Timothy Jon Oliver, 60, a Minnesota attorney, pleaded guilty to felony wire fraud for his role in scheme wherein he took funds from a construction company to secure financing for a nonexistent real estate development project.
Oliver was indicted on May 12, 2014, on six counts of wire fraud for allegedly taking $500,000 from a Mexican construction company, ARS Tectonica, to secure financing for a real estate project. He entered a plea of guilty on September 10, 2014.
According to the indictment, from in or about March 2009 through on or about May 27, 2009, the defendant, through a company he purported to control, GVA International Limited, represented to ARS Tectonica that GVA had previously entered into a contract with an arm of the Libyan government called the Organization for Development of Administrative Centers (“ODAC), presenting a lucrative opportunity for ARS Tectonica to perform construction services in Libya.
Based upon the Defendant’s representations, ARS Tectonica entered into a contract with GVA on May 13,2009,which required ARS Tectonica to send $500,000 to the Defendant to be used to secure a performance bond for the benefit of ODAC. In various rwitten and oral communications, the Defendant specifically represented to ARS Tectonica that he would use the $500,000 for the exclusive purpose of securing, in part, a $2.5 million letter of credit to be issued by Hiway Federal Credit Union, which would then be presented to ODAC as a performance bond for the Libyan project.
On May 21, 2009, ARS Tectonica wired $500,000 to the Defendant, which the Defendant received through an ADI account he maintained at Hiway. Between May 21, 2009 and June 2010, the defendant lulled ARS Tectonica into believing that the $500,000 had actually been used to secure a letter of credit for the Libyan project, even State and District of
though the Defendant, in fact, spent all but $1,000 of the $500,000 within eight weeks of receiving it, and even though Hiway specifically informed the Defendant, in June 2009, that no letter of credit existed.
