A Washington man has been indicted for fraudulently taking about $2.7 million from Alaskans. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Alaska is charging Floyd Jay Mann, Jr., 55, with 11 counts of wire fraud and eight counts of money laundering.
Mann allegedly told his victims that he was going to receive millions of dollars from a class action lawsuit with a pharmaceutical company. He promised the victims that if they helped pay his medical expenses and his legal fees, he would give them a substantial portion of the settlement. Instead Mann gambled with the money at a casino and won over $1 million.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Aunnie Steward said concerned family and friends alerted law enforcement to the scheme. The investigation involved the IRS, the FBI, and the Social Security administration. She said this type of scheme is fairly common, this one was just more successful than most.
More than a dozen victims gave money to Mann, and many of them were close to retirement age. “I’ve seen this in a lot of different fraud cases,” Steward explained, “where elderly folks will be targeted and be bilked of a lot of money because they’re not asking the same kinds of questions and researching in the same way that someone more familiar with computers in this day and age would do.”
Mann’s wife, Cheryl Mann, 51, was also charged with one count of social security fraud. She continued to receive need-based benefits even though she and her husband earned hundreds of thousands of dollars at the casino.
Anne Hillman is the healthy communities editor at Alaska Public Media and a host of Hometown, Alaska. Reach her at ahillman@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Anne here.
