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Cork company director pleads guilty to income tax and VAT fraud of over €120,000

A company director has been remanded for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to a series of revenue offences which saw him defraud the state of more than €100,000 in income tax and VAT returns.

Brian Murphy, of Abbey View, Ballea Road, Carrigaline, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to a total of five offences, which followed an investigation by Revenue, when he was arraigned at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Murphy pleaded guilty to, on July 5th, 2010, obtaining €68,767 at AIB Bank, South Mall, Cork as an income tax repayment which he knew he was not entitled to, contrary to the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.

He also pleaded guilty to, on September 10th, 2010, knowingly or wilfully delivering an incorrect income tax return for the period January 1st to December 31st, 2009 to the Inspector of Taxes at the Office of the Revenue Commissioners in Limerick.

He also pleaded guilty to, on April 12th, 2011, as a director of Securemed Ltd, acting in connivance with the company and knowingly or wilfully delivering to the Office of the Collector General, Limerick an incorrect VAT return for the company for the period January 1st to February 28th, 2011.

Murphy also pleaded guilty to, on June 1st, 2011, as a director of Securemed Ltd, acting in connivance with the company to obtain from the Collector General, Limerick a VAT repayment of €54,600 knowing that the firm was not entitled to such a repayment.

He also pleaded guilty to, on May 4th, 2011, while a director of Securemed Ltd, acting in connivance with the company to knowingly or wilfully producing to an authorised officer of the Revenue an incorrect invoice dated February 25th, 2011 purporting to be from a solicitor for Securemed Ltd in connection with VAT.

Counsel for the State, Jane Hyland SC, said the pleas were being offered on a full facts basis which was acceptable to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Defence counsel Remy Farrell SC applied to have sentencing put back and Judge Helen Boyle agreed. She remanded Murphy to appear again on February 19th next.

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Libanes preso en Miami es el primo de implicado en ataque

El libanés capturado junto a dos paraguayos en Miami bajo cargos de tener nexos con el extremista grupo islámico Hizbullah es primo de un terrorista capturado en Asunción y extraditado a Estados Unidos por el ataque al estacionamiento del World Trade Center en el 96.

Khaled, González Neira y Talavera Campos fueron involucrados en operaciones ... Pagé" de Paraguay, según publicó el diario El Nuevo Herald.

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'Sugar daddy' sex scandal case heading to trial

STAMFORD ­-- A Michigan woman, deemed the "head slave" of a Greenwich investor's online fantasy world, rejected a plea deal Tuesday in an extortion case and is planning to fight the charges.

Patricia Miller, 45, of Cassopolis, Mich., appeared in state Superior Court, where she told a judge she would not accept a plea agreement on felony charges that would have allowed her to avoid jail time.

Miller is charged with first-degree conspiracy to commit larceny, first-degree criminal attempt at larceny and second-degree larceny for allegedly using various Internet personas to blackmail DuPont heir and Riverside resident Stephen Dent.

Assistant State's Attorney David Applegate told Judge Richard Comerford the sides have been unable to reach an agreement to resolve the case Tuesday.

Comerford asked Miller if she understood that by not accepting the plea deal she could be facing nearly 50 years in jail if convicted.

"Basically, I am trying to clear my name," said Miller, who is married and has one daughter and two grandchildren. "I feel this is a selective prosecution. I think it's very unfair."

Dent, who viewed himself a "slave master," had a network of women he chatted with on the "sugar daddy" dating site SeekingArrangement.com. Miller is the fourth person charged by Greenwich police with attempting or successfully extorting the millionaire as a result of these online relationships.

The Michigan woman is described in police reports as the "harem mother" who would call Dent's "slaves" to make sure they were fulfilling their end of the arrangement, which entailed getting breast implants and sending the investor sexually explicit pictures and chats.

Miller said she felt her actions were not illegal and that she had nothing to do with an Ohio couple, Dawn and Christopher Jessop, who pleaded guilty in May to an extortion scheme that swindled Dent out of more than $100,000.

Miller's attorney, Mark Sherman, said while police feel Miller committed a crime, he disagrees because Miller and Dent had a consensual relationship in which money was being transferred voluntarily.

Sherman said he will spend the next few months reviewing evidence on the case taken from Miller's computers and cell phones.

According to the warrant, Dent came to police on March 1, 2009, to report that two women were attempting to extort him. At that time, Dent provided a sworn statement that said, "I had been having a cybersex relationship with two other women, known to me at the time as including Sara Laste and Meghan Allen." Dent went on to describe how these women -- in reality all Miller, police said -- would send him text messages demanding money and threatening to come to Greenwich and expose him.

After police looked into the claims, they found that Miller was allegedly behind all the personas and schemes. Three weeks later, on March 18, the Jessops were busted in Greenwich when they came to confront Dent and ask for more money.

Miller was arrested soon after the Jessops' bust, on March 30 .

The Jessops' extortion case garnered national headlines after Greenwich Time exposed Dent's history of soliciting sex and previous extortion incidents outlined in police reports dating back three years.

