November 25, 2024
TAMPA, Fla. – A Florida woman was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison for a conspiracy to commit wire fraud following a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Tampa investigation.
Wendy Cudemo, 48, of Orlando, was sentenced to 27 months and ordered to forfeiture $787,911.00 in proceeds from the wire fraud conspiracy. The court also ordered the forfeiture of real property located in Palmetto, Fla. Cudemo pled guilty on July 16, 2024.
According to court documents, Cudemo owned and managed a construction company which purported to supply construction services and labor for construction contractors and subcontractors. In order to comply with Florida law, Cudemo’s company was required to secure and maintain adequate worker’s compensation insurance coverage. Her company had agreements with contractors and subcontractors to use workers purported to be Cudemo’s employees at construction sites. These workers were often undocumented non-citizens who were working for and under the daily supervision and direction of the contractors. Cudemo or others would then regularly receive “payroll checks” from contractors that were cashed at various financial institutions to pay Cudemo’s purported “employees” and other related expenses.
During the period charged, Cudemo falsely and fraudulently represented in insurance applications that her company had a very limited payroll and a very limited number of employees who worked on construction jobsites. Cudemo also falsely and fraudulently sent wire communications to numerous contractors representing her company’s employees had full worker’s compensation coverage. Cudemo’s company received and cashed more than $7,800,000 in checks from various construction contractors for these purported Cudemo “employees.” These payroll figures far exceeded the very limited payroll figures that Cudemo had reported to her worker’s compensation insurance company. As a result, these employees, the employees of other entities, performed work on jobsites without adequate insurance coverage. In addition, the insurers lost premiums they would have charged had they been aware of the true number of workers their policies were thus being manipulated to cover.
As a result of these misrepresentations, Cudemo’s company also disclaimed responsibility for ensuring that jobsite workers were legally authorized to work in the United States and that required state and federal payroll taxes were being paid for these workers. The contractors who actually paid these workers’ wages and used their services were thus also able to avoid responsibility for those duties as well.
This case was investigated by HSI Tampa and the State of Florida Department of Financial Services. It is part of a lengthy investigation by those agencies into the use of shell companies and “ghost” employees in the construction industry. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay L. Hoffer.
HSI Tampa’s area of responsibility, which includes ten geographically strategic offices, covers more than 51,600 square miles of the total 65,757 square miles in the state of Florida. This portion of the state of Florida is inhabited by more than 14.2 million people and includes 58 of the 67 counties. HSI Tampa also includes five of the ten largest cities in Florida, 15 primary commercial service airports and 11 seaports.
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