Its sounds like an episode of The Sopranos.
A father and son meet with a female family member in an underground hotel parking garage. The men want the woman — the daughter and sister to the pair — to take the fall for a crime the son has committed.
They plead, beg, try to convince and even threaten the woman to lie to federal authorities about her role it what has already been exposed as a $33 million bank fraud and mortgage scheme.
“If the family sticks together,” the brother tells the sister, “you can’t beat the f*****g family.”
Only the family here is not a New Jersey Mafia clan, but a once successful group of Kentucky homebuilders and developers who were trying to lie their way out of a long prison sentence for one of their own.
And the FBI heard the whole thing.
The woman, Lori Erpenbeck, wore a listening device for the feds as her brother, Bill Erpenbeck, and father, William “Tony” Erpenbeck, spent three days — from Feb. 3rd to 5th — tried to cajole and strong-arm her into lying on the stand to protect her brother.
The FBI taped the conversations with the consent of Lori Erpenbeck, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati. An affidavit filed by FBI Agent Kevin Gormley that includes portions of the taped conversations was also filed in court.
The Erpenbecks were one of greater Cincinnati’s largest and most successful builders, operating mostly in the suburban communities of northern Kentucky near Cincinnati. Tony Erpenbeck has been building homes and apartments and developing property for more than 40 years.
Bill and Lori broke away from the family company about a decade ago and started their own firm, which was also a success.
But last year Bill and Lori Erpenbeck pled guilty to federal bank fraud charges for their roles in a scheme that included diverting $33 million of checks into their company’s bank accounts beginning in 1999 until March of 2002. The checks were paid out to Erpenbeck at home closings and were to satisfy construction loans.
But instead the stolen money kept what was a troubled company afloat, prosecutors have alleged.
Bill was scheduled to appear at a pre-sentencing federal court hearing last week. He faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in the check diversion scheme.
Early in the week Tony contacted Lori and said he wanted to give her $500 for her birthday.
Instead, according to court documents, the father begins questioning Lori about what she will say at her brother’s pre-sentencing hearing. At one point the father tells the daughter that the brother “thought about killing you.”
Lori contacts her lawyer, who contacts the FBI, who ask Lori to meet again and this time wear a wire.
Lori meets with her dad and brother the next day. Earlier in the day, in a bit of irony, Tony tells Lori that the meeting has to be in person and not over the phone “because there ain’t no microphones, no nothing.”
During the next three days the FBI listens as Bill and Tony work Lori into giving untruthful testimony that would benefit Bill. They also want Lori to take the fall. Tony even offers to pay her mortgage while she is away in federal prison.
“We gotta stick together and minimize everything,” Tony says on the tape, according to the affidavit.
And they appear to threaten Lori is she exposes the ruse.
“Lori, if you ever say we had this conversation to (federal prosecutors) or whatever … it’ll be ugly,” said Bill, who is also heard coaching Lori on what she should say.
During their last meeting at the parking garage FBI surrounded the car the family members were sitting in and arrested Bill, 42, and Tony, 69.
Both were charged on charges of obstructing justice and held in jail without bond. According to prosecutors both were are on a suicide watch.
