Despite being a co-manager with the statistical analysis and advice firm CJ Consultant, Mark Izydore is the defendant in numerous lawsuits brought against him. So let’s dig deeper into his profile to uncover the false information and unfair assignments he had presented as a well-known figure. You can also examine my writings’ specifics to get your opinion about him.
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Do you know who is Mark Izydore?
Mark Izydore works as a co-manager for CJ Consultants, a financial analytics and consultancy firm based in Jupiter, Florida. He claims to oversee complete analytical plans and remedies for clients with locations across the United States as an executive with the company since 2020.
Florida citizen Mark Izydore began his career as an accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended the 50th-anniversary celebration of Arthur Andersen & Co. at the Hall of Gems at the Sara Scaife Museum and was given the firm’s Debt-to-Equity Award while working as a staff accountant there.
Before receiving a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Duquesne University, he completed his studies in music theory at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. He was on the dean’s list and a member of the honors fraternity Beta Alpha Phi at Duquesne. Mark Izydore still has interests in eating and drinking wine aside from his work obligations. He participates in several regional wine and cuisine events as a member of the Les Amis Du Vin wine association. He also likes to play tennis and basketball.
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Court Cases Against Mark Izydore: United States v. Mark Izydore (1999)
Case Summary
In front of Circuit Judges Wiener, Barksdale, and DeMOSS. Representing the appellant, Joseph H. Gay, Jr., U.S. Attorney, San Antonio, Texas. In the case of Mark Izydore, George McCall Secrest, Jr. of Bennett & Secrest, Houston, Texas. Representing Schreiber, Marcia Gail Shein of the Marcia G. Shein Law Office, Atlanta, Georgia.
In addition to many counts of the substantive charges of wire fraud and bankruptcy fraud, appellants Harry Schreiber and Mark Izydore were found guilty on a single charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and fraud in connection with bankruptcy.
The validity of their convictions and punishments is contested in the appeal. They overturn two of the petitioners’ wire fraud convictions, uphold all of the other convictions they received, and we overturn their sentences so that they can be sent back for a new trial after remand.
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Mark Izydore: Case Background & Claims
Located in Smithville, Texas, Marhil Manufacturing was a family-run company that produced doors, hatches, and other closures for the marine sector. Craig Wallace, Joe Copeland, and JoAnn Copeland’s daughter owned the business. Late in the 1980s, Marhil ran into financial problems and was compelled to file for bankruptcy with the United States Bankruptcy. Marhil started looking aggressively for investors from the outside who could give the business operating capital to bring the company around.
The appellants were then introduced to Wallace, who at the time served as president of Marshall. Following discussions, the parties decided that a stock subscription arrangement would be used to have Westminster Financial, the appellants’ company, give Marhil the capital it required.
By the terms of the contract, Westminster was required to pay $185,000 for 185 shares of Marhil stock. Marhil’s plan of restructuring was to be funded in part by the sale’s revenues, which were to be used to pay off its debts. On September 10, 1990, the sale was supposed to take place. Then it was decided that Westminister would create a $250,000 line of credit for Marhil, which would be utilized to finance business activities.
The appellants established the Colorado corporation Marhil Acquisition Corp. (“MAC”) and several bank accounts in Florida for MAC and a second company, M.C.M. Acquisitions Corp., Inc., not long after the stock subscription agreement was included in the bankruptcy court’s order approving Marhil’s plan of reorganization.
Then, under the guise of being the company’s president, Mark Izydore made arrangements to have Marhil’s debts rated via Goodman Factors, Inc. Later, MAC’s Florida bank account received the factoring revenues and transferred them there. The total amount of Marhil’s receivables that the appellants calculated was $378,487.
Wallace was given instructions by the appellants to request a progress payment from National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. (“NASSCO”), a business for which Marhil was producing marine closures under a significant contract, in addition to factoring Marhil’s receivables.
A $197,490 progress payment was given to Marhil by NASSCO in response to the request. Wallace delivered the payment to the appellants as per their request, and they deposited it in the Florida MAC bank account.
The NASSCO project was never finished using any of the progress money, it was later discovered. As an alternative, part of the funds was used for the appellants’ expenses, including Schreiber’s BMW, his Aspen, Colorado, and West Palm Beach, Florida houses, as well as credit card debts and outstanding balances.
The appellants alleged, among other allegations, that $25,000 had been given to a corporation called Michellette Corp. and that $35,000 was given to a law firm called Jacobson & Lambert, P.A. when they were asked to account for the cash. Later evidence revealed these claims to be untrue.
According to the membership agreement and the restructuring plan, the appellants still had not acquired Marhil’s stock by December 1990. As a result, a creditor sued to overturn the bankruptcy court’s decision to confirm the plan of reconstruction.
The appellants stated that cheques had been written out to all creditors, $225,000 had been placed into Marhil’s account, and the new Marhil shares had been issued in compliance with the plan for reorganization during a future session before the bankruptcy court. Following the taking of such declarations, the bankruptcy court continued to deliberate the case until January 17, 1991.
