Jeweler in Ala. gets 3 years for money laundering

Birmingham, Ala.--The former owner of Denman-Crosby in Mountain Brook, Ala. was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for pawning a 3-carat diamond he falsely reported stolen and illegally possessing nearly 100 guns.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama said Wednesday that 65-year-old Joseph Harold Gandy was sentenced in front of a federal judge on one count of money laundering for pawning property worth more than $10,000 that was obtained through a criminal act. The criminal act in this case, prosecutors said, was wire fraud, which he committed when he submitted an insurance claim on diamonds that weren’t actually stolen.

Gandy also was sentenced on one count of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm after a search of his Vestavia Hills, Ala. home turned up 99 weapons. He was prohibited from owning weapons because of a 1989 federal mail fraud conviction.

According to court documents, Gandy’s case got its start back in 2004, when he had $2.8 million in jewelry and loose diamonds in his store on consignment from dealers in New York and elsewhere for a holiday sale.

He reported that two men robbed his store and took all the goods, and his insurance company paid out $2.6 million, his policy limit.

Gandy held onto the merchandise for nearly a decade. Then, in 2013, he began sending a friend to jewelry stores in Jefferson County, Alabama to pawn the diamonds that allegedly had been stolen nine years prior.

The two were stopped cold in their first attempt, in July 2013, when the jeweler to whom they were trying to sell a 1.59-carat diamond demanded documentation, court documents state.

However, Gandy and his partner in crime had better luck later that year.

After examining about a dozen diamonds to make sure they didn’t bear any inscription, Gandy had his friend sell a 3.01-carat emerald-cut diamond, receiving a $12,000 loan from the store where he sold it.

The pair also disposed of a 3.45-carat cushion-cut diamond for $8,000 and a 2.16-carat round diamond for $2,000, and Gandy gave his friend nearly $4,000 for making the transactions. All three stones were on the stolen inventory list Gandy submitted to the insurance company.

Gandy was charged in October and pled guilty the following month. He was sentenced as part of a binding plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

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