Married Englewood doctors accused of hiding millions overseas – ABC-7.com WZVN News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, Florida
ENGLEWOOD –
A married couple from Englewood, both doctors, was indicted by a federal jury for conspiring to hide millions of dollars in assets and income in offshore bank accounts.According to the indictment, Drs. David Leon Fredrick and Patricia Lynn Hough, served on the Board of Directors of two Caribbean-based medical schools.
One of them is located on Saba, Netherlands Antilles and the other is located on Nevis, West Indies.
The Department of Justice says Fredrick had an ownership interest in the medical school on Nevis until 2007, when both medical schools were sold.
The indictment alleges that Fredrick and Hough conspired with each other and with Beda Singenberger, a citizen and resident of Switzerland who is under indictment in the Southern District of New York, and a UBS banker to defraud the IRS.
The DOJ says they carried out the conspiracy by creating and using nominee entities and undeclared bank accounts in their names and the names of the nominee entities at UBS and other foreign banks to conceal assets and income from the IRS, including the sale of real estate associated with the medical school on Saba and shares they owned in the medical school on Nevis.
The real estate was sold for more than $33-million, all of which was deposited into one of their undeclared accounts in the name of a nominee entity.
It is further alleged in the indictment that Fredrick and Hough used emails, telephone and in-person meetings to instruct Swiss bankers and asset managers to make investments and transfer funds from their undeclared accounts at UBS.
It is alleged that Fredrick and Hough caused funds from the medical schools’ undeclared accounts to be transferred to undeclared accounts in their individual names or in the names of nominee entities.
The DOJ says Fredrick and Hough then used the funds in their undeclared accounts to purchase an airplane, two homes in North Carolina and a condominium in Sarasota.
Fredrick is also said to have transferred more than $1-million to his relatives.
Fredrick and Hough were also charged with four counts of filing false tax returns for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
The indictment alleges that Fredrick and Hough filed false tax returns which substantially understated their total income and failed, on Schedule B, Parts I and III, to report that they had an interest in or signature or other authority over bank, securities or other financial accounts located in foreign countries.
A trial date has not been scheduled.
This raises many questions. The Saba University School of Medicine Foundation was started by my brother Thomas Eric Johnson and Dr. David de Braauw. When Mr. Crastell Gumbs was Minister this Foundation requested the World Health Organization to grant them permission to start a school on Saba. In the meantime Dr. de Braauw died of a heart attack. The WHO granted the license to the Foundation. At the insistence of then Junior Minister Max Nicholson I contacted Frederick who had accompanied Dr. de Braauw when he first visited Saba. My brother Eric had overheard him at the airport on St. Maarten talking about a Medical School and suggested why not Saba and that is how it first started. When I contacted Frederick he informed me that HE HAD NO (AND I repeat) NO money, that he was teaching at the University of Georgia and that at best he could get a thirty thousand dollarsecond mortgage on his home. I told him that the government of Saba was going to provide him with a free building and so on, and besides I assumed that the students would be paying something. We hauled in this man who some would compare to a carpet bagger and he took advantage of all and sundry around him including my brother who was always loyal to the school. Frederick managed to get himself on the Foundation and ran it as a business handed down to him from one of his grandmother’s. As my brother lay dying I received a call from a Notary firm on St. Maarten saying they could not find him and that they needed his signature. Obviously Frederic had removed my brother from the Foundation without informing him, but then the Notary must have realized or should have realized that a crime was being committed and still went ahead with the sale. I wrote a letter to the Notary which is for the record books, but to put everything in its proper perspective I walk around with a history of the School in my head, but just in case the IRS should call on me as a witness I have committed the whole story to paper. My big questions to the Dutch authorities is if and when are you going to defend Saba in this whole investigation. Saba more than the United States has been defrauded and we could well use this money for the island. Should we contact the decolonization committee of the United Nations and ask them to look into this matter??? Thinking about the best course of action to get Saba’s share of all those millions taken from us. The school on Nevis was built with money from Saba as well as the School in Belize, so most if not ALL of the 33 million (we heard it was 100 million) should come to Saba. That money could be put in an Independence Fund if the people decide in a referendum to become independent. Will keep you up to date on further developments.
The Saba Islander 