Legal News Headlines

 
Copyright 2008 The State

 Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

 May 15, 2008 Thursday

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS

ACC-NO: 20080515-CS-Feds-pursue-Corley-sisters-assets-to-recover-more-than-half-of-20.5-million-swindled-from-taxpayers-0515

LENGTH: 610 words

BYLINE: Clif LeBlancand Tim Flach, The State, Columbia, S.C.

BODY: 

May 15--Federal prosecutors are hoping to recover more than half the $20.5 million a Lexington County businesswoman admitted bilking from U.S. taxpayers through military equipment fraud.

The government already has recovered about $7.5 million in cash and from the sale of a business belonging to Charlene Corley and her late twin sister, Darlene Wooten, lead prosecutor Debbie Barbier said Wednesday.

Most of that came as a $4.5 million check Wooten, 45, wrote the government Oct. 2, 2006, the day she killed herself as investigators closed in.

The rest of the restitution is to come from an auction of the sisters' primary residences, four beach homes on Edisto Island, jewelry and eight luxury autos, including an $82,000 Mercedes-Benz.

"I'm hoping to get more than half of the money back," Barbier said.

The government is trying to take as much as it can from the sisters from some of Lexington County's best-known and most successful families. Their ancestors were among the Midlands' first settlers in the 1700s.

The sisters are accused of grossly overcharging the Pentagon for shipping military supplies and creating shell companies to launder their profits. Some of the equipment they shipped went to Marines fighting in Habbaniyah, Iraq.

In one instance, they charged taxpayers $998,798.38 in shipping for two 19-cent bolt washers.

"When it's so egregious, we're not going to negotiate and let people keep much of anything," Barbier said.

"We took (Corley's) primary residence where her husband and children live," the prosecutor said. "We really didn't leave her with anything."

Corley pleaded guilty in August.

But restitution for taxpayers might be hurt by the depressed housing market, she said.

"There just hasn't been any interest in them," she said of the seized properties, adding that buyers are likely holding out for rock-bottom auction prices.

One of the Edisto homes normally would command more than $1 million.

Two others are two-story, vinyl-clad homes about 2,000 square feet each. They have four bedrooms, large porches and gathering rooms. One backs up to marshland but neither is beachfront.

The date and place of the auction have not been set.

Corley attorney Greg Harris said his client is cooperating in liquidating her assets. She is likely to be sentenced within a couple of months, prosecutors said.

"She's looking at a significant amount of time," Barbier said. "When you steal that amount of money, you go to jail for a long time."

The maximum she faces is 40 years and $750,000 in fines.

Corley also is losing her home near Lexington, as well as the Lake Murray home where her sister took her life.

Corley already sold a few cars and two cookie franchise businesses, Harris said. The amounts were not immediately available.

Also on the auction block are four Mercedes-Benzes, three Lexuses and one BMW.

Together, they have a market value of about $500,000, according to the Kelley Blue Book, a guide for used-vehicle values.

According to prosecutors, the sisters began defrauding taxpayers in 1997 and continued, primarily through Internet bids, until detected by shipping audits in 2006.

The investigation is not over, acting U.S. attorney Kevin McDonald said, declining to elaborate.

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664. Reach Flach at (803) 771-8483

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LOAD-DATE: May 15, 2008