William J. Edwards, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced today that an indictment was unsealed following the arrest of Joel A. Freedman, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, which Indictment charged Freedman with eight counts of Mail Fraud.

The indictment charges that between January of 1999 and the time of the Indictment, Freedman devised a scheme to defraud in which Freedman would falsely offer to various persons across the country his company’s expertise in finding them “government entitlement” money. The Indictment charged that Freedman would advertise in various nationally distributed publications, such as the National Enquirer, the Globe, the World Weekly, and others, in which he claimed his companies had successfully assisted thousands of others in obtaining government money. According to the indictment, his advertisements required a small fee, between $9.95 and $14.95, to be mailed to a Post Office Box in Fairlawn, Ohio, or Jupiter, Florida, in order to receive an application. Once the application was paid, the applicant received a questionnaire from Freedman, which questionnaire was required to be completed purportedly to find a government program for the applicant if it was returned with an additional fee, usually in the amount of $75. The Indictment charges that virtually no one ever received government funds through Freedman’s business. The Indictment charges that Freedman used various business names, including such names as C-P Inc., Entitlement Services, Inc., National Entitlement Services, Contour Plus, Inc., and American Entitlement Services.

The Indictment alleges that Freedman derived in excess of $500,000 from the scheme.

The actual sentence in this case, upon conviction, will be determined by the Court under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines which depend upon a number of factors unique to each case, including the defendant's prior criminal record, if any, the defendant's role in the offense and the unique characteristics of the violation. In all cases the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in most cases it will be less than the maximum.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James C. Lynch, following an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Cleveland, Ohio.

An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it is the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.