Contact: Steve Young
A man who was convicted of multiple fraud, aggravated identity theft, and tax charges in 2013, pled guilty today to attempting to obstruct the federal government’s efforts to forfeit his real property to be used as restitution for his fraud victims.
Randy Beltramea, age 50, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, pled guilty to four counts of attempting to obstruct justice.
At the plea hearing, Beltramea admitted he attempted to impede and hinder the federal government’s efforts to forfeit a real estate development, the proceeds from which were to be used to pay restitution to the victims of his fraud. Beltramea pled guilty to all four counts of the indictment. The indictment alleged that Beltramea owned a housing development project near Mt. Vernon, Iowa, called Castlerock Estates, which consisted of approximately 80 acres of land, part of which had been plotted into separate lots with road and utility access.
In 2013, Beltramea was indicted by a federal grand jury, which charged him with a number of offenses including fraud charges related to obtaining money from people under false pretenses and using the funds for, among other things, funding the Castlerock development. The indictment gave notice that the United States intended to forfeit, among other property, all of the real property constituting the Castlerock development. In October 2013, Beltramea pled guilty to eight of the sixteen counts of the indictment. In December 2013, the court entered a preliminary order of forfeiture on the real property constituting the development.
Unbeknownst to the United States or the court, while the indictment and forfeiture proceedings were pending against Beltramea he sold two lots in the development for approximately $160,000. He also filed a mortgage, in his mother’s name, on the remaining lots claiming the property had been pledged as collateral for a loan from his mother in excess of $300,000. This conduct was intended to impede the government’s ability to forfeit the Castlerock development and use the proceeds to pay the victims of his fraudulent conduct.
Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Beltramea remains in custody pending sentencing. Beltramea faces a possible maximum sentence of 80 years’ imprisonment, a $1 million fine, $400 in special assessments, and up to 12 years of supervised release following any imprisonment.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney C.J. Williams and was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service.
Court file information is available at ttps://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 14-cr-0095-LRR.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
