October 30, 2009
For more information contact:
AUSA Karen Rhew-Miller
(850) 942-8430
UF PROFESSOR AND WIFE INDICTED FOR WIRE FRAUD, MONEY LAUNDERING
TALLAHASSEE -- Thomas F. Kirwin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida today announced that a Federal Grand Jury has returned an Indictment charging a University of Florida professor and his wife, the president of a research and development company specializing in high technology engineering research, with fraud and related offenses arising from $3.7 million in contracts the couple entered into with NASA, the United States Air Force, and the Navy.
In a seventy-one count Indictment, the Federal Grand Jury in Tallahassee charged Samim Anghaie, age 60 and his wife, Sousan Anghaie, age 55, both of Gainesville, Florida with: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, fifty counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, seventeen counts of money laundering, and one count of making false statements to the Government. Sousan Anghaie is also charged in a separate count with making false statements.
The Indictment alleges that:
● Samim Anghaie was a professor at the University of Florida and served as
the Director of the Innovation Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute (INSPI) there. Sousan Anghaie was the president and registered agent of New Era Technology, Inc. (NETECH), a business in which Samim Anghaie had formerly served as director and vice-president.
● The defendants submitted proposals containing false information in order to obtain contracts with NASA, the Air Force, and the Navy. In these proposals, defendants falsely represented that NETECH had a research scientist, staff scientist, engineer, computer engineer, or laboratory assistant, who would be used to implement the proposed contract and that NETECH was equipped with a state of the art analysis and data communication laboratory. The proposals also falsely stated that NETECH had a collaborative work and partnership with INSPI and that the proposed system design activities would be conducted at NETECH facilities located in Gainesville, Florida;
● In submitting these proposals, defendants certified that NETECH would not subcontract any of the proposed work on the proposed contracts, when in fact, after NETECH was awarded the contracts, virtually all of the work submitted for payment under the contract was performed by individuals not employed by NETECH;
● The contract proposals, technical reports, and final reports submitted to NASA, the Air Force, and the Navy contained research, analysis, and information that defendants falsely represented to have been performed by NETECH as part of the contracts. In reality the research, analysis, and information had been taken from research projects, papers, theses, and presentations of graduate and doctoral students at the University of Florida and used by NETECH without the students’ knowledge or consent.
● Contrary to defendants representations, the laboratory and material testing information defendant submitted to NASA and the Air Force as part of the performance of contracts were not the product of work done by NETECH, but were taken from work performed at INSPI, at the UF’s Major Analytical Instrumentation Center (MAIC), and a laboratory located in Russia.
● The defendants created fictitious employment records and submitted them to the Defense Contract Audit Agency to identify individuals who purportedly would be providing services under the contract, and to provide cost support information for the pay rates of these “workers.”
● After obtaining monies from NASA based upon the submission of claims and invoices falsely representing that specific work on the contract had been performed by certain individuals and that NETECH had paid these individuals for their work, the defendants paid themselves the contract monies;
● In addition to depositing the fraudulently obtained Government monies in their own accounts, the defendants also deposited these monies into the bank accounts held by their sons and then transferred these monies back into their own accounts.
● While employed as the director of INSPI, Samim Anghaie falsely represented in conflict of interest forms submitted to the University of Florida that facilities, employees, and students of the university were not being utilized for any outside activities or any private purpose.
The Indictment also seeks the forfeiture of certain real and personal property of the defendants that had been seized pursuant to federal seizure warrants in late February of this year.
Defendants Samim Anghaie and Sousan Anghaie were arrested by federal agents this morning in Gainesville, Florida on federal warrants issued based upon the charges of the Indictment. Both defendants had their first appearance this morning in the United States District Court in Gainesville. The defendants’ arraignment on the charges has not been scheduled at this time.
If convicted on all the counts of the Indictment, Samim and Sousan Anghaie face a maximum of twenty years’ imprisonment on each of the conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering charges, and a maximum term of five years’ imprisonment on each of the charges of making false statements.
This Indictment is the result of an extensive investigation by the NASA Office Of Inspector General, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. United States Attorney Kirwin commended the exhaustive efforts of investigators involved in this complex case, and praised the cooperation of the University of Florida in the investigation. Mr. Kirwin stated, “The thorough investigation of fraud committed against the taxpayers and Government agencies remains a priority with the Department of Justice.”
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed a violation of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.