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Accountant Pleads Guilty in ESM Case

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Associated Press

An accountant pleaded guilty Tuesday to Ohio charges that he knowingly certified false reports to cover up multimillion-dollar losses at a Florida securities dealer whose collapse triggered an Ohio banking crisis.

Jose L. Gomez, 38, of Miami, intentionally certified false financial statements for the years 1982, 1983 and 1984 for ESM Government Securities of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which ultimately misled Ohio regulators and auditors on ESM’s financial condition, state special prosecutor Lawrence A. Kane Jr. said.

Kane said Gomez has agreed to cooperate with continuing state and federal investigations of the related collapses of ESM and of Home State Savings Bank of Cincinnati, which closed within four days of each other last March in the face of huge losses.

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Agreed to Testify

Gomez has agreed to produce documents for investigators and testify before grand juries and in criminal trials, and he may be fully prosecuted if he does not tell the truth or otherwise satisfy terms of his plea agreement with the state, Kane said.

Gomez appeared Tuesday in court in Toledo, Ohio, and pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft. Kane filed all the Ohio charges against Gomez, who agreed to waive being indicted by grand juries in the cases.

“He’s a state’s witness, he’s a government witness. He’s an extremely valuable witness, which is the reason for our intense interest and the government’s interest,” Kane said.

Asked if he expects other guilty pleas in the investigation, Kane told reporters: “We’re optimistic.”

Gomez’s lawyer, Bruce Wagner, said Gomez became aware of ESM’s losses after two years and chose not to report them or withdraw his audit statements for Alexander Grant & Co., the national accounting firm for which Gomez then worked.

Gomez did not receive kickbacks from ESM for the cover-up but did receive loans from ESM officials and did not repay some of them, Wagner said. Gomez resigned from Alexander Grant this year, Wagner said.

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