Wallace learned from Schreiber via fax on January 15, 1991, that Schreiber had halted payment on a check it had written to one of its creditors. Wallace then discovered that Schreiber had taken the $225,000 deposit out of the account using a blank check Wallace had provided him for ancillary costs.
At the hearing on January 17, the bankruptcy court was given strong proof that the appellants’ claims from the first hearing were false. The plan of restructuring and the trustee appointed to run Marhil’s affairs were consequently annulled by the court.
The trustee determined that the petitioners had misappropriated $108,000 from Marhil during an additional audit of Marhil’s financial records. The trustee tried unsuccessfully to preserve the company; as a result of Marhil’s failure to fulfill its contractual responsibilities, she was compelled to shut it down.
A grand prosecution convicted the defendants on appeal on nine counts on September 19, 1995. In violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, count one of the indictments accused the appellants of conspiring to commit wire fraud and bankruptcy fraud.
The appellants were accused of perpetrating wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and of aiding and abetting wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2 in counts two through six. The appellants were accused of bankruptcy fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 152 and aiding and abetting bankruptcy fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2 in counts seven through nine.
A jury found the appellants guilty on all charges after the case went to trial. Mark Izydore was ultimately given a 60-month prison term, while Schreiber received a 120-month sentence from the district court.
Obstructs to Evidentiary Decision
The appellants contend that the district court erred by permitting bankruptcy trustee Bettina Whyte (“Whyte”) to testify in support of the validity of the appellants’ actions. When questioned about the $108,500 owed by the appellants to Marhil at trial, Whyte responded, “[the money] was taken, and it was not legally taken in my opinion, which was what I said in my report to the court.”
When Whyte made this declaration, she was not giving testimony as an expert witness. Whyte’s statement was challenged by the appellants in good time, and they requested that the court delete it from the record. The objection was rejected by the district court.
Because Whyte’s testimony represents a legal conclusion about the central question of the appellants’ guilt, the appellants contend that it is not admissible in this appeal. They contend that because of her position as a court-appointed trustee, her testimony was especially damaging.
The government contends that Whyte’s statement does not determine as to whether the appellants are guilty or innocent of a crime; rather, it only describes the facts around her attempt to locate the stolen monies.
In this instance, the appellants’ case has two clear weaknesses. The term “it was not legally taken” is not, in our opinion, a legal judgment regarding the very specific question of whether the appellants committed conspiracy, wire fraud, and bankruptcy fraud.
Whyte made this claim while speaking in-depth in court about her attempts as Marhil’s trustee to track down missing funds. If Whyte’s statement is understood in this light, it can better be characterized as an opinion on whether Marhil or the appellants were the rightful owners of the $108,000. The ultimate question of whether the appellants committed the crimes listed in the indictment cannot be resolved legally.
Second, even if the legal conclusion was incorrectly acknowledged, they have studied the entire record and are unable to draw the judgment that Whyte’s comment, which consisted of that single remark, had any bearing on the appellant’s substantial rights. Any error made by the district court when it acknowledged Whyte’s statement was harmless.
The appellants further claim that the district court miscalculated by removing four transcripts from separate bankruptcy court sessions as hearsay. They contend that the transcripts did not amount to hearsay since they were presented to the bankruptcy court to demonstrate that false and misleading statements had been made, not to establish the veracity of the claims made.
This question was not sufficiently raised by the appellants below, and they found no obvious mistake that would force us to consider it on appeal.
The Claims Of Schreiber
To every one of his convictions, Schreiber raises questions about whether the evidence is sufficient. By moving for a judgment of conviction after the government’s case and the conclusion of the evidence, he protected this claim for appellate review.
They must affirm the verdict when determining whether the evidence was sufficient “if a reasonable trier of fact could conclude from the evidence that the elements of the offense were established from the evidence beyond a reasonable trier of doubt, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and drawing all reasonable inferences from the evidence to support the verdict.”
The evidence, in this case, is sufficient to support Schreiber’s charges for conspiracy according to count one, wire fraud under counts two, five, and six, and bankruptcy fraud under counts seven through nine, according to the evidence in the case, Schreiber’s arguments on appeal, and the relevant law. However, they do not find enough evidence to uphold counts three and four of Schreiber’s wire fraud convictions.
A wire fraud conviction involves evidence of both a fraudulent scheme and the use of interstate wire communications to carry it out.18 U.S.C. 1343, United States v. Gray, 1996, cert. denied, (1997), and United States v. Loney, 5th Cir. 1992 are a few cases that support this.
According to 18 U.S.C. 1343, “once membership in a scheme to cheat is developed, a knowing member is responsible for any wire communication which afterward takes part or which earlier took place in connection with the scheme.”
Schreiber was found guilty of conspiring under count one in this case due to enough evidence. As a result, the first element of wire fraud, a conspiracy to deceive, is sufficiently supported by the evidence.
Gray Schreiber’s conviction for wire fraud on counts three and four, however, is challenged by Schreiber by challenging the second part of the crime. He claims that there is no proof in the file that the calls at issue in those counts involved interstate calls.
