MANHATTAN – A Kentucky businessman plead guilty this week in federal court to a $53 million tax 
scheme and massive fraud involving the bribery of bank officials, according to officials.
Wilbur Anthony Huff, 53,controlled the companies and their finances that were used to concoct a $53 million fraud on the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as well as other illegal schemes, officials said.
Huff, of Caneyville and Louisville, Kentucky, plead guilty to one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede tax laws.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in April.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Those who might be tempted to follow in Huff’s criminal footsteps should understand that this office and our law enforcement partners will aggressively pursue and root out fraud wherever we find it.”
As part of his plea, Huff also agreed to forfeit $10.8 million and to provide restitution of more than $75 million.
Officials said Huff concealed control of the companies by having others oversee the businesses’ day-to-day functions as owners, directors or officers.
Authorities said Huff had a corrupt relationship with Park Avenue Bank and its executives, Charles J. Antonucci Sr., the president and chief executive officer, and Matthew L. Morris, the senior vice president.
Here are the facts and circumstances surrounding this case, according to officials:
From 2008 to 2010, officials said Huff controlled O2HR, a professional employer organization located in Tampa, Florida. O2HR was paid to manage the payroll, tax, and workers’ compensation insurance obligations of its client companies.
However, instead of paying $53 million in taxes that O2HR’s clients owed the IRS, and instead of paying $5 million to Providence Property and Casualty Insurance Company – an Oklahoma-based insurance company – for workers’ compensation coverage expenses for O2HR clients, Huff stole the money that his client companies had paid O2HR for those purposes.
Among other things, HUFF diverted millions of dollars from O2HR to fund his investments in unrelated business ventures, and to pay his family members’ personal expenses.
The expenses included mortgages on Huff’s homes, rent payments for his children’s apartments, staff and equipment for Huff’s farm, designer clothing, jewelry, and luxury cars.
Specifically, Huff conspired with Morris and Antonucci to falsely bolster Park Avenue Bank’s capital, by orchestrating a series of fraudulent transactions to make it appear that Park Avenue Bank had received an outside infusion of $6.5 million when, in fact, they were a series of fraudulent transactions.
Huff paid bribes totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and other items to Morris and Antonucci, in exchange for their favorable treatment at Park Avenue Bank.
The $6.5 million infusion made it appear as though the money was helping to stabilize the Bank’s capitalization problem, so the Bank could continue engaging in certain banking transactions that it would otherwise have been prohibited from doing, and to put the Bank in a better posture to receive $11 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, officials said.
Huff, Morris, and Antonucci further concealed their scheme by stealing $2.3 million from General Employment Enterprises, Inc., a publicly-traded temporary staffing company, in order to pay Park Avenue Bank back for monies used in connection with the $6.5 million transaction.
Fraud on Insurance Regulators and the Investment Firm
From July 2008 to November 2009, Huff, Morris, Antonucci, and Allen Reichman, an executive at an investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York, New York conspired to defraud Oklahoma insurance regulators into allowing Antonucci to purchase the assets of Providence P&C – the Oklahoma insurance company that was owed $5 million by O2HR and defraud the Investment firm into providing a $30 million loan to finance the purchase.
Charles Antonucci plead guilty in 2010 to his role in the crimes. Matthew L. Morris plead guilty in connection in October. Reichman is currently scheduled to go to trial on March 2.
Reichman is presumed innocent until proven guilty.