David H. Tedder

David Hampton Tedder'' akaDavid H. Tedder''', is an American lawyer currently not licensed to practice law. He is best known as one of the Defense attorneys for Michael Reagan’s company, The Reagan Group.

Legal career

After graduating from law school in 1974, Tedder was admitted to the State Bar of the State of California. His license to practice law in the State of California was first revoked in August 31, 1997 and then in February, 16, 2001 due to his multiple convictions and jail sentences. David Hampton Tedder is currently practicing law or assisting two law firms in the State of California, The law office of Robert K. Kent and the Oxford Law Firm.

Criminal Convictions

Tedder was convicted in 2005 For using his law license to help offshore gambling businesses conceal their identities and income, David Tedder has been convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States, see 18 U.S.C. § 371, by assisting a wagering enterprise that violated 18 U.S.C. § 1084, plus three counts of money laundering, see 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), § 1957. No longer a member of the bar, Tedder served a sentence of 60 months' imprisonment and was fined more than $1 million; the district court also ordered almost $2.8 million to be forfeited. (Tedder resigned from the California bar to forestall resolution of disciplinary charges. He has been enjoined from practicing law in Florida, which he had done there despite his lack of a license. Florida Bar v. Tedder, 790 So.2d 1110 (2001)

Tedder told his clients that the disguise would be impenetrable. He was wrong. The clients (Duane Pede and Jeff D'Ambrosia) were caught, pleaded guilty, and testified against Tedder — who contended that he had been so mistaken that he had not appreciated the legal problem. Although he was a lawyer, knew about § 1084, and even knew about criminal prosecutions of similar ventures (after which he whipped up still more layers in a futile attempt to shield his clients), Tedder told the jury that he thought that Gold Medal Sports and Clear Pay were upstanding businesses operated in compliance with all laws. This was essentially the tax protester's defense that he just didn't think that the law, however clear, applied to his endeavors. See Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192, 111 S.Ct. 604, 112 L.Ed.2d 617 (1991). The district judge gave appropriate instructions to the jury, which did not believe Tedder's professions of ignorance and convicted him. Tedder maintained that he drew his understanding of federal law from observing conduct — Gold Medal Sports was not the only offshore gambling enterprise — as if the existence of bank robberies shows that it is lawful to steal money at gunpoint. Testimony about this curious approach to legal "research" did more to demonstrate Tedder's mendacity than to make out a defense. His multifarious endeavors to hide the source and disposition of Gold Medal Sports' funds revealed his true beliefs.

In United States of America vs David Hampton Tedder was convicted for his role in an offshore internet gambling company. United States Of America v David Hampton Tedder Case No. 02-CR-0105-C-01. United States District Court For The Western District Of Wisconsin.

Tedder incorporated as a professional corporation in the State of California in 1996. This corporation is now suspended.

Fugitive

On October 22, 2002 David B. Mitchell, Special Agent in Charge of the Milwaukee office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the arrest of DAVID HAMPTON TEDDER, age 56, of Newport Beach, California. Tedder was arrested by FBI and IRS Special Agents, without incident, on October 21, 2002, at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois.

Tedder was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Madison, Wisconsin on September 12, 2002, as he was charged with Money Laundering and Conspiracy. The charges were the result of an extensive investigation conducted by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in Wisconsin, into illegal Internet gambling by a company called Gold Medal Sports. According to the indictment, TEDDER, who is a practicing attorney, had a business relationship with Gold Medal Sports. Tedder had been a fugitive from justice since being charged by the Grand Jury in September. Information was recently developed indicating that TEDDER would be arriving in Chicago on Delta Airlines flight #1608, which was non-stop service from Atlanta. He was met at the gate by FBI and IRS agents and taken into custody.

A Notorious Scammer

A notorious scammer and sometimes lawyer involved in questionable Orlando-area financial deals for a decade was sentenced in a Wisconsin court Friday to five years in prison for his role in a felony gambling and money-laundering conspiracy.

David H. Tedder was also hit with a financial judgment of more than $3.8 million that includes a demand against a Winter Park company he controls, Challenge Realty, and a personal fine.

"This is a real criminal in front of me, a person who will do and say anything to take money from people," U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb said before imposing Tedder's sentence in federal court in Madison.

"Unfortunately, from everything I have heard about you, this is a pattern you have done your entire life," she told Tedder. "It takes an incredible amount of arrogance to do what you have done."

Tedder's younger brothers, Matt and Hampton Tedder, both had testified that David Tedder was not an honest person.

Tedder's Orlando connections range from illegally acting as a lawyer for Charles J. Givens, the late get-rich-quick promoter, to guiding investors into the Evergreen Security Ltd. fraud, the biggest scam against individual investors in Florida history.

Although he graduated from law school in California and had been licensed to practice there, Tedder was forced to resign from the Bar with charges pending against him. He never had a license to practice in Florida and was repeatedly censured for practicing in Wisconsin illegally until, in 2001, he agreed to a stipulation with The Florida Bar to be permanently enjoined from practicing law in the state.

Tedder will also be indicted soon in Tampa for conspiracy to commit income-tax fraud, Dan Graber, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, and a defense lawyer told Judge Crabb during the sentencing hearing.

The crimes for which Tedder was sentenced on Friday are connected to an Internet-gambling company for which he laundered $10.7 million through bank accounts in Ireland, the Bahamas, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the United States. He was convicted in June after having been held without bail since his arrest in Chicago last October.

In that case, Tedder was involved with Gold Medal Sports, which ran an Internet-gambling operation from Curacao, off the coast of Venezuela, between 1997 and 2000. Tedder handled the laundering of the profits. He is the seventh person to be convicted in connection with the gambling scheme.

Friday's financial judgment against Tedder includes a $1 million fine against him personally; a $1.7 million judgment against Challenge Realty, which previously had offices in Longwood; and an additional $1.06 million forfeiture against Tedder personally, Graber said.

Graber said Tedder was ordered to forfeit $2.76 million to the government because that's how much of the laundered money the U.S. Attorney's Office was able to trace directly to Tedder. Of that amount, $1.7 million was traced to Challenge Realty, a company that Tedder owns and that buys mortgages from troubled banks. The company is not connected to a mortgage originator with a similar name that has offices in Central Florida.

Challenge Realty has the money the judge ordered forfeited, Graber said. But the telephone listed to Challenge Realty at its former location in Longwood has been disconnected and there was no new listing for it in Winter Park, where Graber said Challenge had relocated. As for the rest of the money owed by Tedder, Graber said, "I'm going to keep looking for it."

In addition to the prison term, fine and forfeiture, Tedder was sentenced to three years of supervision after he is released from prison. The five-year term the judge handed down was the maximum allowable for the offenses.

The indictment in Tampa involved a "foreign deferred compensation" scam, in which Tedder told people he could help them avoid income-tax liability by moving large sums of money into foreign accounts, Graber said.

"Tedder's specialty," Graber said, "was he would help crooks commit income-tax fraud and then he would steal their money, knowing full well they wouldn't go to the police."

"You're ground-zero for a lot of the fraud" in the pending income-tax case, Graber said of the Orlando area. "And, unfortunately, a lot of people there" lost money in the Tedder scheme.