Auto Dealership Owner Sentenced to Prison in Fraud Case |
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Topics: Andrew Gabler, Lakeside Chevrolet
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U.S. Attorney’s Office
Western District of Pennsylvania
11 February 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ERIE, Pa. - A resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to 51 months of incarceration, two years supervised release, a $5,000 fine and ordered to make restitution in the amount of $1,696,210.63 on his conviction of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, United States Attorney Scott W. Brady announced today.
United States District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter imposed the sentence on Andrew Thomas Gabler, 52, of North East, Pennsylvania.
According to information presented to the court, Andrew Gabler, as the owner of Lakeside Auto Sales and Lakeside Chevrolet engaged in the following illegal activity between January 2015 and January 2019 that caused a financial loss of more than $1.6 million:
- Gabler falsely indicated that customers made down payments and falsified and inflated the income of customers when submitting auto loan applications to financial institutions on behalf of customers;
- Gabler caused extended warranties to be sold to customers buying vehicles at Lakeside Auto Sales and Lakeside Chevrolet and deliberately failed to remit the paperwork and payments to the extended warranty company;
- Gabler falsely reported vehicle sales to General Motors for vehicles that had not been sold in order to obtain expiring incentive rebates, and;
- Gabler deliberately did not inform S&T Bank when Lakeside Auto Sales and Lakeside Chevrolet sold a vehicle that the dealerships had purchased utilizing S&T Bank’s floor plan financing in order to delay and attempt to avoid the dealerships’ required payment to S&T Bank for the sold vehicles which had been purchased using S&T Bank’s floor plan financing.
Assistant United States Attorney Christian A. Trabold prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.
United States Attorney Brady commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pennsylvania State Police for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Gabler.