Local News in Brief : Lawyer Indicted in Alleged Money Scheme
A Calabasas attorney has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he aided a scheme to launder about $7 million from a marijuana-trafficking operation.
Fred De Luca Jr., 57, faces a maximum 21 years in prison and a $1.2 million fine if convicted of the five counts against him, Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen G. Wolfe said Thursday. De Luca is scheduled to be arraigned July 18.
De Luca was indicted Wednesday along with Gerald Carroll, 44, a former Newport Beach businessman, and Edward Solomon, a resident of the Cayman Islands. Wolfe said De Luca is charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by helping Carroll hide from the Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars Carroll made through marijuana trafficking.
De Luca also is charged with failing to notify the IRS in 1982 and 1983 that he had signature authority over foreign bank accounts. Those accounts, carried at Caymanian banks, were used to launder money from marijuana sales, Wolfe said.
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