Former EZjet boss extradited to Florida, remains in jail

Jan 04, 2013 News

Former boss of the collapsed charter airline, EZjet, Sonny Austin Ramdeo spent a mere nine minutes in a Florida court shortly after his extradition from New York on an indictment of wire fraud. He is charged with filching some US$20 million from Promise Healthcare Hospitals and transferring the money to his charter airline, EZjet.

Former EZjet boss, Sonny Austin Ramdeo

Appearing before Magistrate Judge Dave Lee Brannon, Ramdeo again waived the formal reading of the indictments and pleaded not guilty. Earlier, he was informed of his rights and at his request to address the court, he pleaded indigence (that he had no money to afford counsel) so that the state would appoint a defender.
This case in Florida is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellen L. Cohen.
In New York, he had also waived the formal reading of the indictment and had also pleaded not guilty. He remained in jail until his extradition to Florida on Old Year’s Day (December 31).
He has until February 4, next, to file all necessary pre-trial documents in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Ramdeo was again refused bail and remains in a Florida jail.
The rules of court stipulate that the government shall, upon request of the defendant, disclose to the defendant a written summary of testimony the government reasonably expects to offer at trial.
This summary must describe the witnesses’ opinions, the bases and the reasons for the opinions, and the witnesses’ qualifications. If the defendant seeks and obtains discovery, the defendant shall upon request by the government, disclose to the government a written summary of testimony the defendant reasonably expects to offer at trial.
Ramdeo was arrested at his Queen’s, New York home early in the morning of December 12. Kaieteur News was told that agents zeroed in on him after weeks of wire fraud investigations.
At the time of his arrest, Ramdeo was reportedly speaking to a senior official of EZjet’s Guyana office on Skype, a video call that uses the internet.
Ramdeo, who lived in Florida, had reportedly been on the run since early November as US investigators started probing complaints that he allegedly stole US$5.4M from his employer, Promise Healthcare, and passed it through the accounts of EZjet.
He had also owned a payroll company that managed salary payments for Promise which runs a number of hospitals in the US. The accusations are that he would have illegally diverted the payroll money to the bank accounts of two companies.
The monies, according to a lawsuit filed by Promise Healthcare against Ramdeo and EZjet, were stolen within the last three months.
He is facing up to 60 years in federal custody for a US$20M tax fraud scheme. Some of the monies he is accused of stealing were said to be used to finance the operations of EZjet, a chartered airline that he started up last year December and which flew the New York/Guyana route with flights also to Toronto and Trinidad.
The Federal agents, led by Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said that Ramdeo transferred the money from Promise and Success Healthcare, which ran more than 17 hospitals across the US. He allegedly funneled the monies to his payroll tax company, PayServ, from where some were used to finance EZjet’s operations.
Court documents released by the Feds explained that Ramdeo was employed as the Director of Payroll of Promise Healthcare Inc. and Success Healthcare LLC. He was responsible for the payments of bi-weekly wages and related payroll taxes for more than 3,500 employees of the companies.
According to the indictment, as early as September 3, 2010, and continuing through October 12, 2012, at Boca Raton, Palm Beach County, in the Southern District of Florida, and elsewhere, Ramdeo devised a scheme to defraud the hospitals by stealing the payroll taxes.
He did this by establishing Payserv Tax Inc. which he claimed, using false e-mails, was a subsidiary of Ceridian Corporation, a well known company that once did payroll services for the hospitals.