Rene Gill-Pratt Formally Indicted
NEW ORLEANS - Rene Gill-Pratt, age 55, former elected State Representative for House District 91, State of Louisiana, and former New Orleans City Councilmember, along with Betty Jefferson, age 70, an elected tax assessor in New Orleans, Mose Jefferson, age 66, and Angela Coleman, age 53, all residents of New Orleans, Louisiana, were charged via a 34-count superseding indictment by a Federal Grand Jury today with Conspiracy to Violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Defrauding the United States, Mail Fraud and Honest Services Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft, Money Laundering, False Statements and Tax Evasion, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten.
Defendants Mose Jefferson, Betty Jefferson and Angela Coleman were originally indicted in a 31-count indictment in June, 2008. Today's indictment supersedes the original, adding defendant Rene Gill-Pratt, and with the count charges set forth below.
The indictment alleges that from1991 through 2006, Pratt, Mose Jefferson, Betty Jefferson, and Coleman, operated a criminal enterprise for the financial and political benefit of the defendants both directly and through the use of various non-profit entities and for-profit companies, as well as the elected offices of the State Representative's Office for District 91, the City Councilmember's Office for District B, and the Office of the Tax Assessor for the 4th Municipal District of Orleans Parish.
The indictment also alleges that the defendants devised a scheme to deprive the citizens of the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans of their intangible rights to the honest services of elected public officials, defendants Rene Gill-Pratt and Betty Jefferson. The new indictment re-alleges many of the charges in the original indictment against Mose Jefferson, Betty Jefferson and Angela Coleman which include mail fraud, aggravated identity theft; money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and now includes RICO conspiracy, as well as conspiracy to defraud the United States. The indictment also alleges that Betty Jefferson committed four counts of tax evasion and that Mose Jefferson committed two counts of making false statements to FBI Special Agents.
The indictment alleges that these defendants controlled numerous specified for-profit and non-profit companies, thereby obtaining control over federal and state grant funds as well as state appropriations for these non-profit companies by applying for charitable and educational grants designed to assist needy, at-risk and disadvantaged youth and other individuals in need of assistance. According to the indictment, the defendants would and did write checks out of the non-profit bank accounts payable to individuals who did not work for the grant programs, thereafter depositing those checks into their (the defendants) own personal checking accounts, or otherwise using the funds to pay for their personal expenses.
It is also alleged that the defendants funneled federal and state grant funds to themselves by writing checks on the non-profits' bank accounts, thereby transferring monies into their companies thereby falsely creating the illusion that the payments were for legitimate business purposes.
Additionally, the indictment charges that Mose Jefferson used grant funds to pay for work performed at his direction on properties owned by him and Rene Gill-Pratt, which had no relation to the non-profit grantees.