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U.S. NEWS Saturday 10 February 2018

Utah taxpayers paid for hotel linked to prostitute report

By MICHELLE L. PRICE money were used for hotel lyMail.com.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A stays that the report alleges Republican House Speaker
former Utah lawmaker pur- Stanard used for the trysts. Greg Hughes said he didn't
chased at least two hotel House Chief of Staff Greg yet know if the House would
rooms with taxpayer mon- Hartley told The Associated ask Stanard to return the
ey that he is accused of us- Press in a text message that money. "If there has been
ing to meet up with a pros- Stanard, who abruptly re- an abuse of public funds or
titute last year, according signed Tuesday, was reim- if public funds were used in
to documents reviewed by bursed for hotel rooms in a way that's inappropriate,
a legislative official. Salt Lake City in June and we would," Hughes said."I
The DailyMail.com reported August 2017 when he was don't have solid answers for
allegations Thursday that attending legislative meet- those things. I would need
former Republican Rep. ings at the state Capitol. He to have a way that I would
Jon Stanard twice hired a lives four hours away in the know conclusively that that
prostitute last year, leading resort town of St. George. is the case. Unified Police
House and state elections The dates and hotel names In this Feb. 8, 2017 photo, Rep. Jon Stanard, R-St. George, votes Department of Salt Lake
officials to review whether correspond with text mes- on the House floor, at the Utah State Capitol, in Salt Lake City. County said it had no re-
public funds or campaign sages reported by the Dai- (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) cord of contact with him.q

Man sentenced in connection with $20M found in box spring

BOSTON (AP) — A Brazilian earlier investors. were frozen, and its two to six years in prison. said.
man arrested in connec- Authorities have said a principals were indicted The other, co-founder Car- Rocha was sent to the U.S.
tion with the discovery of million people worldwide on federal charges of wire los Wanzeler, fled to his na- to retrieve some of that
about $20 million cash hid- were swindled out of nearly fraud and conspiracy. tive Brazil where he remains money, prosecutors said,
den inside a box spring in a $1.8 billion. One of them, former chief a fugitive. But in his haste to so it could be transferred to
Massachusetts apartment TelexFree filed for bank- executive James Merrill, flee, he left millions of dol- Brazil after being laundered
was sentenced Thursday to ruptcy in 2014, its assets was sentenced last March lars hidden, prosecutors through Hong Kong. q
nearly three years in prison,
federal prosecutors said.
Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha,
28, had pleaded guilty in
October to money laun-
dering charges.
The money was found in
Westborough in January
2017 during an investiga-
tion into TelexFree Inc., a
defunct internet telecom
company that prosecutors
say was actually a billion-
dollar pyramid scheme.
Marlborough, Massachu-
setts-based TelexFree had
few actual customers and
made most of its revenue
from people buying into the
company with a promise of
payouts for posting online
ads. They were paid with
money from new recruits,
often friends and family of