Former State Senator, RI Businessman Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud, Tax Crimes
PROVIDENCE, RI – Former Rhode Island State Senator and businessman James E. Doyle, III, 46, of Pawtucket, today pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Providence to thirty-one counts of bank fraud and one count each of filing a false tax return and failing to file a tax return.
Appearing before U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith, Doyle admitted to the Court that as owner of Doyle Respiratory, LLC and Doyle Sleep Solutions, LLC, he engaged in $74 million dollars in worthless bank transactions executed in check-kiting schemes through bank accounts he controlled at Bristol County Savings Bank, Alliance Blackstone Valley Federal Credit Union (ABVFCU) and Santander Bank. Doyle admitted that he executed the scheme through the use of checks, cash withdrawals, ATMs electronic transfers and ACH transfer payments.
Doyle’s guilty plea is announced by United States Attorney Stephen G. Dambruch, Special Agent in Charge of Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Kristina O’Connell, and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division Harold H. Shaw.
Doyle admitted to the Court that he accomplished the check-kiting scheme by writing checks from accounts he knew were not backed by sufficient funds and depositing those checks into different accounts to cover daily overdrafts in that account. Simultaneously, he wrote checks out of the second account and deposited those checks back into the first bank account. The purpose and effect of writing and depositing these worthless checks was to manipulate the numerical balances in the checking accounts, and thereby create the false and fraudulent appearance that the accounts had sufficient available funds in the accounts and to deceive and trick the banks into honoring the checks drawn against the checking accounts with insufficient funds.
In order to avoid detection, Doyle admitted to the Court, he did this daily throughout the life of the scheme, at times undertaking in excess of 50 transactions per day. At times, he also utilized ATM machines in order to lengthen the time it took for checks to be presented for clearing.
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The investigation revealed that over the life of the scheme the defendant wrote tens of thousands of worthless checks between the banks at which he maintained accounts.
Doyle also admitted to the Court that for tax years 2013 thru 2016 he and his wife failed to report to the IRS more than $1 million dollars in income and failed to pay $305,426 in taxes due the IRS.
Doyle is scheduled to be sentenced on January 18, 2019.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dulce Donovan.
The matter was investigated by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
