WPRO News
A former state senator from Pawtucket who resigned his seat earlier this year citing his struggle with alcohol has admitted in a plea deal to multiple bank fraud and tax charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for Rhode Island.
James E. Doyle, II, 46 was named in a federal indictment with 31 counts of bank fraud and one count each of filing a false tax return and failing to file a tax return, in what the U.S. Attorney’s office called a “check-kiting” scheme that defrauded three banks of between $250,000 and $550,000, and failed to report more than $1 million in income.
An “information” in the case states that Doyle defrauded three banks through his businesses, Doyle Respiratory, LLC and Doyle Sleep Solutions, LLC between 2013 and February, 2016.
The government alleges Doyle wrote checks drawn on one bank, depositing them in another bank, creating an artificial balance when neither account had sufficient funds to cover the checks.
Doyle and government prosecutors signed the plea agreement on August 3, 2018. No date was immediately set for a sentencing hearing, in which Doyle, if handed a consecutive term, may face up to a maximum 934 years in prison and fines totaling more than $31 million, although maximum sentences are seldom imposed in pleas agreements.
