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Prominent lawyer indicted in cash advance scheme

Prominent lawyer indicted in cash advance scheme

Longtime Wilmington resident accused to be element of a scheme that charged over 700 percent interest on payday advances.

Wheeler K. Neff walks through the Federal Building in Philadelphia on April 7, 2016 thursday. Neff is accused in a federal racketeering indictment with involved in a payday financing scheme that charged just as much as 700 % interest on short-term loans. (Photo: Matt Rourke, AP)

A prominent Wilmington attorney happens to be indicted in a payday that is massive scheme that charged over 700 percent interest on loans by pretending lenders had been Native American tribes exempt from what the law states, based on prosecutors.

Federal authorities in Pennsylvania are claiming Wilmington resident Wheeler K. Neff, 67, and Pennsylvania resident Charles M. Hallinan, 75, conspired to break the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt businesses Act, or RICO, utilizing the “rent-a-tribe” model to avoid customer security laws and regulations that set caps on loan rates of interest in Pennsylvania as well as other states, in accordance with an indictment unsealed Thursday.

They did this by looping in United states Indian tribes because the supposed lender so that they could claim immunity that is tribal state laws and deflect class-action legal actions, the indictment claims. Continue reading Prominent lawyer indicted in cash advance scheme