Morris Anselmi and Kimberly McCollum — facing federal wire fraud charges stemming from the alleged theft of $500,000 in COVID-19 relief funds — have entered into pretrial diversion agreements with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, though the terms of those deals remain under seal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise George said the government has agreed to defer prosecution of Anselmi and Morris “for a specified period, the stay of trial and all trial proceedings until after the completion of the diversion period for each Defendant” in a motion for approval of the agreements filed Wednesday in District Court on St. Croix.
The agreement with McCollum was executed March 5 and with Anselmi on March 27, according to the motion that U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kearney granted Wednesday along with another requesting that the agreements be filed under seal.
Anselmi and McCollum were first indicted two years ago, but proceedings have moved at a snail’s pace because of health issues that prevented Anselmi’s return to the territory. His initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Emile Henderson III on March 9, held virtually, came days after U.S. Marshals formally processed Anselmi’s arrest in Texas, where his attorney said he is living at a medical center and awaiting a heart transplant.
Anselmi and McCollum are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Small Business Administration and a financial institution in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud the COVID-era federal Paycheck Protection Program to the tune of $500,000.
In February, Kearney set deadlines for Anselmi’s attorneys to cement the terms of a plea agreement with the government for his testimony in the separate but related federal fraud trial of Davidson and Sasha Charlemagne, currently set to begin July 17. The former subcontractors are accused of bilking millions under a federally funded contract while allegedly mismanaging disaster recovery materials along with former V.I. Housing Finance Authority executive Darin Richardson.
According to a grand jury indictment of the Charlemagnes and Richardson, Richardson awarded the warehousing contract to Anselmi and McCollum’s company, Island Services Group, while working as VIHFA’s chief operating officer. ISG subcontracted the work to the Charlemagnes’ company, D&S Trucking.
Richardson was found guilty of making material false statements to a federal agent, criminal conflict of interest, bank fraud, money laundering and making false statements on a loan application in March 2025 and was sentenced last month to three years in prison. He has since filed an appeal in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Over the course of Richardson’s two-week trial, prosecutors showed that he received a $107,000 loan from Anselmi and that he continued signing off on checks to ISG despite notifying VIHFA of a conflict of interest. While Anselmi did not testify in Richardson’s trial, the case against the Charlemagnes stalled while attorneys sparred over the admissibility of his testimony in that case.
During the first part of a court-ordered deposition last April, Anselmi reportedly acknowledged that he was testifying in hopes of receiving immunity, leading to confusion over whether his immunity agreement pertained to the PPP case, his involvement in the Charlemagnes’ alleged scheme, or both.
Senior District Judge Wilma Lewis later concluded that the agreement only covered the woodpile case and that “in the absence of a change in Anselmi’s potential criminal exposure which would permit him to fully answer Defendant’s cross-examination questions … without a legitimate fear of self-incrimination,” his testimony would be excluded from trial.
Since then, attorneys repeatedly told the court that they were close to reaching a plea deal in the PPP case. During a status conference in the Charlemagnes’ case in February, Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise George said a new immunity agreement “should be completed shortly,” allowing them to resume Anselmi’s deposition.
Following a separate status conference, Anselmi and McCollum’s attorneys told the court that they had reached a resolution with the government and were in the process of having the documents signed by all parties.
“This matter does not need to be scheduled for trial,” they wrote in a Feb. 27 filing.
On April 9, Kearney signed an order granting the government’s motion to compel Anselmi’s witness testimony in the Charlemagne case, directing that “no testimony or other information compelled under this Order, or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information, may be used against Morris Anselmi in any criminal case, except for a prosecution for perjury, giving false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with this Order.”
