Indictment Unsealed Charging Houston Man with Defrauding Oklahoma City Company with False Delivery Invoices |
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Topics: Richard V. Kelly, Freeway Delivery
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U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Oklahoma
15 December 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – A federal indictment was unsealed yesterday charging RICHARD V. KELLY, 43, from Houston, Texas, with 12 counts of mail and wire fraud in connection with a scheme that defrauded local company Midwest Hose and Specialties, Inc., by falsely billing for deliveries that were never made, announced Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of $809,115.50 in proceeds traceable to the offense.
According to the indictment, Kelly was employed as a dispatcher for Freeway Delivery, Inc., a trucking company based in Houston, Texas. Kelly’s wife worked as a truck driver for Freeway Delivery. One of Freeway Delivery’s customers was Oklahoma City-based Midwest Hose, a company that makes hoses and fittings for the oil and natural gas industry. The indictment alleges that from December 2007 to August 2012, Kelly generated false waybills and invoices from Freeway Delivery to Midwest Hose, showing fictitious deliveries made by Kelly’s wife, purportedly on behalf of Midwest Hose. The false waybills showed deliveries made by Kelly’s wife to Nabors Drilling in Houma, Louisiana, and they were hidden by attaching them to legitimate waybills and invoices sent to Midwest Hose. It is alleged that Kelly’s wife was paid a rate of 65-70% of the delivery fees paid by Midwest Hose to Freeway Delivery, through third-party biller Amerisource Funding, Inc.
The indictment charges six specific counts of mail fraud for the mailing of false invoices and waybills to Midwest Hose in Oklahoma City. The indictment also charges six specific counts of wire fraud for the payments processed from Midwest Hose to Amerisource Funding, Inc., Freeway Delivery’s third-party billing company.
If convicted, Kelly faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the 12 counts of wire and mail fraud.
These charges are the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney K. McKenzie Anderson.
Reference is made to the indictment and other public filings for further information. An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.