FBI arrests Leogoboni after investigating $100 million missing

Clearwater Businessers, accused of receiving $100 million from the Medical Trust Fund in bankruptcy records, has been arrested.

FBI agents arrested Leo Govoni at the feathered house early this morning, a neighbor said. They are awakened by agents screaming “FBI” through the bullhorn.

He and his accountant John Leo Vivek are both charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, court records show.

There are also charges of money laundering, bank fraud, illegal financial transactions and false bankruptcy declarations.

Between 2009 and this year, Govoni, Witeck and others conspired to fraudulent people, if not thousands, of those who won the lawsuit and made payments they earned to the trust funds he established, overseen by the nonprofit he founded.

“Through complex financial transactions and fraud, the defendant and his co-conspirators recruited, stole and misused a client benefia fund fund fund that they used as a slash fund to enrich themselves and others,” the accusation states.

Govoni’s arrest was confirmed Monday morning by officials from the US law firm. The media announcement that will not name Govoni, US Attorney General Greg Kehoe for the Central District of Florida and Matthew W. Fodor, the FBI special agent in the FBI’s Tampa Field Office, will announce federal accusations in a “national fraud investigation involving multiple casualties.”

The arrest comes after the bankruptcy court stripped Govoni of ownership of more than 120 companies, including Big Storm Brewing, a craft beer business he ran alongside his son, LJ Govoni. He was also found in a civil court light empty and fined $300,000 for not providing financial records for the subpoena.

In 2000, Govoni established the Special Neash Trust Administration Centre, a St. Petersburg nonprofit that administers the trust fund. He has grown it to one of the nation’s largest special needs trust managers, with over 2,000 trusts from around the country.

However, in February 2024, the agency filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection or Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection after it discovered that $100 million had been taken as loans from more than 1,500 trust funds. The funds had been transferred to Govoni’s Boston Finance Group for about a decade, court records say.

It never paid back, and hundreds of injured and disabled trust fund holders have lost their medical and living expenses.

The forensic accountant’s report shows that the trust fund money was wired to the Boston Finance Group in Govoni, and it was distributed to around 12 other companies he owns. This includes $16 million sent to Big Storm Brewing.

Govoni lived a luxurious lifestyle after the loan was approved, records show. He flew a friend on a $3.4 million private jet and watched the Kentucky Derby from the Executive Suite in Churchill Downs. He dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to politicians.

This is a broken news story. For updates, I will stick to tampabay.com.