United States of America v. Charles Singleton

Newark, New Jersey criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with Conspiring To Launder Money

Los Angeles Man Sentenced To 41 Months' Imprisonment For Conspiring To Launder Money

Charles Singleton, 65, of Los Angeles, California, pleaded guilty to Count One of an Indictment, which charged him with conspiracy to commit money laundering.



From September 2018 to August 2020, Singleton worked with conspirators to launder money obtained through business email compromises, which is a method of wire fraud often targeting businesses or individuals working on business transactions involving high-dollar wire transactions. The fraud is carried out by compromising, hacking, and/or "spoofing” legitimate email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques to cause employees of a target company, or other individuals involved in legitimate business transactions, to conduct unauthorized transfers of funds, most often to accounts controlled by the fraud perpetrators.



Singleton opened several business bank accounts in the names of companies he controlled and received proceeds of wire fraud in those accounts. Singleton and his conspirators then withdrew and transferred money from various bank accounts and shared the bank account information. Singleton also executed at least one fraudulent contract with a conspirator for a wire of $70,000.



In addition to the prison term, Judge Arleo sentenced Singleton to three years of supervised release, ordered forfeiture of over $1.1 million constituting proceeds derived from the conspiracy, and ordered $1,469,003 in restitution to the victims.



Acting U.S. Attorney Khanna credited special agents of the FBI, Woodland Park Office, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Terence G. Reilly in Newark, with the investigation.



The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Farhana C. Melo of the Economic Crimes Unit in Newark.