FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY SENTENCED
Currin Will Serve 70 months in Federal Prison
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- United States Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert of the Western District of North Carolina, Nathan Thomas Gray, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Operations in North Carolina, and Charles Hunter, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division, announced that SAMUEL T. CURRIN, 58, of Raleigh, North Carolina, and formerly the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina (1981-87) and a North Carolina Superior Court Judge (1987-90), was sentenced yesterday to 70 months in federal prison as a result of his guilty pleas to charges of: (a) conspiring to launder through his law firm’s client trust account approximately $1.35 million in proceeds from a massive securities fraud scheme, (b) obstructing the grand jury’s investigation of that securities fraud and money laundering scheme, and (c) obstructing the functions of the IRS by failing to disclose on his tax return an off-shore debit card account he controlled in which thousands of dollars were deposited.
According to a Bill of Information in which CURRIN was charged and to which he entered a guilty plea, a group of individuals, including one of CURRIN’s law firm clients, engaged in a massive scheme to fraudulently manipulate the stock prices of several publicly-traded companies through the use of spam e-mail, mass unsolicited facsimiles, Internet search optimization, and voice mail broadcasting. Tens of millions of dollars in proceeds resulted from this scheme. The Bill of Information charged that CURRIN conspired with others to launder the proceeds of this securities
fraud scheme through his law firm’s trust accounts. The Bill of Information charged, and CURRIN admitted, that CURRIN received in excess of $280,000 as a result of his role in this conspiracy. Also in the Bill of Information it was charged that CURRIN formed an Anguillan company and opened a debit card account in the name of that company at a foreign bank. CURRIN then received thousands of dollars into that account but failed to disclose either the account or the income deposited therein on his 2004 federal individual income tax return.
In a separate Bill of Indictment, the charges included information that in December 2005, CURRIN was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury investigating the above-described securities fraud and money laundering scheme. Prior to his appearance before the grand jury, CURRIN conspired with Raleigh attorney R. Shawn Wellons to withhold documents from and provide false testimony to the grand jury regarding the possession of certain documents. As agreed, CURRIN and Wellons then appeared before the grand jury and each gave perjured testimony in response to questions posed to them. Among other things, CURRIN falsely denied having any off-shore business dealings.
U.S. Attorney Shappert credits the FBI and IRS-CID with leading the investigation, and the Securities & Exchange Commission for its substantial assistance in the overall investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew T. Martens and Kurt W. Meyers of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division in Charlotte handled the case for the government. CURRIN is represented by Mark T. Calloway, Esq. of Charlotte, North Carolina.
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