JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – ASAP Towing and Storage President Vince Serrano, who was the topic of a long-term I-TEAM investigation, is anticipated to plead not responsible Wednesday to felony counts of grand theft and arranged fraud.
An arrest warrant for Serrano reveals investigators imagine he defrauded Floridians of practically $194,000 by underreporting the gross sales costs of unclaimed autos whereas overinflating ASAP’s prices to tow, retailer, and promote them.
Serrano’s fees are grand theft of greater than $100,000 and arranged fraud regarding property price not less than $50,000.
The alleged scheme facilities round vehicles ASAP towed after which bought when their house owners couldn’t be discovered. When a towing firm sells an unclaimed automobile, they’re solely allowed to maintain what it prices them to tow, retailer, and promote the automobile. Any overages should be posted to the Clerk of Courtroom so the proprietor can recoup these funds.
JSO investigators declare Serrano was underreporting sale quantities and retaining the distinction, in addition to “double dipping” on charges, making a “windfall.”
Quickly after the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office raided the four locations of ASAP Towing and Storage last July, Serrano instructed the I-TEAM that ASAP is a $10 million enterprise in relation to income.
Now investigators say he’s been cooking the books in a fraud scheme that goes again years.
MORE | JSO recovered $253,000 owed to clerk of court from towing companies following 2023 audit: incident report | ASAP Towing was permanently banned from JSO use following discovery of $181,000 in late payments
Serrano turned himself in on the Duval County jail in November and was launched that day on his personal recognizance.
The warrant reveals investigators reviewed all of ASAP’s gross sales paperwork filed from 2020 to 2024.
A letter from JSO obtained by the I-TEAM revealed that ASAP Towing was completely banned from JSO use in January 2024 after an audit discovered the corporate did not report tens of hundreds of {dollars} as required by state regulation.
In response to investigators, JSO in contrast recordsdata exhibiting discrepancies between the gross sales costs ASAP reported and the payments of gross sales, with ASAP underreporting what patrons really paid. The warrant additionally says ASAP fraudulently inflated their prices with phony deductions.
In a single 2022 sale cited on the warrant, ASAP reported the automobile as promoting for $7,700, when it really bought for $8,855. ASAP listed $1,155 of deductions associated to the sale, whereas additionally itemizing one other deduction for purchaser’s and key charges for a similar quantity.
Investigators stated the deductions are inflated. The numbers on the warrant point out ASAP pocketed $2,310 greater than they need to have in that sale.
The warrant stated investigators reviewed Report of Gross sales paperwork for 255 transactions from 2020 to 2024, and in all by three, the Payments of Gross sales supported fraud.
The warrant goes on to say: “Investigators decided that the [Serrano] fraudulently signed and filed 216 of those Report of Gross sales paperwork with the Clerk of the Circuit Courtroom.”
Moreover, investigators say they reviewed 5 present ASAP staff and one former worker, with the previous worker reporting Serrano “ordered her to underreport the sale quantity and to deduct one other purchaser’s charge and key charge underneath the ‘different’ part of the Report of Sale doc,” and “instructed her to make an instance kind for all places of work to comply with.”
In response to the warrant, the investigation started with an audit in October 2023 that JSO did on all of the towing corporations it used. It was throughout that, the warrant says, they found ASAP had underreported the precise sale value of 1 automobile, after which they dug deeper and reportedly discovered that was simply the tip of the iceberg.
Serrano instructed News4JAX that he had not achieved something improper and that JSO was investigating him in retaliation for a lawsuit he filed in opposition to the company for banning ASAP from its operators’ record.
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