Miami Courant

MIAMI – The former vice president of a Miami aerospace company and his co-conspirator were sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution for their involvement in a mail, wire, and honest services fraud conspiracy.

According to court filings, from August 2008 through October 2018, Mario Rene De La Torre, 54, of Fort Collins, Colo., used his position as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Miami-based Summit Aerospace, Inc. (Summit), to embezzle over $2.1 million of Summit’s funds. He split these funds with his co-defendant, Joe Lewis McHomes, 71, of Perry, Ga. Additionally, De La Torre evaded income tax on his gains by laundering the fraud proceeds and filing false tax returns.

To execute the scheme, De La Torre enlisted McHomes to pose as a sales consultant who supposedly obtained aircraft part repair work for Summit from Al-Raha Group for Technical Services (RGTS) in Saudi Arabia. De La Torre created fake invoices issued by McHomes’ fictitious consulting firm, J-CONN Solutions (J-CONN), for commissions McHomes allegedly earned for selling Summit’s services to RGTS. In reality, McHomes did not secure any repair work that Summit performed for RGTS and was not entitled to compensation from Summit. De La Torre submitted the fake J-CONN invoices to Summit’s accounts payable department, which then issued checks payable to J-CONN.

De La Torre created J-CONN invoices in amounts below $10,000 and caused Summit to issue separate checks for each invoice. These checks were sent to Joe McHomes through the mail system. When McHomes received the checks, he cashed them at a check-cashing store rather than a bank and structured his cashing so that he didn’t cash more than $10,000 worth of checks on the same day to avoid filing a cash transaction report (CTR) with the Treasury Department. McHomes then kicked back fifty percent of the cash proceeds to De La Torre in a manner structured to avoid generating a CTR.

Mario De La Torre used the fraud proceeds to pay family expenses including his wife’s credit card bills and his daughter’s university education.

On June 27, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams sentenced De La Torre to one year and one day’s imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. De la Torre previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail, wire, and honest services fraud and making a false tax return. On June 27, Judge Williams sentenced McHomes to five months in a Residential Reentry Center followed by three years of supervised release; the first five months will be home detention. McHomes previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud. The Court also ordered both defendants to pay restitution amounting to $2,129,392.35.

U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida; Special Agent in Charge Derrell Freeman from U.S. Airforce Office of Special Investigations Procurement Fraud; Special Agent in Charge Darrin K. Jones from Department of Defense Office of Inspector General Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) Southeast Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Matthew D. Line from IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Miami Field Office announced the sentences.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dwayne E. Williams prosecuted the case while Assistant U.S. Attorney Daren Grove is handling asset forfeiture.

Further information can be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl or on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov under case number 20-cr-20185.

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