FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Demolition is underway at City of Palms Park while federal prosecutors accuse the founder of the company helping Fort Myers plan the site\u2019s future of diverting public money from another sports project.<\/p>\n
A civil forfeiture complaint filed July 16 alleges James Card, founder of Indiana-based Card & Associates, engaged in a \u201cscheme to defraud\u201d connected to the publicly funded Mishawaka Fieldhouse project.<\/p>\n
The filing says the project agreement required that \u201cthe Project Funding Amount shall only be used for Project Costs.\u201d Prosecutors allege Card and his company did not use all of the money for legitimate construction expenses and instead used some funds \u201cfor Card\u2019s personal use and benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, more than $2.2 million was moved through business and personal accounts and used toward Card\u2019s $6.625 million waterfront home on Marco Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe total of $2,220,508.89 of the mortgage deposit for the Defendant Asset was funded by monies obtained as part of a scheme to defraud,\u201d prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The government alleges the transfers were designed to \u201cconceal and disguise\u201d the money\u2019s source, ownership and control. It is seeking forfeiture of the Marco Island property. Card has not been criminally charged, and the allegations have not been proven in court.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Card & Associates has a contract worth up to $356,180 for scoping, feasibility and pre-construction work at City of Palms Park. The city says it has paid the company $66,237.50 so far.<\/p>\n
A Fort Myers spokesperson said the city is proceeding as planned for now, though \u201cthat could change as the process moves forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City has not made any commitment to Card & Associates beyond the current scoping and feasibility work,\u201d the city said.<\/p>\n
The agreement allows Fort Myers to terminate or suspend the contract through written notice.<\/p>\n
Retired FBI agent Richard Kolko said nothing in the federal complaint alleges wrongdoing involving the company\u2019s Fort Myers work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing here that puts 2 and 2 together that says that this company dealing with the city of Fort Myers has conducted any illegal activity,\u201d Kolko said.<\/p>\n
WINK News contacted Card & Associates for comment on the federal allegations and its work in Fort Myers but have not received a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Demolition is underway at City of Palms Park while federal prosecutors accuse the founder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,147650,28,897],"class_list":["post-365181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-city-of-palms-park","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}