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Debra Lynn Mercer-Erwin, the landlord of an plane accept as true with corporate, denied committing any crimes, although her corporate’s escrow account used to be allegedly utilized in a Ponzi scheme. In a federal trial in Sherman, Texas, Mercer-Erwin confronted fees of drug trafficking, export violations, twine fraud, and cash laundering. However, she testifies on the stand that she didn’t take part within the Ponzi scheme, although federal brokers believed that she did.
Prosecutors accused Mercer-Erwin of ignoring warnings about false passports and incomplete background assessments. They additionally allege that her corporate, Aircraft Guaranty Corp., didn’t behavior thorough vetting of overseas nationals whose planes she positioned in non-citizen trusts. In cross-examination, prosecutor Lesley Brooks challenged Mercer-Erwin about her failure to agree to felony necessities, equivalent to strengthening non-citizen accept as true with background assessments and notifying lenders of withdrawals. Prosecutors accused her of turning a blind eye to criminality involving the planes she registered, and claimed that she didn’t even know the whereabouts of most of the plane.
Mercer-Erwin denied that she ever won charges for Federico Machado’s alleged illegitimate airplane gross sales or that Machado used her account as a money-laundering operation. However, a forensic accountant testified that Mercer-Erwin funneled $75 million from the escrow account for her Oklahoma City-based corporate, Wright Brothers Aircraft Title, to Machado, who’s a global fugitive in Argentina.
According to court docket data and their civil lawyers, traders have been allegedly duped into believing that the loans they made have been temporary, low-risk, and high-reward. However, prosecutors claimed that the traders had misplaced round $240 million. Her daughter, Kayleigh Moffett, has already pleaded to blame to twine fraud and no longer reporting that planes had left the rustic with out being correctly reported.
Closing arguments in Mercer-Erwin’s federal trial have been scheduled for Monday.
