United States Drug Enforcement Administration

BOSTON, MA. - A federal grand jury today indicted a Boston attorney, charging him with money laundering.

Steven W. Derr, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Boston Field Division; United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; and William Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation - Boston Field Office announced today that ROBERT A. GEORGE - , 56, of Westwood, was charged in a seven count indictment with conspiring to launder money, money laundering, and structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements.

The indictment alleges that from early 2009 to 2011, GEORGE - and a co-conspirator conspired to conceal the illicit source of more than $225,000 in drug proceeds. GEORGE - allegedly did this by introducing an individual who was cooperating with the government to GEORGE’s - co-conspirator, who converted purported drug money into checks made payable to a fictitious undercover company. According to the indictment, the cooperating (CW) represented that he had large amounts of cash from drug trafficking to both GEORGE - and his co-conspirator and, on two separate occasions, the co-conspirator took cash in exchange for a check he made payable to a fictitious undercover company. It is alleged that for this service, the CW was charged a substantial fee.

On another occasion, it is alleged that after GEORGE - offered a fee to a CW for referring GEORGE - clients, GEORGE - took $25,000 in cash from an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer client, and made two separate deposits of that cash, at two different branches of his bank, in amounts under $10,000, in order to avoid a reporting requirement. GEORGE - allegedly thereafter paid the CW a referral fee in the form of a check made payable to a fictitious undercover company. According to the indictment, GEORGE - wrote in the memo line of the check that it was for “office disposal.” It is alleged that in all of these transactions, GEORGE - helped conceal the fact that the cash was what he understood to be proceeds of illegal drug trafficking.

If convicted on each of the money laundering charges, GEORGE - faces up to 20 years imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $500,000 fine. If convicted of the structuring count, GEORGE - faces up to five years imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.