Murder and Principals

Posted on July 11, 2009 by Ron Chapman

          Earlier this week, Palm Beach Post writer Susan Spencer-Wendel wrote an article entitled "She's guilty of murder, but shooter's free" in which she recounted how a young woman named Ashley Ramirez was convicted of robbery and first-degree murder with a firearm even though the jury who decided her case found that she did fire the gun that killed the victim nor did she even possess it.  Following the verdict, Ms. Ramirez repeatedly asked the judge how she could be convicted of murder even though she wasn't the one who shot the victim.

 

           Ms. Ramirez' question is one that is frequently asked in varying forms by people who are accused of committing crimes along with others.  For example, a person who is accused of trafficking in cocaine may wonder why he was charged even though it was his co-defendant who actually delivered the cocaine to the undercover police officer.  Or, to use another example, someone who is charged with theft may wonder why she was charged even though it was her co-defendant who actually stole the merchandise.

 

          The answer is that the people in these examples are being charged as principals.  According to this legal tenet, if someone helps another person commit a crime (or even attempt to commit a crime), the former individual is a principal and must be treated as if he did all the things the other person did if two conditions are met:

 

          1.  He had a conscious intent that a crime be committed; and

 

          2.  He "did some act or said some word which was intended to and which did incite, cause, encourage, assist or advise the other person" to actually commit or attempt to commit a crime.

 

           In addition, someone who is charged as a principal does not even have to be physically present when the crime is committed.

 

          It is because of the principal theory that Ashley Ramirez can be convicted of murder and robbery even though the jury found that she was not the one who actually killed and robbed the victim and even though the person who did actually kill and rob the victim has never been formally charged with doing so.

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Jury Gets Scam Case Involving Millions

Posted on December 9, 2007 by Ron Chapman

By Sarah Prohaska

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, March 08, 2007

FORT PIERCE — A jury deliberated for more than four hours Wednesday and will return today to mull the fate of two men accused of orchestrating a complex scheme that prosecutors say defrauded elderly investors out of millions of dollars.

The jurors will meet at the federal courthouse at 9:30 a.m. to resume deliberations in the trial for Leonard Bogdan Jr. and John Brant, who investigators say created a so-called Ponzi scheme between 1998 and January 2001 that took more than $16 million from mostly retired investors. Some of those retirees say they lost their life savings when they invested in the Bogdan Financial Group or several other related companies.

"The reason we are here today is because the investors who gave close to $17 million, at the end of the day, had nothing to show for it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Acosta said Wednesday morning during her closing argument. "The picture all this paints is: This company and these two defendants would do anything, and did do anything, to get this money."

Prosecutors say Bogdan and Brant knew they were defrauding clients, mainly by diverting investors' money elsewhere and paying principal payments and interest with money from new investors. They needed to recruit new investors aggressively to keep pumping money into the scheme, Acosta said.

Bogdan and Brant's attorneys, however, told the jury that their clients never intended to scam anyone.

Ronald Chapman, who represents Bogdan, argued that the case belonged in civil court, not criminal. Bogdan was a bad manager, who did not properly supervise an inept employee who worked with the investors, he said.

"This was never an intent to defraud. There was never a conspiracy," Chapman argued. "It was just a botched corporation. It was because of carelessness. It was because of negligence. Find him not guilty, and tell the investors to go sue him in civil court."

Ian Goldstein, Brant's attorney, argued that his client was never part of a conspiracy.
Prosecutors were asking the jury to convict him based only on "guilt by association," Goldstein said.

Brant was in charge of locating and fixing investment properties and had nothing to do with the investors, he said.

"Most investors didn't even know who John Brant was," Goldstein said.

Acosta countered that Brant was listed as a vice president in some of Bogdan's companies, and the pair represented themselves as partners.

The jury must decide whether Bogdan is guilty of one count of conspiracy, 10 counts of fraud and five counts of money laundering. Brant is charged with one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of fraud.

The jurors listened to nearly two weeks of testimony in the trial. Prosecutors allege that, beginning in 1998, Bogdan pitched a residential mortgage program in which people invested money to pay for what was supposed to be a secured first mortgage, but many of the investments were not secured and several investors were placed on each home.

Investors also were encouraged to transfer money into other programs, and prosecutors say they were "fraudulently lulled" into thinking their investments were earning returns, but that money was really coming from new investors' funds.

"The conspiracy was to defraud these elderly people of their money. When the money started flowing in, that's when the greed took over," Acosta said. "Now, it's about accountability."

 

Florida criminal defense attorney Ronald Chapman has been representing people accused of committing crimes in Florida since 1990. You can read more about Mr. Chapman’s experience as a Florida criminal lawyer as well as review news articles about some of his cases. Some of the types of cases and issues that Mr. Chapman has handled since 1990 include:

 

• Death Penalty Cases
• Assault and Battery Cases
• DUI Cases
• Drug Cases
• Sex Crimes Cases
• Sealing & Expunging Criminal Records
• Bond|Bail
• Mistaken Identification and Wrongful Conviction
• Police Interrogations
• Sentencing

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