Marcus Asay, Pension Fraud, California 2024

Fresno residents Marcus Asay, 69, and Antonio Gastelum, 53, have been sentenced to five years in prison and two years in prison, respectively, for committing a long-running pension fraud scheme through their company, Agricultural Contracting Services Association dba American Labor Alliance (ALA), in California.

Asay, the founder and chairman of ALA, and Gastelum, the company's Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Compliance Officer, offered three sham products: retirement plan, worker's compensation coverage, and hardship exemption, from 2011 through 2019.

The duo falsely represented to more than 3,000 people that they would protect and invest their retirement money through a 401(k) Plan, when in fact, they used the money for improper business and personal expenses, including restaurants, travel, credit cards, rare coins, and rent for Asay's lakefront mansion in Fresno.

Asay and ALA then covered up the fact that the retirement money was gone by taking money the company received from the worker's compensation fraud scheme and holding those funds out as pension funds, resulting in a loss of over $620,000.

Asay's money laundering conviction resulted from this scheme because he moved pension funds through multiple bank accounts to conceal the source of the funds before using them for improper expenses.

Asay and ALA were also convicted of committing a worker's compensation fraud scheme, generating $2.25 million in premiums, and a hardship exemption fraud scheme, where they falsely represented that for a few hundred dollars they could provide people with an exemption that would protect them from the Affordable Care Act's shared responsibility payment for not having health insurance.

The U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd ordered Asay and ALA to pay $69,250 in restitution, and ALA received a corporate fine of $2.5 million.

This case was the product of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration and Office of Labor-Management Standards, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the IRS Criminal Investigation, and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/founder-and-top-executive-fresno-based-business-american-labor-alliance-receive-multi