Couple who fled by boat to Bahamas with seven kids sentenced for fraud

[August 15, 2015]  DENVER (Reuters) - A Texas couple who fled by sail boat to the Bahamas with their seven children while facing trial for an online agriculture scam were sentenced on Friday to more than seven years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal prosecutors said.

Donald Winberg, 44, and his wife Karlien, 33, of Earth, Texas, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver in April 2014. But five months later they fled to the Galveston area of Texas, where they bought a sail boat which they later grounded not far from shore.

Prosecutors said they were able to obtain another boat and travel to the Bahamas. They were arrested there without incident on a boat near the Staniel Cay Yacht Club for failing to have proper identification and travel documents.

"The arrest was made by Bahamian authorities after a Louisiana family vacationing in the Bahamas recognized the family from a press story out of Galveston," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado said in a statement.

The Winbergs were deported to Miami and then transported by the U.S. Marshals Service to Colorado. They pleaded guilty in April.

According to court documents, in 2010 the couple began advertising online that they owned extensive farmland in Idaho and Texas, had thousands of tons of hay, corn and other crops for sale, and a fleet of trucks to deliver them to buyers.

"The defendants would then take the victims' money and not deliver the material that was advertised, purchased and promised," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

While under pretrial supervision, from May 2014 until they fled in October 2014, the statement said, the couple committed additional fraud involving hay sales.

Both Winbergs were ordered to pay restitution of about $1.54 million, and were sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Philip Brimmer to 87 months in federal prison each, followed by three years on supervised release.

(Reporting by Daniel Wallis in Denver; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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