A Washington woman was convicted Tuesday of bilking two investors out of $55,000 by posing as a Treasury Department official who could help them get loans. Carrye E. Maxwell, who was linked to money laundering and fraud charges against five men scheduled to stand trial in January, was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and three counts of impersonating a federal official. Ms. Maxwell could receive a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Louis Oberdorfer scheduled sentencing for Feb. 1. The jury found Ms. Maxwell guilty of posing as a special consultant to a non-existent Treasury Department program she said had access to foreign funds for loans. The May 6, 1988, indictment charged that she prepared bogus letterheads and put fake seals on documents to deceive investors into believing she was a consultant to the ``United States Recycle Program.'' The scheme is also the subject of a related indictment against a Miami businessman, Walter E. Johnson, and four co-defendants who are scheduled to stand trial on money laundering and fraud charges on Jan. 10. Ms. Maxwell was convicted of bilking Robert M. Capuano, operator of a local pizza restaurant, out of $30,000 in 1985 by saying she needed the money to help him get a multimillion-dollar loan he never received. She was also convicted of inducing James A. Whatley in 1985 to pay her $25,000 out of his bank account in Nashville, Tenn., as a bogus loan fee. The indictment against Johnson and his four co-defendants charges that the conspirators showed officials from a suburban Philadelphia company a letter Maxwell wrote on bogus Treasury Department stationary to bolster their scheme to bilk the firm out of $100,000.
