Latest update December 21st, 2024 1:52 AM
EZjet boss guilty, faces up to 40 years
A Florida court yesterday accepted a guilty plea from the founder of EZjet, Sonny Austin Ramdeo, and he could face up to 40 years in jail when sentenced in January.
Appearing for approximately half an hour before Judge Kenneth Marra in a Southern Florida court yesterday, Ramdeo pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and money laundering, admitting that he stole between US$20M-$50M and using a number of bank transactions, passed the monies through the accounts of EZjet, a low-cost charter that he started up in 2011 and which folded last December, following his arrest in Brooklyn by US federal agents.
Guilty: Sonny Ramdeo
The plea bargain deal hammered out between Ramdeo’s legal counsel and prosecutors would have saved a lengthy trial and heavy sentence of up to 90 years for the embattled former executive – a trial that was set to start later this month.
In accepting the plea, Judge Marra postponed sentencing for Ramdeo to January 13 next year.
Ramdeo accepted in the plea deal, that he could face a statutory maximum term of imprisonment of up to 20 years on each count, plus fines starting from US$750,000.
According to court documents seen by Kaieteur News on the plea agreement, Ramdeo was hired in 2005 by Promise Healthcare Inc., and Success Healthcare Inc., two sister companies that manage hospitals in a number of US states, to work along with its payroll tax systems.
After the contract for the independent company which handled the tax payments for the companies was terminated, Ramdeo informed his employers that he knew a firm that could do the job. What he did not tell them was that Payserv Tax Inc. was a company he created, and in which he had ownership interest.
Investigators found that the original address of Payserv was Ramdeo’s home in Florida.
As a result, Promise Healthcare Inc. transferred millions to Payserv. While employed at Promise, Ramdeo also created and started EZjet GT Inc., a chartered air service providing flights to passengers from New York to Georgetown, Guyana. He also added flights to Toronto.
Ramdeo admitted that he did not seek permission when he transferred millions from Payserv to EZjet. None of the monies he collected from his employers to pay taxes ever ended up with the Inland tax agency of the US. Only Ramdeo had control of the bank accounts. He used some of the monies to finance the operations of the airline.
When questions were raised during an audit of Promise Healthcare, Ramdeo created an email account and sent messages to himself showing that the monies from his employers were paid over.
With the net closing in around him late last year (in October), Ramdeo emptied his Florida home of its furniture and disappeared.
Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), tracking his calls, arrested him on December 11, in a basement apartment in Brooklyn, New York. The apartment was disguised to look like a storeroom.
According to court documents, during his time in hiding, Ramdeo was issuing statements about EZjet which was facing flak in Guyana. The Guyana, US, Canadian and Trinidad authorities suspended EZjet from flying after complaints surfaced from suppliers and the airplane company that they were owed.
Prosecutors said that Ramdeo created bank accounts and shifted monies around to hide its source…that it really belonged to Promise Healthcare, his employer.
EZjet had been welcomed by Guyanese, especially those living in New York, for its cheap fares.
Ramdeo, during questions about the source of his funding, had claimed that he mortgaged his Florida home and used it to finance EZjet.
Several passengers in New York and Guyana were left in limbo after the airline folded in December last. The Guyana Government was forced to utilise a US$200,000 cash bond to pay off the angry customers.
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