US Fraud Case Agent was Pulled off Probe

Nick Shepley
The Express

The parents of a jailed Slough woman, who is facing 30 years in a US prison after being found guilty of fraud, have cast serious doubts about the officer who lead the investigation.

Carl Coffman, the IRS agent investigating millionaire couple William and Chantal McCorkle in the USA, has been reassigned to a drugs investigation as they await their fate.  He is suing the US Government after he was taken off the multi-million dollar investigation.

Chantal's despairing parents Len and Diane Forrester, 51, from The Frithe in Wexham Court Estate Slough have spoken exclusively to the Express about this twist in the case.

Mr. Forrester said: "Coffman is suing the government because he has been taken off the case.  I was told by one of the investigating officers that Coffman wanted to be on the case to get his hands on  some of the money."

Mrs. Forrester described how her daughter and son-in-law were arrested.

She said: "I was in their home in Lake Mary in Florida and all of a sudden I saw a police officer out by the swimming pool.  There was a banging at the door and police officers shouted they would smash it down unless we opened it."

Armed police ran into the house as soon as the door was opened, wearing Kevlar flack jackets and carrying handguns.

Mrs. Forrester said that the arresting officer, Internal Revenue Service Agent Carl Coffman never read the couple their rights.

Coffman later insisted on oath that he had done.

Mrs. McCorkle, 30, has lived in America for 12 years, visiting the country when she was 18 to work as a nanny.

The couple have been married for ten years.  They ran a business selling information on how to find cheap land in government auctions and develop it.

Mrs. Forrester said: "The government claim they misled people, but everyone who was dissatisfied with the product got their money back, no one lost any money."

Now the couple's entire fortune worth some US$40 million has been confiscated by the government even down to the rings on their fingers.

They will be sentenced on Monday and a pre-sentence report recommends Chantal serve between 23 and 30 years in a federal prison without parole.