A dispatcher has landed himself in jail for 15 months and will have to return over a million dollars that he fraudulently obtained through a scheme he cooked up to defraud an Oklahoma-based company.
Richard V. Kelly of Houston, Texas was a dispatcher for Freeway Delivery, Inc, the same company that his wife drove a truck for. According to prosecutors, Kelly defrauded one company out of more than $1.2 million over a five-year period.
Kelly would create false waybills for deliveries which would supposedly be made by his wife, then invoice the company for the shipments that were never made.
The company was Midwest Hose & Specialty based out of Oklahoma City.
Kelly pled guilty to wire fraud and has been sentenced 15 months in prison. He has also been ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $1,212,320.13 to the company.
Source: houstonchronicle, kfor, okcfox
Mack says
Criminals are mostly idiots. This scheme was idiotic. That’s why jails and prisons can barely cope with the numbers of idiots that have to be housed.
MrYowler says
To be fair, cops are not usually any smarter than the criminals. Odds are, he and his wife had a fight, and she snitched him out.
Cops rarely catch anybody without someone to snitch (actual investigative work takes effort and intelligent thought), and it’s almost invariably the “significant other”. Note that the article does not mention any charges against her.
I wonder if she’ll get to keep the money that they stole, after he goes to prison… And that he will have to pay back as restitution, when he gets out…
Wendall says
I’m sure the company is who is responsible for discovering what he did. The cops were probably called then given all the evidence they needed to arrest him.
MrYowler says
Side note: When your last name is “Kelly”, is there any chance of marrying a woman whose first name is also “Kelly”? 😛
Fizzle says
I have two sisters named Linda.
Paul says
And he and his wife thought they could get away with it.
William Johnson says
They did, for five years!
mike says
The sceam is a good one as long as you don’t get caught and it sounds to me that this dummy just got caught.
Edward H. Lester says
A dishonest dispatcher? Well, I am just shocked! Who would have thought it.
David says
And He has the $1.2 Million to pay back…somehow I doubt it…
Jay says
Stupid scam. He’ll get an ankle bracelet, probably won’t see a night in jail.
Robert says
The article didn’t tell whether or not his wife was actually part of it. He could have been doing this behind her back and maybe planning a getaway for only one.
Draco says
It said he was making it out to his wife so surely she had knowledge and was involved there were no charges brought on her I’m not the smartest man in the world but it sounds to me she ratted him out and in return received clemency
Lance N. says
Sounds like a good plan. Either he got too greedy or one of them opened their mouth to a snitch.
240k/year is a bit much for a dispatcher scam. People would eventually start asking questions at work as to where he gets all his money/stuff. If he had stayed around 50-75k/year, he probably could have kept it going for many more years.
MrYowler says
It can be done, as long as the thieves have the good sense not to spend the money. Save it up, and know when to quit. When you quit, you move, lose touch with your former co-workers/employer, and retire somewhere nice, and also far away. If you accidentally run across a former coworker, years later, tell them a story about the lucky break you had, after leaving. The trick is not to show the money until you’re gone, and living in some island paradise.
MrYowler says
Chances are that they fought over one of them wanting to spend some of the money. Since the wife doesn’t seem to be paying the price for the thievery, she probably rolled on him. And if she isn’t being charged with a crime, she gets control of their shared assets. If he doesn’t pay his restitution, he can go back to lockup – but all it affects, for her, is her credit rating, and that only if they stay married. If they aren’t charging her with a crime, it sounds as though she ‘got the money, hey, and got away’… 😛
MAx says
Most don’t know this, but if you’re a publicly traded company or have federal contracts, you are audited every 5 years (or sooner). An auditor will select (at random) companies you have invoiced and send them copies of invoices to be verified as authentic, as well as supporting docs. They also do this with your payables. I received these requests multiple times when I had my company and could guarantee if I had invoiced any company more than one million dollars since the last audit, they would be chosen. He got greedy. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
hamse7423@Gmail. com says
I hope that the new Canadian prime minister will read this history and take it seriously BECAUSE we have more dispatch thiefs than the US dispatch and owner work together to do a large scale scamming their own employee the owner operator is their first victim .. SOON I’ll have to contact the Canadian government my self .. we’ll have to stand up ALL 0/0 to this.. trucking dispatch is not a profession they have no license or diploma . BUT They’re to rip you or me off. 4xmple I was told to deliver a load to Halifax. NS from the GTA for $2200 I was a new owner operator BUT still curious .. nice manager @the receiving i asked him please . Found out4me how much was the deal… he make cble phne calls founded out by email $4800.00 I asked to give me acoby
And he did COZ he feel sorry for me.
US government is a solid they give no chances to a thief dispatcher stealing money ..
ANYWAYS I’m a Canadian o/o
mogikleo says
Thanks USA 15 month is nothing please give him 15 years
Steve Stark says
Crime does pay… I’d do 15 months for 1.2 million… wouldn’t you?
He already spent the money, so he will never actually pay it back. (Bankruptcy)
Look at the CEO of WELLS FARGO, he got fired, but he got a 150 million severance package. He doesn’t actually care that he broke the the law and stole his customers money. He’s rich!
Daniel says
I would say because he use the same scam to the same company over and over again for so long and for so much money made that company go back into all their records looking for every shipment by which was made and at it’s end found those shipments from this scam that was never made. If he changed to different companies with only one or two times for each company he my have been able to get away with it. If one thinks about things wouldn’t it tell them not to do this to the same company over and over again?