The former EVP at the Augusta County-based Nexus Services faces prison time after pleading guilty in federal court to defrauding the IRS out of $3.1 million.
Richard E. Moore, 47, of Augusta County, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 with his guilty plea on two counts of not accounting for and paying employment taxes to the IRS..
Moore is a former part-owner and executive vice president at Nexus Services, which opened up shop in Augusta County in 2015, offering bond securitization and other services to immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Moore, who exercised control over Nexus Services’s business and financial affairs, was responsible for withholding Social Security, Medicare and income taxes from employees’ wages and paying those funds over to the IRS, and was also responsible for filing quarterly employment tax returns.
For several financial reporting quarters between the first quarter of 2015 and first quarter of 2024, Moore withheld the funds but did not pay them over to the IRS and did not file the returns.
Moore was indicted in the case in 2021 on 10 counts of tax fraud, and eight additional charges were later added on by prosecutors, so, a guilty plea involving two counts with a maximum exposure of 10 years in prison is about as good a deal as he could have hoped for.
ICYMI
- Augusta County: Court documents allege that Nexus Services owners drained victim’s bank account
- Augusta County: Arrests made in connection with investigation of Nexus Services
- Herring sues Libre by Nexus: Alleges company preys on vulnerable immigrants
- Federal judge orders Nexus Services to pay $811M in consumer fraud case
The legal drama involving the Nexus Services folks isn’t quite over yet.
The next legal hurdle associated with the company is coming up in March, when Moore, Michael Donovan, another former part-owner of Nexus Services, and Timothy Shipe, a former Nexus Services VP, go on trial on charges that they stole $426,000 from Zachary Cruz, the brother of Parkland High School mass shooter Nikolas Cruz.
Moore and Donovan were indicted in that case on charges of obtaining money by false pretenses, financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult and conspiracy to commit a felony.
Shipe was indicted on obtaining money by false pretenses and conspiracy to commit a felony charges in connection with the case.
One other legal issue of note here involving Nexus Services: last year, a federal judge ordered Donovan, Moore, a third part-owner, Evan Ajin, and Nexus Services and Libre by Nexus, a wholly-owned subsidiary, to pay more than $811 million in restitution and civil penalties in a case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the attorneys general in Virginia, Massachusetts and New York.
In that one, the CFPB and the state AGs alleged that Libre by Nexus was offering bonds to secure the release of immigrants held in detention centers while concealing or misrepresenting the true nature and costs of its services.
The crux of that suit: Libre by Nexus required consumers to sign confusing and misleading contracts that they present to consumers primarily in English, even though a vast majority of Libre’s clients do not speak or read English and do not understand it, and that Libre misled consumers into believing that their monthly fees are paying down their bond as a debt owed to Libre and that portions will be refunded at the conclusion of their immigration proceedings.
In the wake of that ruling, Nexus Services, which reportedly brought in more than $230 million in revenues in the decade between 2014 and 2024, was sold to a Pennsylvania business for $3.50.
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Chris Graham
