Jury Convicts Colombian Man and His New Jersey Wife in Scheme That Sought More Than $13 Million USD in Federal Aid

Indictment Says Watts Sent Auditors Forged Bancolombia Statements

A federal jury in Utica, New York, has convicted a Colombian man and his New Jersey wife in a scheme that prosecutors said sought more than $13 million USD in federal aid for elderly, disabled and homeless Americans. Luis Pino-Copete, 42, of Bogotá, and Jael Watts, 45, of Alloway, New Jersey, were found guilty of all the charges against them, which included wire fraud conspiracy, making and using a false document and aggravated identity theft. The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York announced the verdict on October 2, 2026, after a trial of several weeks, and said the evidence showed the couple collected more than $1.6 million USD of the money they claimed.

Watts ran Pearl Transit Corporation, a New Jersey nonprofit that, according to the third superseding indictment on which the jury convicted the couple, claimed to provide transportation, street outreach and charitable dental services to elderly, disabled and economically disadvantaged people in several states. Between July 2019 and October 2025, she billed state and local agencies that distribute federal pass-through funds for services the company never delivered, prosecutors said, and Pearl Transit employed no drivers at all. The payroll and client records behind its invoices used personal information that the defendants obtained without lawful authority, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said evidence at trial showed that some riders on those records had died before the dates of their purported trips, and that one woman listed as a driver held only a learner’s permit at the time.

The Couple Answered a State Audit With Fake Driver Reports and Bank Statements, Indictment Says

According to the indictment, Pearl Transit emailed reimbursement requests to New York State agencies in September and October 2024. Prosecutors said Watts sought nearly $750,000 USD in those late-2024 claims to the New York State Department of Transportation under the Section 5310 program of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Formally called Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities, the program funds transportation for older adults and people with disabilities where existing service is unavailable or insufficient, and the FTA apportioned $443.9 million USD to it nationwide in fiscal year 2025, according to the agency.

The Office of the New York State Comptroller found the invoices suspicious and began auditing them, prosecutors said. By January 2025, its auditors had asked Pearl Transit for the licenses of all drivers it claimed to employ, and the applications of all riders it claimed to transport, during the first quarter of 2022, according to the indictment. The comptroller’s office enlisted the US Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, whose referral put the matter before federal prosecutors in 2025, according to the US Attorney’s Office. The Office of Inspector General of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) joined the investigation later.

Watts and Pino-Copete married in Colombia in 2023, and he joined the scheme in January 2024, according to prosecutors. The indictment, filed September 10, 2026, says the couple lived together in New Jersey and lays out how the pair responded to the comptroller’s audit in early 2025. According to the indictment, Pino-Copete used a data service of TransUnion (NYSE: TRU), under an existing Pearl Transit contract, to look up dates of birth, including those of people whose names then appeared on a fabricated client list. The indictment does not accuse TransUnion of wrongdoing. When the auditors asked which company checked the licenses of Pearl Transit’s purported drivers, Watts told Pino-Copete she would “make up a report” and “a provider as well,” the indictment says. She then used a freelancing service, paid for with his credit card, to create a domain, logo and voicemail for a fictitious firm called Actual Check, whose name appeared on four motor vehicle reports sent to the auditors.

The auditors next asked for proof of driver payroll and vehicle insurance. At Watts’ request, Pino-Copete sent her a January 2025 statement from his own account at Bancolombia and a 2015 Colombian insurance policy in his name. She used them to produce fake Bancolombia statements falsely showing Pearl Transit paying its New York drivers from a Colombian account, along with a fake record of a van insured in Colombia, and sent both to the comptroller’s office in March 2025, according to the indictment. Bancolombia, which since a 2025 corporate reorganization has operated under the holding company Grupo Cibest (NYSE: CIB; BVC: CIBEST, PFCIBEST), is not accused of wrongdoing in the indictment.

Prosecutors said investigators who searched the couple’s phones found many messages about producing paperwork for the auditors. Among the remarks prosecutors attributed to Watts were “one has to be committed to this type of work . . . and I am committed” and “they are not smart . . . we are much smarter.”

