Three indicted in fraud cases

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 11:22 a.m.

Gina Trenette Sanders and William Spencer Hart were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on conspiracy and bank fraud charges in an "identity theft" case that allegedly victimized Las Vegas banks and involved the use of fake drivers' licenses.

Prosecutors say Sanders and Hart opened accounts at five banks in Las Vegas using phony drivers' licenses bearing their pictures but with the names and Social Security numbers of individuals whose identities they allegedly appropriated.

The defendants are accused of depositing numerous counterfeit checks between May 1997 and February 1999 that were drawn on fictitious business accounts into the accounts they had opened and of later withdrawing money credited into those accounts. They were charged with obtaining more than $150,000 from the scheme.

Separately, Worldwide Funding Group LLC of Las Vegas and its president, Richard Raymond Ruppert, were accused of cheating investors out of about $500,000 in a scheme in which he claimed their money would be used to buy discounted bank notes and securities that would be resold.

Ruppert, who was charged with wire fraud, was also accused of fraudulently altering a company bank statement to convince an investor that the investment program, which he claimed was backed by the government, had substantial funds.

Prosecutors say he promised to pay returns of up to 45 percent -- but in one case repaid an investor with his own or other investors' funds.

None of the defendants could be reached for comment.