EZjet boss steps down following embezzlement claims

EZjet founder Sonny Ramdeo has stepped down from his post as Chief Executive Officer to remove any doubt about the “viability” of the airline in the wake of a lawsuit by his former employer accusing him of embezzlement.
A statement from the airline on Thursday quoted Ramdeo as saying “since my former bosses are themselves in court over diversion of over $550 million dollars of company funds, they elected to claim ignorance and innocence when it came to coming clean about the investment. Instead, they alleged that I diverted funds to EZjet, which I did not”.
He added that “In the interest of removing all doubt about the viability of EZjet for which I have worked tirelessly during the past 1-1/2 years to establish, I am removing myself from EZjet management, until this embarrassing matter has been cleared up and my good name has been restored”.
A hospital chain claims in court that its payroll manager and his two companies embezzled US$5.4 million from the company.
Promise Healthcare and 11 of its hospitals sued Sonny Ramdeo, of PayServ Tax and EZjet GT, in Palm Beach County Court. It claims it hired Ramdeo eight years ago to manage the payroll for its 3500 employees in its hospitals nationwide.
Promise accuses “Sonny Ramdeo, and his companies of stealing over US$5 million from Promise through a sophisticated scheme of fraud and deception. Specifically, Ramdeo incorporated a company called PayServ Tax Inc and deceived Promise’s senior management into believing that PayServ was a legitimate payroll tax processing company affiliated with the nationally-known payroll processing company, Ceridian. Based on this lie, he deceived Promise into transferring millions of dollars to PayServ Tax Inc and diverted over five million dollars of Promise’s money to himself and his companies,” the complaint states. Ceridian is not a party to the complaint.
“Around October 2010, Ramdeo incorporated PayServ,” the complaint states. “Thereafter, through a sophisticated fraud including false representations, fabricated documents and e-mails, and a fictitious website, Ramdeo deceived Promise’s senior management into believing that Promise’s payroll taxes were being received, processed, and paid by Ceridian (a global payroll services company that Promise had used for years).
“Instead, Ramdeo received Promise’s money allocated for payroll taxes through his own company, PayServ, so that he could steal millions of dollars from Promise along the way. Upon information and belief, he did this by forging signatures on standing transfer orders that purported to authorise Promise’s bank to debit funds from Promise’s account for transfer to PayServ’s account at PNC Bank. …
“Significantly, in the past two months alone, Ramdeo stole US$5,387,000 from Promise by diverting its funds to EZjet. He did this by diverting money in the PayServ account that had been deposited for payment of Promise’s payroll taxes to his jet charter company, EZjet GT Inc.
“Upon information and belief, since creating PayServ, Ramdeo has been knowingly and intentionally misstating the amount of payroll taxes actually due by Promise and/or misstating the amount of payroll taxes actually transferred to government agencies and stealing the excess funds (in a sum that exceeds US$5,000,000).”
Scheme
“Ramdeo effected this fraud through a sophisticated scheme of fraud that deceived not only Promise’s senior management, but also its auditors. This is because Ramdeo not only fabricated documents, but also emails and websites to deceive Promise and its auditors into believing that Ceridian was receiving and processing Promise’s payroll taxes.”
“For example, when Promise’s senior management requested additional information from Ramdeo regarding the Ceridian bank account where payroll taxes were being deposited, Ramdeo provided Promise’s senior management with a document – on Ceridian letterhead –which purported to identify ‘the Payroll Trust Account information in which Promise Healthcare’s taxes are being collected into and disbursed out of’.
“Ramdeo even fabricated an e-mail to himself from a purported Ken Taylor of PayTax so that it would appear as if he had received the PayTax letter from a third party.
However, like Ramdeo’s other representations, the PayTax Letter and the e-mail from a purported Ken Taylor were fraudulent. They were fabricated by Ramdeo in response to Promise’s request for additional information about the payroll tax account.
“The PayTax Letter and email were only one part of Ramdeo’s scheme. For example, upon information and belief, Ramdeo also purchased the domain name Pay-tax.com and directed that Internet address to link directly to Ceridian’s website so that anyone investigating Pay-tax.com would be deceived into thinking that they were dealing with Ceridian.”
The hospitals are seeking damages for fraud, unjust enrichment, conversion, civil theft, and imposition of a constructive trust. They are represented by Matthew Triggs, with Proskauer Rose, of Boca Raton. (Excerpts from EST PALM BEACH Courthouse News Service)