Source: www.usdoj.gov\opa\pr\Pre_96\September94\521.txt.html

FORMER U.S. TREASURER SENTENCED

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, the former Treasurer of the United States, today was sentenced by the U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan of U.S. Court in Washington, to four months in prison, three years of supervised release (four months of which is to be home detention), 200 hours of community service and a $150 special assessment for tax evasion.

She served as Treasurer from 1989 to 1992.

Villalpando previously had pleaded guilty to a two-count information filed by the Fraud and Public Integrity Sections of the Criminal Division charging her with conspiracy to violate the false statement statute and tax evasion. The charges stated that Villalpando had conspired to conceal from the Treasury Department, the Office of Government Ethics, the Senate Finance Committee and the U.S. Senate certain facts that were capable of influencing the actions of those agencies concerning Villalpando's fitness for the position of Treasurer and her fitness to hold that position.

These facts included her receipt in 1989 and 1990 of substantial amounts of funds and benefits for her personal use from Communications International Inc., a Georgia-based telecommunications company of which Villalpando was a senior vice president, director, and shareholder in 1989; and her receipt in 1989 of compensation from CII, in addition to her CII salary, that she concealed from the Treasury Department, OGE, and the Senate Finance Committee.

The information also charged Villalpando with tax evasion for failing to report $167,901 in taxable income, on which she owed $47,013 in additional federal income tax, for calendar year 1989.

Today's sentence also pertained to a one-count information, filed against Villalpando by the Office of Independent Counsel for certain matters pertaining to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The OIC information, which was consolidated with the Criminal Division's information for sentencing, charged Villalpando with obstruction of justice in connection with her testimony before a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia. In sentencing Villalpando, Judge Hogan granted a motion by the OIC for a downward departure under section 5K1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines, which the OIC had agreed to file in its plea agreement with Villalpando, but granted a two-level downward departure.

The prosecution of this case was handled by Fraud Section senior litigation counsel Jonathan J. Rusch, Public Integrity section senior trial attorney Fate S. Ehrenstamm, and Fraud Section trial attorneys David H. Katz and James J. Nixon.