Gwendolyn Moyo guilty on all charges in her federal fraud trial

Gwendolyn Moyo guilty on all charges in her federal fraud trial, the third conviction in an international financial scam that brought down former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd, who pleaded guilty and resigned his Senate seat days before the trial began last week.Moyo, a bond broker with two previous convictions who represented herself during trial, displayed no emotion as she sat at a table taking notes while a clerk spent nearly 10 minutes reading the verdict.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for 10 hours over two days before convicting Moyo on 41 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering for selling more than a dozen bogus construction bonds, netting about $2 million in illegal proceeds.Moyo was not allowed to speak to reporters, but she released a one-page handwritten statement saying she respects the jury's verdict but condemns the government for discriminating against her because she is black."This verdict doesn't surprise me whatsoever. After all, this is Louisiana, home of the good ol' boys, " she wrote. "It's just another tragedy in seeking -- not equal justice -- but fair justice when you're an African-American in America."U.S. Attorney Jim Letten noted that nearly all of Moyo's victims were minority contractors and business people."The real irony is that she was not treated differently because she is an African-American, but the people she preyed upon were targeted because they were minorities, " Letten said. "The only people who didn't get a fair shake were the victims who lost millions of dollars to Ms. Moyo and her cronies."Moyo's conviction is sure to sharpen the focus on the alleged roles of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and his sister, Betty Jefferson, a New Orleans assessor, who are listed as unindicted co-conspirators in Moyo's indictment. Neither has been charged, and Letten declined to say whether the Jeffersons are targets in the ongoing probe.Jurors were universally impressed with the government's case, said jury foreman Danny Keating of Slidell, who attributed the lengthy deliberations to the painstaking task of sifting through hundreds of pages of financial documents to support each charge.
"The government was extremely well-prepared, and Ms. Moyo wasn't prepared at all, " he said. "She would have been better served with a trained attorney, but I don't think it would have changed the verdict."Asked whether he could recall a single significant point Moyo made in her own defense during three days of testimony, Keating said, "No, not really."Moyo, who declined a court-offered public defender, had a "standby" attorney to advise her on procedural matters.Moyo drew a rebuke from U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier before jury selection began when she made a show of putting on makeup in court. Moyo cut those antics when the jury was present, but she often seemed befuddled during her rambling cross-examinations, and Barbier continually admonished her to stick to evidence in the case.Moyo, 53, has been held in jail without bond since her arrest a year ago. She faces 15 to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced Jan. 21, according to federal sentencing guidelines.The jury ordered Moyo to forfeit $3.1 million that was obtained by fraud or laundered.Any money collected is to be distributed to the victims, but bank records presented in court show Moyo blew through cash as quickly as she bilked it from a church and numerous small businesses, several of which were shoved to the brink of bankruptcy.
She also owes $1.2 million in restitution from a 1989 conviction on similar fraud charges in Arizona. She was convicted again a year later for using fraudulent credit cards to pay $120,000 in legal fees and other expenses related to the first trial, which lasted three months.The phony bonds Moyo sold for $100,000 and up were intended to serve as multimillion-dollar insurance policies that could be cashed if contractors failed to complete major construction projects.The state Department of Insurance began an investigation in the fall of 2006 when it started receiving complaints that Moyo refused to pay off bonds for failed projects.Prosecutors sought to simplify the case by boiling it down to its most basic elements: Moyo was not a licensed bond broker but sold bonds anyway. The fact that the documents were worthless just added a major insult to injury, they said.Moyo, who called no witnesses to testify in her defense, claimed she did not need a broker's license because she acted as an "insurance consultant, " a position not recognized by Louisiana law.Many of the bogus bonds were underwritten by a shell company in Toronto that claimed to have $20 million in cash reserves at a time when the company president was locked out of his office for falling behind in rent payments.
Prosecutors said Moyo executed the scam with help from "three dupes, " including two Chinese citizens with student visas and a California retiree whom she had never met in person until he testified against her during the three-day trial.James Zoucha, 67, of Oceanside, Calif., who pleaded guilty Sept. 10 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, admitted printing phony bonds using a form scanned into his computer.
The relatively crude nature of the scheme makes it all the more surprising that three prominent New Orleans area politicians became enmeshed in the case.Shepherd pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering Oct. 10, just four days before he was to stand trial with Moyo. The Marrero Democrat, who resigned his 3rd District Senate seat, had been charged with helping Moyo launder $141,000 in ill-gotten gains, keeping $65,000 for himself.