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Office of the District Attorney P. David Soares Timothy Paul Hoffman Faces 1-3 for Check Scheme ALBANY , NY – District Attorney P. David Soares today announced that TIMOTHY PAUL HOFFMAN, 48, of 42 Lake Lorraine Way , Hoosick Falls , NY , pled guilty to one count of Grand Larceny in 3 rd Degree before the Honorable Thomas A. Breslin. He faces a term in State Prison of one to three years. Sentencing is scheduled for November 22, 2005 . HOFFMAN’s actions were consistent with a known scheme in which someone acts as an agent for an international money laundering operation. In these schemes, the individual playing HOFFMAN’s role would receive forged checks from a foreign bank and from which he was supposed to subtract 5% as his fee and then forward the balance to a third party. In this case HOFFMAN admitted to depositing and keeping the full amount. The bank holding the account on which the check was written initially approved the check since the forgery was difficult to spot. However after having approved the check for payment, they realized that it was a forgery and they reported it to the Trustco Branch which had cashed it. Trustco alerted the Colonie Police Department who in turn contacted the Public Integrity Bureau of this Office. This Office issued a sealed indictment on June 3, 2005 . However, since HOFFMAN had many bogus addresses he couldn’t simply be tracked down and arrested so Colonie PD place an alert on his name and license number. On June 17, Officers of the Rensselaer Police Department pulled HOFFMAN over on a routine traffic stop, noticed the alert on his license, and proceeded to turn HOFFMAN over to the Colonie PD. DA Soares praised the interagency cooperation which resulted in HOFFMAN’s arrest. “This case was closed by a combination of efforts by bank investigators, our Public Integrity Unit and Officers from both Colonie and Rensselaer Police Departments. This is the way the system is supposed to work and here is a case in which exactly according to plan,” he said. Soares also expressed astonishment at HOFFMAN’s proposed defense. “He somehow hope to claim that since he was an innocent victim of someone else’s scheme he should somehow escape culpability. But the lesson here is that if you participate in a scheme to defraud, you will be facing State Prison,” he added. Back to Press Releases For further information contact: Richard Arthur
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