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whereabouts. He took with him suitcases filled with $100 bills
that totaled $4.4 million (exit money). Over a 10-day period
before he fled the country, Mr. Gherman had written checks on the
FIP account that totaled $5,092,500, of which $5,090,000 was made
payable to Mr. Gherman and $2,500 was made payable to Ms.
Walters. Some of the money in the FIP account came from funds
that Mr. Gherman had embezzled from accounts of FIP's clients
(primarily employee benefit trust accounts) through a so-called
certificate of deposit scheme. See infra. Mr. Gherman was
captured in Taiwan in October 1988 and subsequently returned to
the United States for trial.
Mr. Gherman had deposited all of the funds he embezzled into
the FIP account. He converted those funds to his own use. Mr.
Gherman alone controlled the embezzled funds. Until he fled the
country, Mr. Gherman's family, including Ms. Walters, did not
know that Mr. Gherman was embezzling money from FIP's clients.
In an Information filed in the criminal case in the U.S.
District Court, Southern District of Florida, Mr. Gherman was
charged with having embezzled and converted for his own use,
from or about December 1982 until or about August 1988, $9.8
million in assets from employee benefit plans entrusted to him.
The Information alleged that, as part of the scheme to defraud,
Mr. Gherman represented that funds were placed in certificates of
deposit (CD's), but the investments were never made and the CD's
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