Claudio Osorio, the former globe-trotting executive who had headed a Fortune 500 company, faces up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing millions of dollars from investors in his ill-fated venture to build low-cost housing in Haiti and other developing countries.
Osorio, a Venezuelan native who once held fund-raisers for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other political stars at his Star Island home, pleaded guilty Thursday to two conspiracy offenses: wire fraud and money laundering.
The fraud conviction carries up to 20 years and the laundering conviction up to 10 years. But Osorio is expected to be imprisoned for 12 or more years under federal sentencing guidelines at a hearing set for May 9.
FBI agents arrested Osorio, 54, in December after some of his investors accused the high-flying entrepreneur of using his Miami Beach-based company, Innovida Holdings, to fleece $50 million from them and the U.S. government. Among the fleeced investors: former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning. Osorio stole the money to prop up his Star Island lifestyle, and maintain resort homes in Switzerland and Telluride, Colo., according to authorities.
Previously, Osorio had headed a computer distribution business in Miami that was listed on the Fortune 500 before it filed for bankruptcy in 2000. Despite the failure of CHS Electronics, several investors said they trusted Osorio with their money in his Innovida start-up because the charming executive sold them on its likely profitability.
Although Innovida had a manufacturing facility in North Miami-Dade, it never got off the ground.
Osorio, represented by attorney Humberto Dominguez, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas in Fort Lauderdale federal court. As part of his plea, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to drop 20 other charges in the fraud indictment.
In court, Osorio admitted he “solicited and recruited investors by making materially false representations and concealing and omitting material facts regarding ... the profitability of the company, the rates of return on investment funds, the use of investors’ funds and the existence of a pending lucrative contract with a third-party entity,” according to a statement issued by the U.S. attorney’s office.
Dimitrouleas took over the case this week from U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga, who was supposed to hear Osorio’s change of plea in Miami on Friday. Altonaga recused herself from the case because her husband is an attorney in the same Miami law firm as the defense lawyer for Osorio’s co-defendant, Craig S. Toll, 64, of Pembroke Pines. Toll, who pleaded not guilty, was the chief financial officer for Innovida.
Held without bond, Osorio will remain at the Miami Federal Detention Center.
Osorio was convicted of using Innovida, which claimed to produce high-tech building panels for low-cost housing, to deceive investors and boost his lifestyle.
In 2011, a bankruptcy judge ordered Osorio to sell the one major asset that belonged to him and his wife, Amarilis. The couple auctioned their one-acre, two-story Star Island home with infinity pool for $12.7 million.
The sale of the heavily mortgaged property generated millions for banks and other lenders, and some money for his burned investors, including NBA star Carlos Boozer and Miami-Dade businessman Chris Korge.
High-flying executive Claudio Osorio pleads guilty to fraud, money-laundering conspiracies
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High-flying executive Claudio Osorio pleads guilty to fraud, money-laundering conspiracies