On October 10, 1990, Schreiber and JoAnn Copeland had a phone discussion that served as the foundation for count three. During their meeting, Copeland and Schreiber talked about the payment issues that were plaguing several of Marhil’s clients, according to testimony Copeland gave at trial.
But in her testimony, Copeland said she couldn’t recall where Schreiber was when the call was made. Furthermore, there isn’t any proof in the file—documentary or otherwise—that the phone call from October 10 crossed state lines.
They concluded that there was inadequate proof of an interstate nexus about the phone calls that serve as the foundation for charges three and four after viewing the record in a way that is most advantageous to the government.
Thus, they overturned Schreiber’s convictions for wire fraud on those charges. They overturn Mark Izydore’s verdicts for wire fraud under counts three and four, which were founded on identical phone calls, for the same justifications.
In a related argument, Schreiber claimed that since his convictions for wire fraud in counts three and four are invalid, his conviction for conspiracy in count one is also flawed because one of its two objectives was the substantive offense of wire fraud.
He argued that it is impossible to tell whether the conspiracy conviction is based on the wire fraud object because the general verdict on the conspiracy charge does not specify which object the jury used to reach that verdict. They disagreed with this argument.
Mark Izydore: Claimed that he was denied, counsel
When the district court denied David L. Botsford (“Botsford”) permission to represent Mark Izydore at trial, Mark Izydore claimed that his right to counsel of his choice had been violated. By denying Botsford the right to represent him on appeal, Mark Izydore claimed that the district court then committed the same error. Izydore’s justifications don’t hold much weight with them.
Botsford and Richard Lubin (referred to as “Lubin”) were the first attorneys to represent Schreiber in this lawsuit. Steven Brittain (referred to as “Brittain”) was Mark Izydore’s sole legal counsel at first. About three weeks before the trial began, Mark Izydore asked the court to permit Botsford to represent the defendant alongside Brittain.
Mark Izydore told the court that Botsford was required to help with legal preparation during a hearing on the motion. Additionally, he insisted that Botsford would perform several duties during the trial, including conducting cross-examination. The court was informed that Botsford would resign from representing Schreiber with Schreiber’s express consent if Izydore’s request was approved.
The district court investigated the nature of Botsford’s representation of Schreiber under the Sixth Amendment’s requirements. The trial court also interrogated the attorneys for all parties to determine whether there was any potential conflict of interest that could unintentionally materialize into an actual conflict during the trial.
Following that investigation, the district court concluded that Botsford might have a conflict of interest if he later represented Mark Izydore. When Mark Izydore sought to have Botsford represent him in an appeal, the court initially declined his motion and subsequently dismissed that request as well.
Then Mark Izydore appealed the decisions. He claims that Botsford’s involvement in the representation of Schreiber was minimal. Additionally, Mark Izydore adds that he and Schreiber went to trial per a joint defense agreement and that Schreiber specifically renounced any potential conflicts of interest.
Mark Izydore believed that the district court’s decision went against Wheat because there needed to be a real risk of conflict of interest before a defendant’s choice of counsel could be denied. Izydore’s arguments do not persuade them.
Get Justice Suspicious
Mark Izydore overlooked the fact that the government’s testimony at the hearing refuted his assertion that Botsford had only had a modest influence on Schreiber’s representation. For instance, the prosecution told the court that Botsford engaged in protracted plea negotiations with the prosecution on Schreiber’s behalf.
The prosecution also informed the court that two possible conflicts of interest would lead to opposing defenses at trial based on statements of Mark Izydore made during those plea discussions and in interviews with government agents.
They are unable to conclude that the district court abused its authority by rejecting Botsford’s request to serve as Izydore’s co-counsel in light of these facts. It does not alter our opinion that Mark Izydore might have waived any potential conflicts of interest. According to Wheat, it is evident that when the totality of the circumstances in a case indicates a potential conflict of interest, a district court may choose not to accept the defense attorney of a defendant.
They are unable to conclude that the district court misused its authority by rejecting Botsford’s request to serve as Izydore’s co-counsel in light of these facts. It does not alter our opinion that Mark Izydore might have waived any potential conflicts of interest.
According to Wheat, it is evident that when the totality of the circumstances in a case indicates a potential conflict of interest, a district court may choose not to accept the defense attorney of a defendant.
Mark Izydore: Another Case Summary
On March 2, 2020, Mark Izydore filed a lawsuit for contract-related debt collection against Tower Hill Prime Insurance Company. The Florida Palm Beach Court System’s Main Branch, which is headquartered in Palm Beach, Florida, received this case. James Nutt is the judge in charge of this case. This case is going Pending.
CONCLUSION
Based on the aforementioned, they confirmed the appellants’ remaining convictions while vacating the appellants’ convictions for fraud by a wire under counts three and four. They also remanded to the district court for a new sentencing hearing by this ruling and vacated the appellants’ sentences.
The entire Mark Izydore story about wire fraud and bankruptcy fraud is now known to you. If you have any thoughts on Mark Izydore or his activities, kindly express them.