Car Dealer Indicted for Money Laundering

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that a federal grand jury in Buffalo has returned a 26-count indictment charging Jerry Robbins, owner of Finish Line Auto Sales on Bailey Avenue in Buffalo, with conspiracy to launder money through the sale of high-end motor vehicles to known drug dealers. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $500,000.00 or both.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel L. Violanti, who is handling the case, stated that the Indictment charges Robbins with agreeing to help drug dealers launder proceeds of their illicit business by purchasing high end used cars. During these sales, the drug dealers would pay Robbins cash for cars ranging in price from $12,000 to $49,000. Robbins used the name of another person in sales and title paperwork to disguise the true purchaser and source of the money.

In addition, in an effort to conceal the amount of money received for the sale of the car, the Indictment alleges that Robbins listed only that a small deposit was received from the third party nominee, when the drug dealers paid cash in full for the car. For each of these types of transactions, Robbins also failed to file the proper IRS forms indicating the receipt of over $10,000 cash for the sale of the car, as required by law.

“Persons engaged in illicit businesses need to be able to conceal—or what the law calls “launder”—the proceeds of their crimes in order to make it appear either as if they have no income or that income is legitimate. As this case illustrates, we will work with our partner agencies to take the profits of crime out of the hands of the perpetrators, and to also bring to justice anyone who assists in the efforts to hide those profits in the first place,” said U.S. Attorney Hochul.

The Indictment is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service under the supervision of Special Agent in Charge Charles R. Pine, the Drug Enforcement Adminstration under the direction of Acting Resident Agent in Charge Dale Kasprzyk, the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James H. Robertson and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles under the direction of Commissioner David Swarts.

The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.