New charges for Sotis (Add helium)and Emilie Voissem (Nexus Underwater)

[cerich]

Florida-Based Diving Equipment Expert Charged With Illegal Exports To Libya

He is making the news in a big way

 

[hroark2112]

He’s a killer instructor too.

 

[Bob DBF]

I don't know how the law is written/interpreted here, and I am not a lawyer, but I do have an everyday example that may be illustrative: If I am a clerk in a liquor store, and the customer in front of me is old enough but is obviously buying for a minor either with them or waiting outside, it is my responsibility to refuse the sale.

Worse than that, more like you sell the kid the beer and and a cop tells you that you can't make the transaction because he is under age, so instead of voiding the transaction and returning the money, you keep the kids cash and make arrangements for someone else to pick up the beer for him, all while knowing the state beverage control is following the transaction.

It's amazing how logic goes out the window when greed is involved.


Bob

 

[runsongas]

somebody option this into a script and see if nicolas cage is available

 

[CptTightPants21]

If he did not ship outside of the US and instead sold dive equip. to a domestic US entity - is that is illegal? I'm not sure I understand?

"Conspiracy to.." those two magic words that can be added to the front of almost any criminal charge and F03k your whole world up real fast.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

The fact that they took 2+ years to seek an indictment means that they took their time to collect a lot more evidence than that. The Federal AG’s don’t lose. He’ll cooperate, plead, and try to get a downward departure from the federal sentencing guidelines in return. This is why I predict 3 years or so. Five at the outside. But he’s not going to walk with probation.

He’s already done state prison time. That’s far worse than where he’ll do federal time. Federal low to medium security prison is as civilized as it gets, for prison. His Florida state time would have been far worse.


Paul Raymaekers is going to have a few questions to answer as well when he comes to the USA next time, unless (as is likely true) that the DOJ flew to Belgium and interviewed him already.

I was a juror on a federal case last year involving computer crimes. The investigation had started at the end of 2011 and I think the FBI had confiscated the devices involved in mid-2012. The case went to trial at the start of 2018 and while some of the charges were pretty tenuous (I speculate that they were added to coerce a plea deal), on the main one they had the defendant boxed up. Dates, times, IP addresses, credit card records, texts, emails ... his defense fell apart pretty spectacularly there.

In John D. MacDonald's novel Condominium, there's a passage where a couple of crooked developers compare a pair of federal investigators to natives in the desert who know just where to stick a straw in the sand and find water. That was the impression I got after that trial; they know where to look and keep digging until they have a solid case to convict. It doesn't surprise me that in this case they didn't pounce right when the initial reports came out.

As far as the sociopath angle is concerned, they exist in the dive business and that's exactly their M.O. - charming up until they have you in a bind.

 

[Ayisha]

He must have really missed being in jail. It might be a safer place for him to be - or at least away from his students.

 

[Dusty123]

Why didn’t commerce protect Add Helium and it’s interests? If the goods are sold to an allegedly illegitimate company (with apparent legitimate US paperwork) with the full knowledge of the government why should that be a problem for the seller? Just the fact that commerce was even aware of the transaction seems to indicate that this was going through normal channels or they are terrorists and being watched. Either way I don’t see why with what’s presented in the article, why a business shouldn’t be able to make the sale. Collect the money, the government can seize the goods if it wants in this situation. If I were selling to bad hombres, and aware of it, I would rather defund them a couple rebreathers they never get than do nothing. It seems to me commerce isn’t working for the best interests of Americans in this instance. Kudos to commerce for picking this up if there was actually anything nefarious but they should have been more transparent if there was. I have worked for big business that skate trade embargoes by manufacturing in specific countries small batches of the same stuff otherwise made in USA so they can sell to embargoed countries... Iran, Sudan, Libya for example.

 

[Dusty123]

This isn’t like a liquor sale to minors when the cops are in on the transaction

 

[johndiver999]

problem is that he already knew it was a just shell company that was picking up the gear and was told by the commerce agent not to go through with the sale. and the gear got nabbed in europe afterwards while trying to be moved to libya.

The guy was selling dive gear, not a weapon. Gasoline or pesticide or a million other products that have legitimate (non-violent) uses could be used in a terrorist plot. Did we go after the flight school in Vero Bch that trained the Saudi's to fly airplanes?

It sounds like the details of the transaction are critical, rather than the fact that the equipment eventually got to a place it was not supposed to go.

I guess a knowledge of the source of the funds would be critical in proving he was intent on circumventing laws?