PatrickPretty.com

Tag: murder for hire

  • FEDS: Florida Scammer Who Swindled Investment Clients And Tried To Arrange Murders Of Witness And Business Partners Sentenced To 30 Years In Federal Prison

    breakingnews72A 60-year-old Florida man who swindled retirees and ran a “sham investment firm” known as Yorkshire Financial Services with his now-deceased brother has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

    Paul S. Kruse of Jacksonville plotted at least three murders after the scam was exposed, including the murder of a personal assistant who’d observed his dirty dealings, contacted the FBI and became a government witness.

    If Kruse survives the prison sentence, his release will occur when he is approximately 90 years old.

    After his brother’s 2012 suicide in the wake of the Yorkshire collapse, Kruse hired hit men to kill the personal assistant “to both prevent her from testifying and avenge his brother’s death,” the Justice Department said today.

    “Kruse also hired the hit men to rob and kill two former business partners, who Kruse contended had cheated him,” the Justice Department said.

    The hit men, however, were “undercover federal agents,” the Justice Department said.

    Kruse laid out the plot while being detained prior to trial, the Justice Department said.

    From a statement by the Justice Department (italics added):

    According to court documents, beginning in 2010, Kruse and his brother conspired to recruit and defraud a number of clients to whom they provided financial advisory services. As part of the scheme, Kruse established a sham investment firm called Yorkshire Financial Services. He and his brother convinced their clients, a number of whom were retirees, to move their savings to Yorkshire. Kruse and his brother deceptively told clients that Yorkshire had been in business for more than 30 years, had a staff of experienced securities traders, and traded in a combination of stocks, bonds and currencies appropriate for individual retirement accounts (IRAs). In reality, Kruse did not invest the investors’ funds. Rather, he spent the investors’ money on luxury cars, home improvements and personal items and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash withdrawals. As a result of the scheme, Kruse stole $931,844 from 21 victims.

    Senior U.S. District Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger late yesterday ordered Kruse jailed for three decades. Kruse further was ordered to pay restitution of $897,960 and serve five years’ supervised probation upon his prison release.

    The case was investigated by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

  • BULLETIN: Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen,’ 71, Charged In Alleged Murder-For-Hire Plot Against Federal Judge In Texas

    BULLETIN: A federal judge in Texas was the target of a murder-for-hire plot by a purported “sovereign citizen,” the FBI said.

    Phillip Monroe Ballard, 71, already was jailed at the Fort Worth Federal Correctional Institution when he solicited the killing of U.S. District Judge John McBryde, the office of U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas said.

    Ballard was to go on trial today before McBryde, prosecutors said. He now has been charged with soliciting the judge’s murder.

    Last month, according to the FBI, the agency received information from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FCI Fort Worth) that Ballard was talking about having McBryde killed so a new judge would be assigned.

    On Sept. 9, according to the FBI, Ballard was in the prison’s “day room” with other inmates and “talking about his belief in being a sovereign citizen,” claiming that “he is immune from all the laws of the United States.”

    One of Ballard’s fellow inmates reported that Ballard had “approached him about killing McBryde,” federal prosecutors said.

    That inmate agreed to become a “cooperating source,” according to the FBI.

    Because Ballard feared McBryde would sentence him to 20 years, Ballard proposed a plan by which the judge would be murdered with a “high-powered rifle” outside the federal courthouse or with a car bomb.

    The informant told Ballard he could help arrange the judge’s murder and have “a guy on the outside” carry out the lethal crime, according to the FBI.

    Ballard offered $100,000 for the contract, provided the informant a “hand-written map” of the external courthouse and emailed his sister to send $5,000 to an address in Oklahoma, the FBI said.

    That address was the address set up by the FBI as part of its sting, and the $5,000 was the down payment on the judge’s murder, the FBI said.

    McBryde has recused himself from the tax trial, which has been postponed, federal prosecutors said.