Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009

Lee's Summit man indicted in $1 million fraud scheme

A Lee’s Summit man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for a $1 million fraud scheme against his former employer.

Randy Wilson, 50, of Lee’s Summit, was charged in a six-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City on Nov. 17.

The federal indictment alleges that Wilson engaged in a fraud scheme from August 2000 to June 2008 that resulted in a loss to his former employer, RF Fisher, located in Kansas City, Kan., of approximately $992,000. Wilson was hired by Fisher in 1998 as project manager of its Informational Systems Division and later promoted to vice president of the division until he was fired in June 2008.

According to the indictment, Wilson made an agreement with Robert Northington of Lee’s Summit, the owner of RJN Sales, LLC, whereby Wilson would order products for Fisher through RJN, with RJN acting as the middleman. RJN would pay the vendors for those products, and then Wilson would create invoices from RJN to be submitted to Fisher.

Wilson allegedly inflated the true cost of the products when billing Fisher. When Fisher issued checks to RJN as payment of the inflated invoices, Wilson and Northington split the markup. Northington wrote checks or wire transferred funds to Wilson, Wilson’s wife or mother-in-law, Wilson’s car and boat dealers, and various contractors doing work on Wilson’s residence and lake house.

Wilson illegally obtained approximately $630,000 from Fisher, the indictment says.

The indictment charges Wilson with one count of interstate transportation of stolen money and five counts of money laundering.

The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require Wilson to forfeit to the government any proceeds obtained from the alleged violations, including $1 million in cash, his home in Lee’s Summit and his lake house in Climax Springs, Mo., a 2003 Honda Accord, a 2009 Chevrolet Traverse, a 2006 Hyundai Tucson, a 2002 Bennington Marine pontoon boat, four jetskis and a 2000 Maxum Cruiser boat.

Matt Whitworth, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri said the charges contained in this indictment are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.