funds could be held in escrow by an lawyer, and that the funds could be returned to the sufferer upon request. In actual fact, the funds have been despatched to 2 conspirators who weren’t licensed attorneys. Slightly than retain the funds as had been promised, these conspirators diverted parts of the funds for their very own private profit, together with for luxurious automobile leases, journey, and grownup leisure and transferred nearly all of the funds to Ingersoll. As a part of the conspiracy, Ingersoll and different conspirators offered the sufferer with faux actual property buy contracts and different paperwork that weren’t executed by the homeowners of the properties, however slightly contained solid signatures or have been executed utilizing the names of fictitious people and that falsely represented the entities that owned the properties. Ingersoll and different conspirators additionally falsely claimed that particular entities and people had expressed curiosity in buying the actual property, when these potential consumers didn’t exist, had by no means been contacted about buying the actual property, or had declined to pursue a transaction.
When the sufferer requested a return of a number of the funds, Ingersoll offered false excuses about why the funds couldn’t be returned, together with false claims that the purported escrow agent was in Costa Rica and was not allowed to go away that nation as a result of having COVID-19.
In one other conspiracy that befell in 2017, Ingersoll conspired to defraud an area authorities entity within the Center District of Florida out of $262,000 by means of the straw buy and markup of a bit of actual property. As a part of that conspiracy, Ingersoll used his place as a advisor for the native authorities entity to discover a straw purchaser to purchase a bit of actual property. On the identical day that the straw purchaser purchased this actual property, Ingersoll brought on the property to be transferred to the native authorities company for an additional $262,000 above the acquisition worth. The $262,000 windfall was then divided amongst Ingersoll, the straw purchaser, and different conspirators.
In yet one more scheme, on March 31, 2020, Ingersoll submitted a fraudulent software to the U.S. Small Enterprise Administration searching for $66,500 in emergency COVID-19 funding within the type of an Financial Harm Catastrophe Mortgage (EIDL) for a enterprise managed by him named “The Ingersoll Group.” On this software, Ingersoll made false representations concerning The Ingersoll Group’s revenues and prices in an try to fraudulently enhance the quantity of the mortgage. The appliance was finally denied.
This case was investigated by america Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Seminole County Sheriff’s Workplace. It was prosecuted by United States Lawyer Roger B. Handberg and Assistant United States Attorneys Amanda Daniels, Chauncey A. Bratt, and Jennifer M. Harrington.