Say hello to David Anthony Whitaker: Rogue sports promoter. Online peddler of fake steroids. Federal convict turned cyber-security consultant. And now FBI cooperator who helped snare a former USVI Virgin Islands Police commissioner, management and budget director and head of Parks and Recreation in a multi-million-dollar web of alleged white-collar crime and corruption.
Three years after the 49-year-old Whitaker arrived on St. Thomas – by way of Boston, Mexico, and a few stops in between – he found himself last September before a U.S. District Court for the Virgin Islands judge taking a plea bargain for his role in an elaborate scheme involving purported fraud, bribery, money laundering, and some of the highest-ranking brass in local government. Whitaker pled guilty to wire fraud and paying thousands of dollars in bribes to ex-Police Commissioner Ray Martinez, former Office of Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal and Sports, Parks and Recreation director Calvert White in return for expedited invoice payments on $3.1 million in guaranteed, wildly inflated government contracts.
For two years, under the watchful eye of federal investigators, Whitaker secretly recorded phone calls and in-person meetings where alleged bribery and money-laundering plots were laid out in striking detail. In dozens of 2023-2024 recorded conversations and text messages, federal prosecutors say Whitaker, Martinez, O’Neal and White rigged bids, jacked-up invoices and discussed how best to disguise their naked money-grabs.
“He recorded everyone,” said one person closely tied to the case. “He was recording everything and everyone he talked to. Twenty-four seven.” It is unclear if those recordings will result in additional indictments.
Martinez and O’Neal entered not guilty pleas to federal charges of honest services wire fraud, federal programs bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Martinez filed his own V.I. Superior Court civil suit against Whitaker, claiming Whitaker and the Federal Bureau of Investigations conspired to make above-board “business” transactions appear to be corrupt acts.
White and Benjamin Hendricks, who prosecutors say was the bagman for one of the alleged bribes, pled not guilty to bribery and honest services wire fraud.
Martinez, O’Neal, White and Hendricks are all innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Yellow Cedar in recent weeks dug into public records and obtained exclusive information that provides a clear look into an extraordinary breach of the public trust. Our deep dive raises questions about the background of David Whitaker and the allegedly illegal exchanges of money, favors and no-bid contracts between the Virgin Islands and David Whitaker’s family of cyber consulting companies. Here is some of what we found:
Who, Exactly, is David Anthony Whitaker?
First, rewind a few years. It’s 2008 and Whitaker was a 30-something year-old already with a decade-long record of swindles and con games.
Going by various aliases (David Andrews, Slade Austin, Michael Ballard, Chase… Josh), Whitaker was on the lam from federal authorities, dodging charges of bank fraud, forgery, and brazenly hawking fake steroids and human growth hormones online. According to Wired magazine in 2013, Whitaker was hiding out in Guadalajara, Mexico, “ … living the most fulfilling life he’d ever known in his chaotic, troubled years on the planet. He had been bringing in obscene amounts of money by selling black-market steroids and human growth hormone online. He had a multimillion-dollar apartment in a country club… a cabin in the mountains of Mazamitla. He had lots of cars. He even funded the construction of a local hospital.”
Whitaker ran far but he ran too slow. In March 2008, Mexican authorities and the U.S. Secret Service caught up with him and brought him home to face a litany of alleged federal crimes and transgressions.
Google This
Given an aversion to long prison sentences, Whitaker looked for a deal to shave off a few years of jail time. He found one by dangling a juicy target in front of the feds, and according to court records and media reports, prosecutors took the bait. They asked how Whitaker had grown an online scam – selling sterile water in small vials, marketed as a steroid, for a $1,000 each – into a million-dollar enterprise. “Whitaker’s answer was immediate: He used Google AdWords. In fact, he claimed, Google employees actively helped him advertise his business, even though he had made no attempt to hide its illegal nature,” wrote Wired magazine.
At the end of a year-long sting operation with Whitaker at the center, Google forfeited $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the United States, “… resulting in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the United States,” according to a U.S. Justice Department press release in 2011. “The investigation of Google had its origins in a separate, multimillion dollar financial fraud investigation unrelated to Google, the main target of which fled to Mexico. While a fugitive, he began to advertise the unlawful sale of drugs through Google’s AdWords program. After being apprehended in Mexico and returned to the United States by the U.S. Secret Service, he began cooperating with law enforcement and provided information about his use of the AdWords program,” stated the DOJ release.
Whitaker: “Authorities Know Who I am … I Have a Criminal History”
A criminal history indeed. Whitaker’s encounters with federal, state and local prosecutors are legendary. Due to the scope and scale of crimes to which he has pled guilty – and the nature of his later cooperation with the government – remain sealed or otherwise unavailable for review.
However, consider what we know:
- New Orleans Bank Fraud: September 1997. In one of his first earliest arrests, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, took a 22-year-old Whitaker into custody in Honolulu, Hawaii, on charges of bank fraud and forgery.