Prosecutors Say Four Local Administrators Paid Out More Than $1.6 Million USD

Pearl Transit’s claims also drew on two HUD programs, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG). Some of the funds were provided during the COVID-19 pandemic under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, according to prosecutors.

Four local administrators paid Pearl Transit, according to prosecutors. The City of Raleigh, North Carolina, paid $379,149 USD in Section 5310 funds, and Gwinnett County, Georgia, paid $529,500 USD in CDBG funds. In California, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority paid $429,885 USD in Section 5310 funds, and Kern County paid $283,000 USD in ESG funds.

Bank records showed that the more than $1.5 million USD the couple received from Georgia, North Carolina and California was spent entirely on personal expenses, prosecutors said. Those expenses included more than $100,000 USD on rentals of Porsche (XETRA: P911) cars; more than $100,000 USD at Loro Piana, an Italian luxury clothing brand, in Manhattan; and nearly a year of travel in 2024 that took them to Colombia, Aruba and Europe, including four months in Europe. At trial, prosecutors offered selfies that they said the couple took at a Tuscan spa and while touring a BMW (XETRA: BMW, BMW3) plant.

“These two defendants traded their Tuscan spa robes for his and hers orange jumpsuits.”

— John A. Sarcone III, first assistant US attorney for the Northern District of New York

Prosecutors described another part of the scheme involving dentures. Pearl Transit sought CDBG reimbursement for prostheses that it said homeless people received at no charge. According to prosecutors, the couple in fact produced the dentures at home on an unsanitary 3-D printer and charged homeless people fees to scan their mouths and fit the dentures.

Prosecutors said this video call shows Pino-Copete displaying cash to Watts while she was jailed, and that the money came from a homeless dental client at a flea market in Maryland. (Photo courtesy US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York)

Prosecutors Say Pino-Copete Took a Larger Role After Watts Was Arrested

Pino-Copete, who entered the United States in January 2025 on a visa issued the previous month, took on a larger role after Watts was arrested on a wire fraud complaint in July 2025, prosecutors said. According to the indictment, while Watts was held at the Albany County Correctional Facility in September 2025, she had Pino-Copete email the City of San Bernardino, California, in her name, blaming a family death for her absence and concealing that she had been charged and detained. Prosecutors said the couple was trying to obtain $50,000 USD in federal funds from the city at the time. In October 2025, he signed a CDBG contract with the city in her name, the indictment says. He was charged in December 2025 and held pending trial. The FTA suspended Watts and Pearl Transit from federal procurement and nonprocurement transactions on December 3, 2025, and suspended Pino-Copete on February 17, 2026, according to the transportation inspector general.

Pino-Copete speaks with Watts by video call in September 2025, while she was held at the Albany County Correctional Facility; prosecutors said the image shows the pair conspiring to submit false documents to the City of San Bernardino. (Photo courtesy US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York)

The Defendants Face Sentencing in January 2027

Watts was convicted of 10 counts: the three she shared with Pino-Copete, plus one count of false statement, a second count of aggravated identity theft and five counts of wire fraud. The false-statement count concerned a 2022 Section 5310 application that Watts submitted to the New York State Department of Transportation bearing an attorney’s affirmation, although the attorney had not reviewed or signed it, according to the indictment.

US District Judge Anthony J. Brindisi of the US District Court for the Northern District of New York has scheduled sentencing for January 21, 2027. Each defendant faces between two and 20 years in prison, fines of up to $250,000 USD and as many as three years of supervised release, and the two face a restitution order of at least $1.9 million USD, according to prosecutors. Because Pino-Copete is not a US citizen, he also faces deportation once any prison sentence ends, prosecutors said.

Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department‘s National Fraud Enforcement Division, which the department created in April 2026, said the defendants “fabricated payrolls and client lists, even using the identities of deceased individuals, to siphon millions meant for the most vulnerable Americans.”

Headline photo: Jael Watts and Luis Pino-Copete pose for selfies at a Tuscan spa and during what prosecutors described as a tour of a BMW plant; both photos were offered at trial. (Photos courtesy US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York; composite: Finance Colombia)