FORT SMITH -- A Fort Smith man pleaded innocent in federal court Monday to a 25-count indictment charging him with scamming investors and the federal government out of more than $4 million.
William Jackson Moates Jr., 49, entered the plea during a brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Ford. According to court records, Ford scheduled Moates' trial for July 5 and ordered him released from custody on a $5,000 signature bond.
The indictment charged Moates with 13 counts of running a scheme to defraud, seven counts of money laundering, two counts of mail fraud, and one count each of bank fraud, theft from an employee benefits plan and theft of federal funds.
The indictment, filed in court May 11 and unsealed Monday, charged that Moates induced people to invest their money in two companies he controlled, Trilennium Finance Alliance LLC and T3Vest LLC. The scheme ran from May 2010 to January 2015, according to the indictment.
Moates set up bank accounts for the companies and deposited investors' money into them. He promised clients he would invest their money to their benefit in annuities, precious metals, businesses, precious stones, art and automobiles, the indictment said.
But instead of investing clients' money, which the indictment listed in various amounts totaling more than $1.5 million, he took money from the two accounts and used it for his own purposes. The indictment said he spent the money on such things as renovating his home, taking vacations, making credit card payments and paying his home mortgage.
He also used the money to pay payroll and operating expenses for Trilennium, T3Vest and Blaze'n Burrito restaurant, of which he was an owner.
The indictment said Moates received more than $2.5 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through Fort Smith Physicians Alliance ACO LLC, for which Moates was the agent.
Under the government program for which Physicians Alliance received the funds, Moates agreed to spend the government money as specified in the agreement. But the indictment said he transferred $200,000 from the Physicians Alliance account to the T3Vest account. Of that money, he used $108,000 to pay back one of the investors, which violated the spending agreement with the government.
The indictment said Moates set up an employee benefits plan through an Ohio company that agreed to pay $150,000 to fund the plan. It said Moates never used the money for the plan but, instead, put the money into the T3Vest bank account and used it for his personal uses and those of his businesses.
State Desk on 05/18/2016