It was announced by the U.S. Department of Justice that a woman from Orlando has been sent to more than two years in federal jail for her part in a construction-related wire fraud conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge William F. Jung gave Wendy Cudemo, 48, a 27-month sentence and told her to give up nearly $788,000 in money she got illegally and a piece of land in Palmetto, Florida.
Cudemo had already pleaded guilty on July 16, admitting that she was involved in the scam that hurt many workers and several building companies.
Case details show that Cudemo was in charge of a construction business that worked for and provided services to other construction companies.
In a news release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Cudemo’s company had to make sure it had the right worker’s compensation insurance to follow Florida law.
However, the company lied and said it had a smaller payroll than the number of workers who were actually on the job sites. These workers were often illegal immigrants who were paid by Cudemo through payroll checks cashed by contractors.
Cudemo lied on her insurance application about how many workers her company had and how much money it made, which meant that these workers did their jobs without enough insurance.
The checks from construction companies to people who were supposed to work for Cudemo’s company were more than $7.8 million, which is a lot more than what was reported for insurance reasons.
Due to this difference, insurers missed out on charges they would have charged if they knew the real number of workers who were at risk.
Also, neither Cudemo’s company nor the contractors who hired the workers took responsibility for making sure the workers were legally allowed to work or for handling state and federal payroll taxes.
This investigation was done by Homeland Security Investigations and Florida’s Department of Financial Services as part of a larger effort to show how shell companies and fake workers are being used wrongly in the construction industry.
Cudemo had already pleaded guilty, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay L. Hoffer was in charge of his case.