- Bribery, Fraud Allegations: Ten years later, federal authorities arrested Whitaker over an Internet scheme where he allegedly bilked $10 million from people who ordered electronic goods from a company Whitaker ran out of Providence, RI. Rather than risk a hefty stint behind bars, Whitaker absconded to Mexico.
- Nabbed in LA: While on the run from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Whitaker was nabbed in Mexico and sent home to face a long stint in a federal lock-up.
- Guilty Of Wire Fraud, Conspiracy, Money Laundering And Commercial Bribery Charges: Back home, Whitaker pled guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and commercial bribery. According to the Rhode Island U.S. Attorney’s Office, Whitaker admitted to defrauding approximately 83 business account customers and a credit card processing company of over $10 million. He was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison and ordered to pay full restitution to more than 80 business customers and a credit card processing firm whom he defrauded. He would later acknowledge to the Associated Press that “The authorities know who I am … I have a criminal history.”
Civil Matters
Not all of Whitaker’s misadventures were criminal in nature. Some were purely business disputes. In most of those instances, he was the defendant in lawsuits by the aggrieved.
While negotiating with Martinez and the other V.I. officials, Whitaker’s lawyers were fending off lawsuits against his family of body-building promotional outfits in Boston.
“You Have Swindled Us:” In an April 2022 breach of contract lawsuit, a Boston fitness company accused Whitaker and his Boston Pro Inc. entity of inflating agreed-upon costs just days before a bodybuilding competition, “ … triggering a fight that the company said cost it millions of dollars in future contracts,” according to the Law 360 publication.
According to the complaint filed in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, as reported by Law 360, “ … the plaintiff was told that the production budget for broadcasting the bodybuilding event was $150,000. … The day after the event, Howell sent Whitaker a final invoice, which totaled $397,091.63 … A few days later, the plaintiff allegedly sent Whitaker a text message that read, “I am afraid that you have swindled us and that you have committed Fraud. Please tell me this is not the case David. We worked really hard for you.”
Sued for Control of a Model’s OnlyFans Page: In 2021, Whitaker, through David Whitaker LLC and Hanson Cain LLC (a Limited Liability Company apparently controlled by Whitaker and attorney Joseph Balliro Jr. filed a complaint for civil contempt, arguing the defendant should be found in contempt “ … because he knowingly disobeyed an unequivocal order to transfer control of an account at OnlyFans.com to one of the plaintiffs.” The defendant in the case was a bodybuilder/ model, Aaron Hanson Cain, who sought to retain control of the OnlyFans page bearing his name and likeness.
Evicted From a $9,000-a-Month St. Thomas Home: In February 2020, the owner of an Estate St. Peter home filed a suit in U.S. District Court to force Whitaker to vacate a property he had leased for a year under the agreement that he pay $9,650 per month in rent. At the time the suit was filed, the plaintiff alleged Whitaker was more than $23,500 in arrears.
Alleged Credit Card Fraud: In 2022, a Connecticut man filed suit against David Whitaker, American Express Co., Google LLC and LinkedIn Corporation alleging the companies
14 Circuit Court, Montgomery County Maryland, Case #DC:248236V 15 Lawl22360, 4/20/22
16 Ibid.
17 Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, 6/28,21
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were aware by failed to stop Whitaker and a New York corporation, ISODOC Inc., from allegedly making $600,000 in fraudulent charges to the plaintiff’s credit card. The case is still being adjudicated U.S. District Court in Connecticut.18
19
Virgin Islands Civil Suit Revealed Whitaker’s Use of Steroids, Stimulants and Human Growth Hormones
Whitaker Would Lose Ability to Work or Communicate Without ‘Certain Steroids:’ In a 2020 lawsuit and counter suit the Estate St. Peter property owner Whitaker Among the court filings was a letter from Boston physician. In the letter Halpern stated that certain steroid drugs were “essential” for Whitaker’s life were locked inside the home. Without the prescribed medications, Whitaker would “ … rapidly lose capacity to work and effectively communicate.” Halpern identified the “essential” medications as testosterone, Genotropin (human growth hormone) and modafinil, a medication to treat cognitive dysfunctions associated with ADHD, mood disorders and schizophrenia. The doctor stated that those drugs were not readily available at pharmacies on St. Thomas.
On and On …
The list of Whitaker’s legal transgressions goes on. Right up to his September guilty plea fraud and bribery charges in U.S. District Court.
What Next
Given his criminal history, the big question is “how did this man worm his way into multi-million, no-bid contracts with the V.I. police, Office and Management and Budget, Sports Parks and Recreation and other agencies?”
Yellow Cedar will explore that question and others in the third installment of our series on corruption in the V.I.
- Other investigatory work, including poring over Wi-Fi and Internet logs, which Mr. Martinez said were in the thousands, is more painstaking and is progressing slower. “The FBI is taking a look at the Wi-Fi and Internet logs and I guess it’s because you’re talking about thousands of logs that they have to go through systematically, looking for specific incursions,” he said, adding that the FBI’s Digital Forensic Team has been assigned to assist the V.I.P.D., which along with the V.I. Dept. of Justice is leading the investigation.
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