After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded four years ago in the Gulf of Mexico, hundreds of South Florida residents paid the nonprofit Noula Inc. $300 each, mostly to process claims for wages they said were lost to the oil spill.But a Miami jury last year agreed with federal prosecutors that the claims were scams. They convicted Noula’s president, Jean Mari Lindor, of 40 counts including identity theft and mail and wire fraud.
“These people would never actually see what was filed on their behalf,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said of Lindor’s victims. “Some had no idea what he was doing.”
