Retired fisherman gets year for defrauding BP oil spill program

MARATHON -- Commercial fisherman who swindled $30,000 from the BP relief program set up after the 2010 oil spill will spend one year and one day in prison for fraud.

Raul Rioseco, 73, was sentenced Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Key West by Judge Jose Martinez, after taking a plea deal last month in which he admitted to one count of mail fraud.

Rioseco, retired since about 2004, was also ordered by the court to make reimbursement of $144,606.

Federal prosecutors say he and his daughter combined raided nearly $500,000 from BP for purported income losses in Key West, which didn't get a drop of oil from the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Rioseco filed a phony claim for $30,000 in October 2010 and received the money by January 2011.

His daughter, Caridad Rioseco Alejandrez, awaits sentencing July 11 before Martinez in Key West, after prosecutors say she filed some 600 claims after the BP oil spill.

As of May 2012, Monroe County businesses and residents had received a total $184.2 million on 11,135 paid claims, according to the now-closed Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which BP created to handle such reimbursement in the wake of the disaster and funded with a $20 billion donation.

"They got increasingly better at detecting problems," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-FitzGerald, of the GCCF. "They started denying or demanding more justification."

Alejandrez, 50, who worked preparing tax returns but is not a licensed accountant, this month admitted to one count of mail fraud after being charged with 21 counts for her role in the BP fraud.

By filing false claims, the father and daughter received checks by FedEx from the GCCF, which between October 2010 and January 2011 sent Raul Rioseco two checks by FedEx in the amounts of $30,000 and $25,000, respectively, according to a joint statement filed by the defense and the government March 7.

The Riosecos also vouched for five crew members of Raul Rioseco's made-up commercial fishing business.

Those so-called crew members are only identified by initials in court records, but none was a working fisherman at the time of the spill, Watts-FitzGerald said.

"And one of them was in jail," he added.

The five men collected a total of $87,900 from GCCF.

Last July, BP reached a record-setting $20 billion settlement agreement with the federal government and five states, which a federal judge in New Orleans gave final approval to April 4.

The Justice Department calls it the largest environmental settlement in American history and the largest-ever civil settlement with a single entity.

In 2012, BP reached a multibillion-dollar settlement agreement with private attorneys for businesses and residents who claim the spill cost them money.

Mail fraud carries up to 20 years in prison upon conviction.

After serving his prison time, Rioseco will have three years of probation with conditions that include 180 days of home detention with electronic monitoring.

Rioseco also must surrender any fishing or hunting licenses he holds.

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Retired fisherman gets year for defrauding BP oil spill program ."