A Pembroke Pines executive was convicted Friday in a multi-million dollar investment scheme, officials said.
Craig Stanley Toll, 64, was Chief Financial Officer for Innovida Holdings, a construction material company based in Miami Beach, said a news release from the United States Attorney in Miami.
Toll's co-defendant, Claudio Osorio, was the company's president, owner and majority shareholder, the release said.
Between March 2007 and March 2011, Osorio, Toll and others raised more than $40,000 from 10 investors and investment groups by offering and selling shareholder interests and joint-venture partnerships in Innovida under false pretenses, making the company seem more profitable than it was, officials said.
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The company claimed to be a quickly growing and financially stable international operation with facilities in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Angola, Tanzania and other countries, according to the release.
Osorio used money from investors for his personal benefit and to further the fraud scheme, the release said.
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The company also obtained a $10,000,000 loan from a U.S. government agency that was intended for building homes for displaced families in Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake, but instead used it to repay investors and to further the fraud scheme, according to officials.
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Osorio pled guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, the release said.
Toll was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of substantive wire fraud, one count of major fraud against the United States, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and three counts of making false statements to a United States government agency, the release said. He was acquitted of 12 counts of wire fraud, according to officials.
