Charges Filed Against Employee Leasing Firm Aracoma Contracting, Llc For Structuring Millions In Cash Out Of Bank Of Mingo

Company involved in scheme to bilk BrickStreet Mutual Insurance out of millions in insurance premiums also structured over $2 million in cash out of Bank of Mingo

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – An information was filed today alleging that a Williamson employee leasing firm, Aracoma Contracting, LLC (“Aracoma”), structured cash withdrawals from the company’s bank accounts held at the Bank of Mingo.   In March 2013, Aracoma’s principals, Jerome Edward Russell, 50, of Williamson, W.Va., and Frelin R. Workman, 58, of Belfry, KY, pled guilty to their involvement in an honest services mail fraud scheme to defraud BrickStreet Mutual Insurance (BrickStreet) of insurance premiums and tax evasion.  Today’s charges, filed against the corporation, allege that Aracoma generated the cash to bribe the BrickStreet auditor, Arville Sargent, 52, of Chapmanville, and pay employees cash wages was generated by structuring monies from accounts held at Bank of Mingo.  “Structuring” involves the breaking down of cash transactions in amounts of $10,000 or less for the purpose of avoiding a financial institution’s reporting requirements to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  

Acting on behalf of Aracoma, Russell and Workman formed a longstanding relationship with the Bank of Mingo, and, particularly, one of its employees at the bank’s Williamson branch.  From January 2009 through April 2012, Aracoma, through its representatives including Russell and Workman, structured at least $2.2 million out of Bank of Mingo. Russell and Workman also enlisted the assistance of a number of individuals who agreed to appear at the Williamson branch of Bank of Mingo and cash cashier’s checks. 

The cash from the bank withdrawals was later brought back to Aracoma’s office to be used to pay cash payroll. 

During the scheme, Aracoma sent advance forms to the Williamson branch of Bank of Mingo prior to the structured cash withdrawals, so the bank could prepare the cash ahead of time.  Bank of Mingo would then prepare cashier’s checks in the names of the identified individual or individuals and pre-count the requested cash.  When an individual or individuals from Aracoma appeared at a Bank of Mingo teller window, a bank representative presented them with the cashier’s check in the individual’s name.  The check was immediately endorsed and the individual was given the pre-counted cash. 

Despite numerous occasions when multiple individuals appeared at the same teller window at the Williamson branch of Bank of Mingo to endorse cashier’s checks that exceeded $10,000 on Aracoma’s line of credit, Bank of Mingo routinely failed to file a currency transaction report, as required by law. 
An investigation determined that the cash structured out of Bank of Mingo by Aracoma was used to pay the company’s payroll in cash, therefore avoiding the payment of employment taxes and also to make bribe payments to a former BrickStreet field auditor, Arville Sargent. 

Sargent, 52, of Chapmanville, previously pleaded guilty in March to honest services mail fraud and tax evasion.  As a field auditor, Sargent purposely allowed four “employee leasing” companies, including Aracoma, to falsify documents drastically understating their actual payroll.  In exchange for saving those policyholders millions of dollars in insurance premiums rightfully owed to BrickStreeet, Sargent accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes and other things of value, including a Yamaha Rhino all-terrain vehicle.

Russell and Workman each face up to 25 years in prison and a $500,000 fine when they are sentenced on August 22, 2013. 

Sargent faces up to 25 years in prison and a $500,000 fine when he is sentenced on August 28, 2013.

The FBI, the IRS, the West Virginia State Police and the West Virginia Insurance Commission conducted the investigations.  This investigation was also handled in coordination with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia and the IRS’s local Abingdon, Virginia Resident Agency. Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Ryan is in charge of the prosecutions.