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   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: blunder-biden@crooks.rus   
      
   North Huntingdon carpentry company owner Dave Jackel can’t understand how   
   President Joe Biden would commute the 20-year prison sentence of former   
   Le-Nature’s Inc. CEO Gregory J. Podlucky.   
      
   Prosecutors said Podlucky, a certified public accountant, masterminded a   
   fraud and money laundering scheme which bankrupted the Latrobe soft drink   
   bottler and left many unpaid victims in its wake, including Jackel, who   
   said he lost nearly $100,000.   
      
   “It was very unfair. He got off (early) … I got ripped off,” said Jackel,   
   who lost $96,000. He is disgusted by Biden’s Dec. 12 decision to commute   
   Podlucky’s sentence as of Sunday.   
      
   The move comes as Podlucky has served 13 years of a 20-year sentence for   
   his 2011 guilty plea to charges of fraud, money laundering and income tax   
   evasion.   
      
   “He’s getting off scot-free,” Jackel said.   
      
   Podlucky, 64, is among about 1,500 people whose prison sentences were   
   commuted for what the Biden administration said was a successful   
   rehabilitation and a reintegration into their families and communities.   
      
   A commutation reduces the punishment for a crime and could reduce court-   
   ordered fines. The commutation does not result in shortening or   
   eliminating any supervised release.   
      
   It does not erase the convictions from court records. So Biden’s actions   
   differ from a pardon, which forgives the person convicted of a crime and   
   eliminates their criminal record.   
      
   Podlucky remains under the supervision of the federal Bureau of Prisons’   
   residential reentry management program.   
      
   Podlucky is either at home in community confinement or at a reentry   
   center, said Emery Nelson, a prison bureau spokesman. The bureau does not   
   release the location of any prisoner, he added.   
      
   Podlucky will have to serve the five-year probation U.S. Judge Alan Bloch   
   handed down in 2011, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Court documents   
   filed in Pittsburgh said his probation will be supervised by the federal   
   court in Colorado.   
      
   The commutation comes years after Podlucky was released from a federal   
   prison near Lewisburg during the covid-19 pandemic, said his attorney,   
   Reggie Silverstein of Los Angeles. Podlucky then lived with his mother,   
   Sandy Podlucky, in the Ligonier area, the attorney said.   
      
   Gregory Podlucky and his wife, Karla Podlucky, 63, both formerly of   
   Ligonier, could not be reached for comment. They list Colorado Springs,   
   Colo., as their residence in 2023 court documents.   
      
   Podlucky is grateful for Biden’s commutation of his prison sentence,   
   Silverstein said.   
      
   “He (Podlucky) prays for him because he knows President Biden understands   
   what it is to lose a child,” referring to the 2001 car crash in which   
   Podlucky’s 16-year-old daughter, Melissa, died. Biden’s son, Beau, died in   
   2015 from cancer.   
      
   University of Pittsburgh School of Law professor David Hickton, who was   
   the U.S. Attorney in Western Pennsylvania when Podlucky was sentenced to   
   20 years in prison, declined to comment on the Podlucky commutation.   
      
   Family involvement   
      
   Three other members of Greg Podlucky’s family who got caught up in the   
   fraud scheme didn’t receive a commutation of their prison sentences.   
      
   Karla Podlucky and the couple’s son, G. Jesse Podlucky, 43, were found   
   guilty in November 2011 of money laundering charges in connection with   
   selling three diamonds and seven sapphires for about $2.9 million through   
   Sotheby’s. The jewelry was purchased with proceeds from the financial   
   scheme in 2009 and 2010, federal prosecutors said.   
      
   Karla Podlucky, who was sentenced in April 2012 to 51 months in prison,   
   was released in January 2016, and G. Jesse Podlucky was sentenced in April   
   2012 to nine years but was released in October 2020.   
      
   Jonathan Podlucky, 50, Le-Nature’s chief operating officer, was accused of   
   being involved in falsifying the financial statements that were used to   
   mislead external auditors and obtain financing for a new bottling plant in   
   Arizona. He was sentenced in January 2012 to five years in prison but   
   released in 2015.   
      
   While their prison sentences are over, Karla and Gregory Podlucky are   
   battling with the government over the back taxes the government says it’s   
   owed from 2003 to 2006.   
      
   The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in September upheld the U.S. Tax   
   Court ruling that found them liable for back taxes amounting to $4.7   
   million on the unreported income. The Tax Court assessed Gregory Podlucky   
   civil fraud penalties totaling $3.5 million for those tax years.   
      
   The court also found Karla Podlucky was not entitled to what’s called   
   “innocent spouse relief” when she should have known the understated tax   
   attributed to her exceeded their listed income and was used to benefit her   
   in the form of jewelry that was sized for her. An official of a New York   
   City jeweler, Van Cleff & Arpels, testified he had traveled to Ligonier to   
   size the jewelry for Karla and some of the jewelry was ordered from the   
   company’s headquarters in Paris.   
      
   The couple, in turn, sued the Justice Department in December 2023,   
   claiming the department would not return what the IRS valued at $4.8   
   million of investment-grade jewelry confiscated in a November 2006 raid on   
   the company’s office in Latrobe.   
      
   The government said Podlucky diverted $22 million spent on the purchase of   
   735 pieces of jewelry and gems from 2003 to 2006, including a $1.28   
   million fancy green diamond, according to court records.   
      
   In the lawsuit that the couple voluntarily dismissed in April, they   
   claimed the government owed them about $77 million in punitive and   
   compensatory damages for seizing the jewelry.   
      
   Even if they had won the case and all the money they were seeking, it was   
   far less than the $661 million owned in restitution from the Le-Nature’s   
   bankruptcy fraud, according to court documents.   
      
   Complex fraud   
      
   Prosecutors said Podlucky, who started his beverage company in 1991, was   
   able to perpetuate the fraud through the creation of two sets of financial   
   records — one showing an accurate accounting of revenue and accounts   
   receivables and another falsifying the true financial condition of the   
   company.   
      
   Le-Nature’s claimed its 2005 revenues amounted to $287 million, but   
   prosecutors said the real amount was about one-tenth of that.   
      
   Le-Nature’s used the falsified deposit accounts and accounts receivables   
   as collateral to obtain financing from banks and investors, including from   
   Wachovia Bank and S&T Bank of Indiana. Wachovia was able to acquire $600   
   million in financing for the Latrobe bottler, according to court   
   documents.   
      
   The fraud began in January 2001 and continued through October 2006,   
   leading to the November 2006 bankruptcy when discrepancies in its finances   
   had been discovered, according to the government. During that time,   
   prosecutors said, Podlucky diverted millions of dollars from Le-Nature’s   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)