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That mantra didn't work out well for a pair of brothers - one of whom pretended to be a New York mobster - to get a Maryland man to embezzle more than $4 million from his employer in Washington, DC.
New York native Corry Blue Evans, 31, has been sentenced to 41 months in prison for his role in an elaborate fraud, extortion, and money laundering scheme that involved several other close-knit co-conspirators who worked to exploit the multi-million dollar scheme.
The sentence comes years after a federal grand jury indicted Evans and his older brothers Tony John Evans and Robert Evans, their parents Archie Kaslov and Candy Evans, and Robert Evans’ common-law ex-wife, Gina Rita Russell in April 2018.
Prosecutors say that a woman from New York conspired with the Evans brothers, Kaslov, and Russell to extort money from a Maryland man, causing their victim to embezzle funds between January and March 2017.
The Maryland man then converted embezzled funds to cash and gold bars which he delivered to New York dropoff locations, including a hotel room, believing the funds were going to mobsters to whom the New York woman owed money, officials say, making threats along the way to make themselves sound credible as a mobster.
In reality, all of the funds the man embezzled and delivered to New York went to members of the Evans-Kaslov family.
According to court documents, Corry Evans was complicit in facilitating the cashing of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cashier's checks that were obtained with the stolen proceeds.
He admitted that he called a check cashing store employee multiple times to convince him that the New York woman, who was attempting to cash the checks, wanted money for her own purposes even though Evans knew that was a lie and that he and his family members would ultimately take the cash.
Once the woman cashed the checks, she then provided the money to the Evans brothers, who were driven by Archie Kaslov to the New York Diamond District, where they purchased luxury watches with their ill-gotten gains.
In January 2017, the Maryland man traveled to New York to deliver around $500,000 in cash, which was photographed by members of the scheme and then used to intimidate him to believe that he was being actively surveilled by the mafia. When the cash was delivered to a hotel room, some of it wound up in Evans' home.
Months later, the same Maryland man traveled to New York to deliver more than $1 million worth of gold bars to another hotel room.
"Corry Evans, his brothers, and father all discussed the need to sell the gold," according to federal prosecutors. "Corry Evans subsequently went to a jewelry store in New York with a sample of the gold, trying to sell it. Later, his brothers, father, and he all sold gold to that jeweler."
Kaslov in Texas later used that money to pay $315,000 for a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead.
Evans is the latest member o the conspiracy to be sentenced for his role in the massive fraud, according to officials. Gina Russell, Tony John Evans, and Robert Evans all pleaded guilty to interference with interstate commerce by extortion, with the Evans both being sentenced to five years in prison. Russell has not been sentenced.
In addition to his prison term, Evans was also ordered to pay $4,217,542.86 in restitution and to forfeit $772,500 by a judge.
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