Promoter of Cincinnati Grand Prix Pleads Guilty to Fraud, Money Laundering

Topics:  Curtis Boggs, Cincinnati Grand Prix

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Ohio
January 3, 2013

CINCINNATI—Curtis Boggs, 54, formerly of Harrison, Ohio, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme he promoted to bring a Grand Prix race to Cincinnati in 2009.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Edward J. Hanko, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and Darryl Williams, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS), announced the pleas entered today before Senior U.S. District Court Judge Susan J. Dlott.

According to court documents, Boggs was employed by an insurance company as a financial advisor in the Southern District of Ohio from 2000 to 2009. Beginning in approximately October 2008 and continuing through approximately August 2009, Boggs solicited his customers and others to invest in silver and gold, or in a grand prix race, through a corporation called Cincinnati Grand Prix (“CGP”). Today, Boggs admitted that, during that period, he fraudulently obtained investments of at least $352,745 for CGP in exchange for shares in the “stock” of CGP.

Boggs devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud through fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises. Specifically, he fraudulently obtained investment funds from individuals wherein the funds were not invested as represented and were diverted in part for his personal benefit. On or about October 27, 2008, in furtherance of his scheme, Boggs wired proceeds of a check from an investor to his personal account to pay property taxes on his house and pay down his personal mortgage debt. On or about October 21, 2008, Boggs laundered money derived from the fraud scheme by using $27,232.63 to buy a Lincoln MKX vehicle for his personal use.

A federal grand jury indicted Boggs in June. He was arrested on October 8, 2012, when he was stopped trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico.

The plea agreement calls for Boggs to serve a sentence of 27 months in prison, pay $352,745.21 in restitution, and forfeit any assets that he received as proceeds of the crimes. The court will conduct a presentence investigation before deciding whether or not to accept the terms of the plea agreement and schedule a date for sentencing.

Stewart commended the cooperative investigation by FBI and IRS agents, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Mangan, who is prosecuting the case.