In 2007, Dent was extorted by a Queens, N.Y., man, who threatened to release information about Dent's encounter with a woman and the sex acts they had performed, which the man's attorney at the time called "vile" and "vulgar." A woman also reportedly extorted Dent for $9,000, but that incident was never reported to police.

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details Sugar daddy

An extensive “sugar daddy” extortion plot that targeted a Greenwich millionaire’s secret online world in which women were his slaves and he was their master all started after an Ohio couple watched an episode of television’s “Dr. Phil,” according to newly released police reports.

The reports also detail the requirements investor Stephen Dent would impose on women he viewed as his online sex slaves, including getting breast implants, visiting fetish Web sites and sending frequent sexually explicit e-mails and pictures.

In an interview with police, Christopher Jessop, 30, of Mansfield, Ohio, called himself the mastermind of the scheme that successfully bilked 54-year-old Dent out of more than $200,000. Jessop said he came up with the idea after watching a segment on “Dr. Phil” that detailed the sugar daddy dating site SeekingArrangement.com.

“I was like, baby, you know, get on the computer and see what this is about,” said Jessop, detailing a conversation he had with his wife, Dawn Jessop, to Greenwich detectives in a March 19 jailhouse interview. “The next thing I know, I mean, these rich guys are just sending us money for nothing “¦ just conversations over e-mail.”

Although the Jessops obtained money from other wealthy men on the Web site, the Jessops told police they only blackmailed Dent.

“We came across Stephen Dent, and he was into some pretty weird stuff,” Christopher Jessop said to detectives. “He turned out just to be a gold mine to us.”

The Jessops’ police reports, released following a Freedom of Information Act request by Greenwich Time, also identify Patricia Miller, 45, of Michigan as the “harem mother,” or head slave, who would help Dent ensure the other women were real and held up their end of the arrangement.

Ironically, police said, Miller was posing as at least four different younger women and used those aliases in an alleged attempt to deceive Dent and later to extort him herself.

The Jessops were arrested in March 2009 after police unraveled their scheme.

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Sugar Daddy as 'Gentleman'

"That sounds like an escort," said Wade. "We don't allow escorts on the site."

"These kinds of messages are not what sugar daddy dating is supposed to be," said Wade. "You don't have to be a millionaire to be a sugar daddy. You need to be a gentleman, generous and treat someone with respect."

Wade acknowledged that the site had fielded calls from two other men who thought they were being blackmailed and notified the FBI, but he downplayed the dangers of this kind of Internet dating.

"You can only do so much to protect your clients and there are always bad apples," he said. "And the thing about the Internet is that everything is traceable and you can get caught."

But law enforcement experts say that sites that promote wealthy sugar daddies are rife with possibilities for blackmailers.

"On all these unmonitored Web sites, participants are in effect targeting vulnerable people," said Brad Garrett, former FBI agent and ABC News consultant. "They create a great environment for cons."

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Sugar Daddy Web Sites

The concept of sugar daddies and their sugar babies is spelled out in a new book, "Seeking Arrangement: The Definitive Guide to Sugar Daddy and Mutually Beneficial Relationships" by Brandon Wade, who owns the Nevada-based Web site where Dent met the alleged blackmailers.

"The modern sugar daddy is not a rich, decrepit captain of industry exploiting empty-headed vixens for hedonistic pleasure, but a mature gentleman seeking fun and pleasure with women of substance," writes Wade, a pen name. "Nor are Sugar Babies all young bimbo-victims, but women who know what they want and go after it."

Wade, whose real name is Brandon Wey, is a 38-year-old MIT-trained engineer and self-proclaimed "geek" who is now married to his own decade-younger sugar baby.

Wade denied that his site was connected to prostitution or blackmail schemes and has created several features that help its 320,000 members spot a potential con artist, including software that blocks spam and flags language used by escort services.

EstablishedMen.com does not allow the "money for sex element" that typifies many of the other sites, according to CEO Simone Dadoun-Cohen, banning girls from asking for an "allowance."

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Sugar Daddy Sites Attract Sexual Blackmailers

Stephen Dent was perceived, above all, to be a family man, playing ice hockey with his two sons on the weekends, vacationing in Palm Beach and Nantucket.

But behind closed doors, the 54-year-old Greenwich, Conn., multimillionaire was a "sugar daddy" and "slave master" who courted his "sugar babies" online, lavishing them with thousands of dollars in exchange for companionship and kinky sex, according to court records.

But his sex life turned sour because he was repeatedly extorted over his flings with numerous sugar babies on the dating Web site SeekingArrangement.com, according to court records. Now police are charging a young couple with blackmailing Dent.

Dating sites like Wealthymen.com, Sugardaddy.com, Establishedmen.com and others can be fertile ground for con artists who take advantage of men with deep pockets, like Dent.

"The news is unbelievable," said one family acquaintance who did not want to be identified. "I am completely blown away by this. I've always seen him with his wife and children all the time and, honestly, he seems to be a real family man."