20something "King Pin" Jailed for Collection Fraud

Being considered a “king-pin” at 27 can be daunting. It doesn’t really give you any room to grow. Like Shakespeare’s Richard III, once you’ve captured the kingdom, what do you do afterwards?

Well, if you’re 27-year-old king-pin Paul Anthony Vasquez of Santa Clarita, California, you spend some time in federal prison. Nine years, to be exact.

Vasquez is alleged to have defrauded clients out of millions of dollars by pretending to be a legitimate debt collection agency — Maxwell, Turner and Associates Inc.; not to be confused with Bachman Turner Overdrive and Associates — but then operating entirely in an illegitimate fashion.

According to the record, Vasquez claimed that MTA would provide debt collection services. However, once the contract was signed, Vasquez, via MTA, would muddy the waters by providing his clients with false information about their debtors, including

• the debtors’ whereabouts
• MTA’s ability to collect from the debtors
• how much additional money it would cost MTA’s clients to collect from their debtors

In some instances, it appears that MTA successfully collected the money. The problem? It didn’t turn those funds over to its client, instead, allegedly, keeping those dollars for itself.

According to a story in the Central Valley Business Times, “Chief U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii sentenced Mr. Vasquez on Monday for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud and money laundering. He was also was ordered to pay $1.3 million in restitution and to forfeit assets seized by federal agents, including over $950,000 in cash and a 1.5 carat diamond ring.”

Vasquez is only the latest defendant to be charged in this fraud. In November of 2011, Darrian Jeffrey Summers and Stefan Lemar Miller were sentenced for charges related to the MTA scheme.