800America fraud suspect stays in jail
By Jeremy Heidt – The City Paper
November 19, 2002
The female half of the pair accused of running an international dot-com fraud from Mount Juliet remains in federal custody.
Tillie Steeple, 55, of Mount Juliet and the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to postpone a detention hearing on two federal counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud pending the resolution of a state parole violation.
Steeple and her partner, David Rabi, are accused of falsely reporting $22 million in revenues in 2001 for their company, 800America.com. An investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspector said the company’s financial history was a massive fabrication by the duo, whom actively concealed previous felony convictions.
The parole violation stems from a Steeples’ 1996 conviction for delivering cocaine to a Tennessee prison.
Rabi remains in custody in New York, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He is accused of being an international con artist with convictions for various schemes to defraud investors or companies in Europe, the Middle East and North America for more than six decades.
“She’s been duped by this guy,” said Kline Preston IV, an attorney for Steeples.
Steeples chatted amiably at the Federal Courthouse building in downtown Nashville Monday afternoon with the two officers assigned to return her to the Grayson County Detention Center in Kentucky and outlined her reason for deciding not to seek release on bond at this time.
“They treat us like human beings there, not like animals,” Steeples said of the Kentucky prison facility.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Bob Washko said that if released, Steeples would have just gone right back into state custody and a state prison, so she decided to resolve the parole violation rather than “bounce around the system.”
• Read this article online:
/index.cfm?section=10&screen=news&news_id=17771
Copyright 2000-2004, The City Paper LLC.