SEATTLE – A former Monroe man who pleaded guilty to defrauding the government, banks, businesses and Internet auction customers of $1.1 million before fleeing to Greece was sentenced Monday to 71/2 years in prison.
Evangelos Dimitrios Soukas, 27, was arrested at an airport in Cyprus in January and handed over to U.S. authorities. He pleaded not guilty in March but changed his plea in July, admitting to 39 counts of conspiracy, identity theft and tax charges.
Starting in 1999, Soukas routinely placed false advertisements for items such as laptop computers on Internet auction sites. The winning bidder typically received nothing after paying. Soukas also opened bank accounts in other people’s names and filed fraudulent tax returns in his own name and others, prosecutors said.
‘Permatemp’ case settled in Seattle
The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $11.5 million to settle claims that it improperly denied benefits to about 2,000 workers it classified as “temporary” between 1996 and 2005. The city also said that from now on it will limit temporary assignments to less than one year, unless the position involves less than half-time employment. Four “permatemp” city workers brought the class-action lawsuit in 2002.
Tacoma: Floodway zone is established
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has designated a new floodway zone along more than five miles of the lower Puyallup River, marking the most dangerous area within the larger flood plain surrounding it. FEMA widened the zone because authorities have determined, based on studies and computer models, that World War I-era levees on both sides of the river are unsafe and might be topped in the next big flood.
Vancouver, Wash.: E. coli cases improving
The two children sickened the most seriously in an outbreak of E. coli-related illnesses are improving, and health officials believe the number of new cases may be leveling off. Sixteen cases of E. coli-related illness have been confirmed in southwestern Washington and northern Oregon since last week. At least 10 involve children between the ages of 1 and 13. The outbreak has been tied to raw, unpasteurized milk from a small family dairy in the Cowlitz County town of Woodland, near Vancouver.
Yakima: No further Hanford plant cuts
Congress on Monday elected not to reduce funding by an additional $100 million for a waste-treatment plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation, according to U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., whose district includes the south-central Washington site. The funding reduction, which had been proposed as part of a sweeping series of cuts to help pay for Hurricane Katrina relief, was widely criticized by officials in Washington state.
From Herald news services
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