2 LR men plead guilty to wire fraud in $563,000 phone-resale scheme
Two Little Rock men who worked at the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health in North Little Rock admitted Friday that they defrauded the company of about $563,000 over four years by ordering cellphones at the company’s expense, ostensibly for employees, that they then sold online for personal profit.
Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. accepted guilty pleas from Daniel Burdick, 40, and Brian Lamb, 41, to single counts of conspiring to commit wire fraud.
The men’s responsibilities at the consulting firm, which assists in environmental cleanups, included ordering new phones for employees and subcontractors for use during environmental spills and cleanups, according to an announcement Monday from U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland and Diane Upchurch, special agent in charge of the Little Rock field office of the FBI.
Hiland and Upchurch said that in November 2017, the company discovered that Burdick and Lamb were ordering cellphones without the company’s authorization or knowledge. Burdick had worked for the company for 10 years, and Lamb had worked there for six years.
According to the officials, the men sold the phones over the internet, then would ship them to customers and receive payment through PayPal and Western Union. Most
of the phones were sent to a customer in Oregon who in turn shipped them to China.
Burdick and Lamb completed 283 transactions from 2013 through 2017, with most of the transactions including more than one cellphone, according to the authorities.
When they are sentenced on the morning of Sept. 10, each man faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000, to be followed by up to three years of supervised release.
They were jointly indicted March 6, 2019 by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Arkansas. If they hadn’t pleaded guilty, they were scheduled for a jury trial beginning Monday on the conspiracy charge as well as five counts each of aiding and abetting wire fraud.
According to the indictment, Burdick was the information technology infrastructure and facilities specialist, whose job was to ensure that employees had the technology needed to perform their jobs, which included having access to company smartphones. He made about $73,000 a year before bonuses.
Lamb was a local-area network/desktop specialist whose salary was $65,000 to $70,000 annually with overtime, before bonuses. His responsibilities included addressing the smartphone needs of employees.
The indictment alleged that they carried out the fraud scheme from June 2013 through November 2017, making about $600,000 altogether.
A pre-sentence report reviewing each man’s background will be considered, along with federal sentencing guidelines, to help determine their sentences.
At the plea hearing Friday, the government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat Harris. Lamb was represented by attorney Pat Benca of Little Rock, and Burdick was represented by attorney LaTrece Gray of the federal public defender’s office.