TAMPA, Fla. — A Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Tampa investigation has led to the guilty plea of an Orlando woman on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud by misrepresenting her construction company in worker’s compensation insurance applications.
Wendy Cudemo-Gamez, 47, of Orlando, has pleaded guilty to the charges. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to the plea agreement, Cudemo-Gamez owned and managed a construction company that she registered with the state of Florida in May 2021. The company purported to supply construction services and labor to work for construction site contractors. To comply with Florida law, Cudemo-Gamez’s company was required to secure and maintain adequate worker’s compensation insurance coverage.
Providers of worker’s compensation insurance base the premiums they charge and the amount of coverage they provide on the number of employees a company has and the total annual payroll of those employees. Cudemo-Gamez’s company had agreements with contractors and subcontractors to use workers purported to be her employees at construction sites, and these workers were often undocumented noncitizens who were actually working for — and under the daily supervision and direction of — the contractors. Cudemo-Gamez or others would then regularly receive “payroll checks” from contractors that were cashed at various financial institutions to pay her purported employees and other related expenses.
During the time period charged in the criminal information, Cudemo-Gamez falsely and fraudulently represented in insurance applications that her company had a very limited payroll and a very limited number of employees who worked on construction job sites. She also falsely and fraudulently sent wire communications to numerous contractors representing that her employees had full worker’s compensation coverage.
In reality, Cudemo-Gamez’s company received and cashed more than $7.8 million in checks from various construction contractors for these purported employees. These payroll figures far exceeded the very limited payroll figures that she reported to her worker’s compensation insurance company. As a result, these employees of Cudemo-Gamez’s company, who were really employed by other entities, performed work on job sites without adequate insurance coverage. In addition, the insurers lost premiums they would have charged had they been aware of the true number of workers their policies were being manipulated to cover.
As a result of these misrepresentations, Cudemo-Gamez’s company also disclaimed responsibility for ensuring that job site workers were legally authorized to work in the United States and that required state and federal payroll taxes were being paid for these workers. The contractors who actually paid these workers’ wages and used their services were able to avoid responsibility for those duties as well.
This case was investigated by HSI Tampa’s Gasparilla El Dorado Task Force and the State of Florida Department of Financial Services. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay L. Hoffer.