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Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced the indictment
of a German man deported from Switzerland to New York yesterday afternoon,
who worked at the desk of some of New York's top hotels and stole money
through a number of schemes that netted him more than $85,000.
Former Hamburg, Germany police officer RALF KWASCHNIK, 43, currently of
Zurich, Switzerland used his position as a front desk manager and knowledge
about the hotel and travel industry to steal thousands of dollars and
falsify business records to cover it up. Working at the Excelsior and
the Pierre between 1997 and 2000, he accepted cash from travelers settling
their bills, pocketed the cash and used his own credit cards to pay the
charges. He then fabricated guest complaints about the hotel and authorized
refunds based on those complaints to more than a dozen credit cards that
he used. In other cases, when customers cancelled their reservations,
he arranged for the "no-show" refunds to be credited to his
own credit card accounts instead of the hotels' customers. He also created
two fake travel agencies allegedly working out of Hawaii - Worldwide Traveler
and HNL Worldwide Traveler - and when travelers booked their own reservations
he linked them with his bogus agencies and collected the 10% commission
fee paid by the hotels to travel agencies. Those payments were made to
a Hawaiian bank account that KWASCHNIK set up to receive the fraudulent
commissions. The investigation, which is continuing, began in 2000 after
the Pierre tried to solicit more business from a Hawaiian travel agency
it had been dealing with only to discover that the address was a Mail
Boxes Etc. in Honolulu.
The defendant is charged with Grand Larceny in the Second and Third Degrees
and two counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. Grand
Larceny in the Second Degree is a Class C Felony punishable by up to fifteen
years in prison. Grand Larceny in the Third Degree is a Class D Felony
punishable by up to seven years in prison. Falsifying Business Records
in the First Degree is a Class E Felony punishable by up to four years
in prison KWASCHNIK will be arraigned on the indictment in Part 60 later
this morning.
Mr. Morgenthau thanked the Zurich Police, Donald Ashley and Greg Bassi
of United States Department of Justice's Office of International Affairs
and the United States Marshals of the Southern District of New York for
their cooperation.
Assistant District Attorney Louis O'Neill of the District Attorney's Special
Prosecutions Bureau, is in charge of the case, under the supervision of
Leroy Frazer Jr., Bureau Chief. Assistant District Attorney Elyse Ruzow
and Detective James Gibson of the District Attorney's Detective Squad
participated in the investigation.
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