Grand jury indicts Cabrera on 12 counts of fraud; Five counts for money laundering
A Fort Myers real estate agent formerly of the firm Gates, D’Alessandro and Woodyard was issued a superseding indictment by a federal grand jury Wednesday on 12 counts of fraud after initially being accused of investment fraud in June, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In June, Samir Cabrera, 31, was indicted on four counts of wire fraud after federal officials accused him of flipping a number of properties without notifying investors he stood to make millions of dollars off the deals.
New charges include several additional counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud and five counts of money laundering, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office officials.
Federal investigators accused Cabrera of purchasing two parcels of undeveloped land in south Fort Myers in 2006, at 13701 Fiddlesticks Blvd. for $3.9 million and 13800 Fiddlesticks Blvd. for just over $3 million, using a company owned by Cabrera. Investigators said he flipped the properties the same day he purchased them, selling for $2.8 million in gains to limited liability companies he also owned and which were funded by several investors.
Almost all of the misappropriated funds were from investment funds of investors with the LLC companies, investigators said.
The June 2008 indictment additionally states Cabrera “misrepresent(ed) the price of the unimproved real property to potential and actual (investors) for whom the defendant would and did act as fiduciary and trustee.”
Cabrera allegedly received a share of the profits for the real estate deals and picked up “kicker fees” disguised as loan payments, potentially netting Cabrera and others upward of $3 million.
According to the superseding indictment, Cabrera is accused of conducting financial transactions with some of the money gained through the alleged fraudulent deals, including a deposit to a personal account of $311,441.02; a $100,000 transfer to a Las Vegas casino; and third-party checks totaling $126,731.23.
The case is being investigated by the FBI and IRS, and will be prosecuted by Assistant U.S. State Attorneys Jeffrey Michelland and Robert Barclift.
If convicted, Cabrera faces a maximum 20 years imprisonment for each count of fraud, and a maximum of 10 years on each money laundering count. He also faces a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release, as well as restitution owed to victims of the offenses and forfeiture of property “constituting or derived from proceeds obtained as a result of the offenses,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.