Business Crimes Hotline

FLORIDA

German National Latest to Plead Guilty in Haitian Bribery Scheme Case

Amadeus Richers, 66, a German national, admitted to taking part in a 2001 to 2004 scheme to pay roughly $3 million in bribes to Haitian officials in return for favorable treatment from Teleco, a state-owned telecommunications company. The former general manager of two Miami-based telecoms companies pled guilty in a Miami federal court to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) on July 19, 2017.

Richers served as the general manager of both Cinergy Telecommunications, Inc. (“Cinergy”) and Uniplex Telecom Technologies, Inc. (“Uniplex”). The companies shared the same address, ownership, management and employees. Richers reported to co-defendant Washington Vasconez Cruz, the owner of both companies. According to Richer's factual proffer, from 2001 to 2003, Vasconez Cruz instructed him to issue ten checks totaling $1.2 million from Uniplex to a shell company called JD Locator. The shell company was owned by Juan Diaz, a friend of Robert Antoine, Teleco's Director of International Affairs. Diaz then transmitted the money to Antoine and Patrick Joseph, Teleco's General Director. The bribes were meant to earn Cinergy and Uniplex a favorable telecommunications contract and preferred rates on landline calls made in Haiti.

In 2003, Antoine left Telco and began working at Cinergy. He negotiated a new bribery scheme between the company and his replacement at Teleco, Jean Rene Duperval. In exchange for cash, Duperval allegedly agreed to extend the favorable contract. In the latter part of 2003, Richers executed the new scheme by issuing checks totaling $142,460 to Crossover Records, a music promotion company controlled by Duperval's brother. Richers and Cruz also wrote $257,000 in checks to another intermediary shell company, Telecom Consulting Services, nominally owned by Duperval's sister. Richers also admitted to paying $1.2 million to an unnamed Haitian executive branch official through another intermediary company.

Richers was indicted in 2011 and a superseding indictment was issued in 2012. The superseding indictment included FCPA, money laundering, and conspiracy charges. Richers was considered a fugitive until his arrest in Panama in 2013. The Panamanian government extradited him to the United States in February 2017.

Richers' co-conspirators have all been indicted or convicted for their connections to the scheme. Juan Diaz pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and money laundering in April 2009. Robert Antoine pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in March 2010. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to forfeit over $1.5 million. Jean Rene Duperval was convicted by a federal jury of two counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering and 19 counts of money laundering. He was sentenced to 108 months in prison and three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to forfeit $497,331. Patrick Joseph pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in February 2012 and received a 12-month and one-day prison sentence. He was also ordered to forfeit nearly $1 million. Washington Vasconez Cruz remains a fugitive.

The case led to the 2014 Eleventh Circuit ruling that the FCPA applies to bribery of employees of state-owned corporations. Two other co-conspirators in the case, Joel Esquenazi and Carlos Rodriguez, were convicted in November 2011 of FCPA violations and sentenced to 180 months in prison and 84 months in prison, respectively. They appealed their conviction on the grounds that Teleco employees were not “foreign officials” under the FCPA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected that argument, holding that limiting the FCPA's reach to only government agencies would “impede the wide net over foreign bribery Congress sought to cast in enacting the FCPA.”

Richers will be sentenced by Judge Jose E. Martinez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Sept. 20.

—€ Dennis Mahoney, Mayer Brown