PHILADELPHIA – Two local men have been charged in connection with a million-dollar fraud scheme.
An indictment was filed on March 24, charging Daryl Stevens, 45, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with four counts of mail fraud. An information was filed, charging Justin Jordan, 34, of East Brunswick, and Christopher Cook, 40, of Ocean Township, with multiple counts of mail fraud, according to a statement prepared by United States Attorney Zane David Memeger.
Jordan and Stevens were employees of “Company A,” which was located in Radnor, Pennsylvania, and provided storeroom management services for industrial, commercial and educational facilities throughout the United States, Memeger said. Cook was employed by “Company B,” which was an international pharmaceutical company based in New York City with offices in New Brunswick.
Company B allegedly hired Company A to provide inventory management and purchasing services for Company B’s New Brunswick offices, Memeger said. Jordan and Stevens were working on-site at Company B in their employment with Company A. It is alleged that they, along with Cook, created, registered, and incorporated a total of seven sham vendor companies, obtained mailing addresses for their respective sham vendor companies and set up and controlled bank accounts for their respective sham vendor companies, according to the statement.
Jordan allegedly controlled four of the sham vendor companies, Stevens allegedly controlled two and Cook allegedly controlled one.
According to the charging documents, between July 2008 and December 2014, Jordan, Stevens and Cook allegedly caused Company A to purchase bogus and non-existent products on behalf of Company B from the seven sham vendor companies that they controlled. Invoices were reportedly submitted by the sham vendor companies to Company A, which caused Company A to pay the sham vendor companies by mailing checks or wiring funds into the bank accounts controlled by the defendants, Memeger said. Additionally, the defendants allegedly caused Company A to “sell” approximately $1.2 million of bogus product purchased from the defendants’ sham vendor companies to Company B.
If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum statutory sentence of 20 years in prison per charged count, a special assessment, a 3-year term of supervised release and a potential fine.
This case was investigated by the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James Petkun.