Executive Director and CEO of Sponsor Organization Sentenced to 10 Years' Imprisonment, and Owner of

Executive Director and CEO of Sponsor Organization Sentenced to 10 Years’ Imprisonment, and Owner of Catering Company Sentenced to 8 Years’ Imprisonment, for Their Roles in $26 Million Scheme to Defraud Federal Food Program for Underprivileged Children


The former executive director and CEO of a sponsor organization for the federally-funded Child Care Food Program (“CCFP”) and the former owner of a catering company that was awarded contracts to provide nutritious food for needy children were sentenced today for their roles in a complex fraud, kickback, bribery, and money laundering scheme that victimized the CCFP and the children it was meant to serve.

Ariana Fajardo Orshan, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Michael J. De Palma, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Brian Swain, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service (USSS), Miami Field Office, Karen Citizen-Wilcox, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Rick Maglione, Chief, Fort Lauderdale Police Department, made the announcement.

Sandra Ruballo, 47, of Davie, Florida, was sentenced to 120 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Ruballo was also ordered to pay a $900 special assessment, restitution, and a forfeiture money judgment of $26 million. Carlos Andres Montoya, 48, of Miramar, Florida, was sentenced to 97 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Montoya was also ordered to pay a $200 special assessment, restitution, and a forfeiture money judgment of $13 million.

For more than six years, Ruballo and Montoya defrauded the federally funded Child Care Food Program, which provides free and reduced meals to underprivileged children at hundreds of daycare centers in Florida. As part of the scheme, the conspirators falsified paperwork, entered into various kickback arrangements, manipulated the catering contract bid process, and inflated annual budgets, all in order to receive millions of dollars of falsely and fraudulently obtained federal funds for their own personal use and benefit.

Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/executive-director-and-ceo-sponsor-organization-sentenced-10-years-imprisonment-and