Fort Myers tech VP indicted in $5.3 million fraud

A Fort Myers man who was the vice president and treasurer of a Tampa technology company was indicted Thursday and must help return part of $5.3 million he is accused of stealing.

Terrance F. Taylor, 49, was indicted on a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

Also indicted on those same charges was Timothy Munro Roberts, 45 of Missouri, who was the CEO and co-founder along with Taylor of Savtira Corporation Inc., based at 2101 E. Palm Ave. in Tampa, court documents show.

The indictment also tells that Roberts and Taylor that the government wants $5.3 million, which is alleged to be traceable to the proceeds of the offenses.

The state attorneys office said: "According to its business plan, Savtira purported to offer a centralized, cloud-based shopping cart platform for online and traditional retailers to sell goods, regardless of the device used by the online purchaser."

Taylor oversaw the company’s bank accounts, books, and records and also solicited investors.

The indictment alleges that Roberts and Taylor lied about Savtira to potential investors. They maintained that the company was profitable, had entered into executed agreements with nationally recognized legitimate technology firms, owned patents and claimed that the company was valued between $450 million and $540 million.

Those were lies, the state attorneys office said.

The indictment says that Roberts and Taylor then misused and misappropriated some of money from investors for personal expenses and cash withdrawals behind their backs.

The document also alleges that Roberts and Taylor entered into a few contracts on behalf of Savtira with victim-customers promising to provide cloud-based eCommerce solutions.

"They entered into these contracts knowing Savtira never had a working product, and they could never deliver on the contracts," the state attorneys office said. "To make it appear as if Savtira had multi-million dollar future revenues, they also entered into bogus contracts and generated fake invoices and accounts receivable for the purpose of falsely bolstering the company’s value and factoring the invoices for cash."

This case was investigated by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, Bureau of Financial Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Mandy Riedel will prosecute the case.