Page 18 - Florida Sentinel 12-12-17

Memoriam
BIRTHDAY MEMORIAM
LIONEL H. OUTTEN December 13, 1954 - February 25, 2001
“Those who are right- eous will be long remem- bered.” Psalm 112:6.
I think of you daily. You will always have a special place in my heart.
~Christine.
Federal Crime
Former State Representative Sentenced To Prison
Man Pleads Guilty For Role As ‘Ghost’ Employee
A federal judge has sentenced a former State Representative to 13 months in prison. He was also Court ordered to pay $62,834.55 in restitution and to serve 18 months of supervised release.
A federal jury found Dwayne L. Taylor, 50, of Daytona Beach, guilty of nine counts of wire fraud on Au- gust 31, 2017.
According to evidence presented at trial, during Taylor’s 2012 and 2014 re- election campaigns, he falsely reported thousands of dollars of expenditures to the State of Florida in order to conceal his misappropriation of over $60,000 in campaign funds through a series of unre- ported cash withdrawals, checks written to himself, and checks written to petty cash.
Taylor then used the misappropriated funds for personal expenditures unre- lated to his re-election cam-
DWAYNE L. TAYLOR
paigns.
According to Florida law,
all campaign contributions and expenditures must be re- ported to the State of Florida, and neither a candidate nor the spouse of any candidate may use funds deposited in a campaign account to defray normal living expenses for the candidate or the candi- date’s family, other than ex- penses actually incurred for transportation, meals, and lodging during travel in the course of the campaign.
A 48-year-old Tampa man pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft. Rany Smith, a/k/a “Abdelmajid Wahbi,” is facing a maximum penalty of 22 years in federal prison.
As part of his plea agree- ment, Smith is required to pay restitution to his victims and forfeit at least $93,586.65 in ill-gotten gains traceable to the offenses.
According to the plea agreement, Smith, originally from Morocco, stole the iden- tities of other immigrants and used them to carry out a vari- ety of fraud schemes through- out Florida.
In 2016, Smith was con- victed of public benefits fraud in federal court (Boston, MA) and was sentenced to proba- tion.
He then moved to Tampa and obtained employment as a manager of a local franchise using the name of another North African immigrant to hide his felony record. As a manager of the franchise, Smith put several fictitious employees on the business’s payroll and collected their wages for months.
Smith pursued a similar scheme in south Florida where
National
Black Voters In Deciding Factor In
Democratic Senate candi- date Doug Jones, who is run- ning against Republican Roy Moore, is courting the Black vote, and that could make all the difference in the Senate race.
On Sunday, Jones spent the day with top Black law- makers like New Jersey Sena- tor Cory Booker as they stumped for the Democratic candidate.
“Will we now raise up the echoes and let people know that democracy is not a specta- tor sport? You can’t sit on the sidelines and cheer for teams to win. You have to get into the game, it is a full-contact, par- ticipatory endeavor,” Booker told a crowd of Jones sup- porters. “The opposite of jus- tice is not injustice, it is inaction, it is indifference, si- lence. We have to remind peo- ple that faith without works is dead.”
Doug has deep ties to Ala- bama and its racial history. As a U.S. Attorney, he prosecuted the klansmen who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church dur-
RANY SMITH
he was hired as a manager of a business in Delray Beach, again using a stolen identity to hide his criminal past. He then hired multiple co-conspirators who, while real employees, fraudulently received extra wages due to Smith regularly inflating their hours in the business’s time clock manage- ment system.
In separate scheme, Smith used a variety of other identi- ties stolen from North African immigrants to take out lines of credit from various Florida re- tailers and online merchants.
He then financed tens of thousands of dollars in pur- chases from these vendors and had the merchandise shipped to his Tampa address and to those of his co-conspirators. Smith never repaid any of these debts.
A sentencing date has not yet been set.
Alabama Could Be Defeating Roy Moore
DOUG JONES AND CORY BOOKER
ing the Civil Rights Movement. While Alabama has tradi- tionally been a deeply Republi- can state, Jones hopes to flip the Senate seat with not only a strong coalition of minority voters but also the support of moderate voters and others who might be turned off by the allegations of sexual abuse against teenage girls that have
been leveled against Moore. “I think that Doug Jones has built the coalition that I dream for Democrats to go and make a comeback,” said state Rep. Anthony Daniels, the Democratic leader in the state House. “They’ve built a really good coalition that reflects the state of Alabama and its diver-
sity.”
DEATH LISTING
AIKENS FUNERAL HOME
Mrs. Ida Mae Allen-Hudson, Tampa. Mrs. Annie Fleming, Tampa.
Mrs. Mary Harrell, Tampa.
Mr. Ecru N. Richardson, Tampa.
GUDES FUNERAL HOME
Jontreeal Gainous, Tampa. Willie Mae Turner, Tampa.
HARMON FUNERAL HOME
Ms. Louisa Diaz- Pagan, Tampa. Mr. Darrell Gardner, Tampa. Sister Leslie Ann Miller, Tampa. Mrs. Alvertis Williams, Tampa.
RAY WILLIAMS FUNERAL HOME
Mr. Bryant Bell III, Tampa.
Mrs. Lula Bishop, Tampa.
Mr. Anthony Simons, Sr., Tampa. Mrs. Moease Smith, Tampa.
Mrs. Irma Truss, Tampa.
WILSON FUNERAL HOME
Leslie Ebony Bland, Philadelphia, PA. Kenner Bryan, Tampa.
Marlow Favors, Tampa.
Flora Ann Mobley-Wilson, Sebring, FL. Mary Robinson, Tampa.
Marietta Smith Fuller, Sanford, FL.
PAGE 18 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2017