Kelbin Tejeda, Wire Fraud Conspiracy, Florida 2023

Tampa, Florida – In a shocking turn of events, Kelbin Tejeda, a 32-year-old Tampa man, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a federal crime that could land him up to 20 years in prison.

Pursuant to the plea agreement, Tejeda owned and managed a construction company, which he registered with the State of Florida in November 2018. This company purported to supply construction services and labor to work for construction site contractors and contractors.

In order to comply with Florida law, Tejeda’s company was required to secure and maintain adequate worker’s compensation insurance coverage. Providers of worker’s compensation insurance based their premiums and the amount of coverage they provided on the number of employees a company had and the total annual payroll of those employees.

However, Tejeda’s company had agreements with contractors and subcontractors to use workers purported to be Tejeda’s employees at construction sites and these workers were often undocumented aliens who were actually working for and under the daily supervision and direction of the contractors.

During the time period charged in the criminal information, Tejeda falsely and fraudulently represented in insurance applications that his company had a very limited payroll and a very limited number of employees who worked on construction jobsites. Tejeda also falsely and fraudulently sent wire communications to numerous contractors representing that his company’s employees had full worker’s compensation coverage.

As a result of these misrepresentations, Tejeda’s company received and cashed more than $18 million in checks from various construction contractors for these purported “employees.” This payroll figure far exceeded the very limited payroll figures that Tejeda had reported to his worker’s compensation insurance company.

A sentencing date has not yet been set for Tejeda, who faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison. This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the State of Florida Department of Financial Services and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jay L. Hoffer.

Related Federal Cases