TAMPA – U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondy has fired the lead prosecutor handling a federal fraud case against St. Petersburg businessman Leo Govoni, who was ostensibly retaliated for his role in the January 6 indictment of the insurrections.
A June 27 memo from the Justice Department was obtained by the Tampa Bay Times and notified that U.S. attorney Aide Michael Gordon has been excluded from federal services. The memo has a boa signature from Bondi.
With her actions, Gordon removes the famous Tampa incident, including $100 million embezzlement from the medical trust fund taking place in Bondy’s home community. It came the day after Gordon argued in court that Govoni should be denied bail.
Bondi’s memo reported not as a reason for his firing, but that several national media outlets, including NBC News, had fired three prosecutors who worked for the prosecutors on January 6th. The prosecutor is not named.
The memo cites “US laws” in removing “US laws” from federal services by the president’s constitutional authority and “US laws,” but there is no indication that his termination is related to his performance of work. Under the law, most federal prosecutors are not considered as willing employees. That means you cannot be fired for no reason.
The fire marked the first case of the Trump administration that fired a prosecutor on January 6, when he completed a prosecutor’s prosecutor, NBC reported.
Gordon has been a federal prosecutor since 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile. For two years he worked for the US Lawyer’s Office in the District of Columbia. There he was a senior court advisor to the Capitol Siege for US lawyers.
Gordon declined to comment on the story.
“I charged some of the most famous rioters of January 6th,” he wrote in his profile, highlighting some of the defendants. They included Eric Munchel, known as “Zip Tie Guy,” who was said to want to take the senator hostage. Gordon also indicted Richard Burnett. Richard Burnett is famous for placing his feet on a desk in the office of house speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Gordon moved to the Tampa-based US Lawyer’s Office in Central Florida in January 2017.
Greg Kehoe, appointed US attorney for the Central District of Florida by Bondi, announced the indictment of Govoni and his accountant, John Vickek, on June 23.
An hour later, Gordon represented the United States in federal court in Tampa and read the charges against the pair after the judge was arrested earlier in the day.
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Govoni and Witeck are charged with four counts of mail fraud, five wire fraud and one money laundering. Govoni faces additional charges for bank fraud, illegal financial transactions and false bankruptcy declarations.
Officials at the U.S. Lawyer’s Office in Tampa said the case will be charged by Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Peregy, and trial lawyer Lindy Freeman.
“The lawsuit against Leo Govoni and John Vivek will go on time,” spokesperson William Daniels said in an email.
The Washington, DC Department of Justice did not reply to requests for comment.
He was one of the prosecutors who worked with the FBI during an 18-month investigation to unravel The Trust Fund’s theft plans.
The indictment details how Govoni and Pinellas County Attorney John Staunton, in 2000, established the centre for Special Nease Trust Administration, a St. Petersburg nonprofit that administers the trust fund. He grew it into one of the nation’s largest special needs trust managers, with over 2,000 trusts from across the country.
Govoni resigned from the center in 2009, but later adjusted $100 million in loans from a nonprofit to the Boston Finance Group company. The money was sucked up from hundreds of trust funds.
It never paid back, and hundreds of injured and disabled trust fund holders have lost their medical and living expenses. The Centre was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
A federal bankruptcy judge stripped Govoni of more than 120 companies, including Big Storm Brewing. He was also found at a courtroom light empty and fined $300,000 for not providing financial records for the subpoena.
During the June 26 detention hearing, Gordon highlighted Gobony’s lack of cooperation as evidence that he might interfere with justice and continue to hide his assets if bail is given. Federal judge Amanda Sunthorne agreed and ordered her to be held custody until trial or the case is resolved. Witeck was released on a $500,000 bond on the day of his arrest.
Speeding up the investigation of new prosecutors is a challenge. Matthew Fodor, the special agent in charge at the FBI’s Tamperfield office, said FBI agents and prosecutors conducted a thorough analysis of hundreds of thousands of bank records and company documents.
The Govoni company’s only one bank statement totaled 108,000 pages, he said at a press conference.
The detention hearing also revealed that the number of people who lost money to Govoni was almost 2,000, more than initially reported in Chapter 11 court records, with many at 2,000.
“I hope (Gordon’s firing) does not slow the victim’s justice,” said Megan Murray, an attorney for Underwood Murray, who was appointed to represent the victims and other creditors in the Chapter 11 process.
Bondi comes from a Tampa family who was involved in local politics. Her father, Joseph Bondy, served as mayor of Temple Terrace. She was elected Florida Attorney General in 2010.
She was appointed US Attorney General by President Donald Trump and confirmed to the US Senate in February.