Parks and recreation worker who pulled $119,000 fraud now can play in the prison yard
A Coral Springs man who ripped off $119,000 from Fort Lauderdale taxpayers has been sentenced to federal prison.
Phillip Peterson, 43, got 15 months on Friday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and theft from a program receiving federal funds. The former Fort Lauderdale parks employee must also pay $119,982.69 restitution to the city.
Peterson’s partner in Part Two of his scheme, 49-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident Gino Ferraro, got 200 hours of community service, five years’ probation and a $2,000 fine.
That community service might balance out the work Ferraro’s Pro Motion Sports Marketing/Surfside Volleyball company didn’t do maintaining Fort Lauderdale sand and volleyball courts. Peterson used his city expense card to pay Ferraro’s company $24,337 in 25 payments from December 2015 through July 2017. Ferraro said when the payments were under $1,000, he sometimes skipped doing the work.
That’s because Ferraro’s actual job was to take what Peterson paid Pro Motion Sports and give Peterson a check for half that amount. Auditors found 25 Pro Motion Sports checks to Peterson, and they were usually dated the same day as Peterson’s charges to Pro Motion.
Peterson ran the rest of his fraud on his own, according to court documents. He bought $95,609 of goods with his city card from 2013 to 2017, then he pawned the goods and kept the cash.
This story was originally published March 6, 2019 at 10:07 AM.
