Four metro Atlanta men have been indicted by a federal grand jury in an alleged “ticket switching” scheme that began as far back as January 2011 and spread over nearly a dozen states.
Robert Lee Hatcher III, Willie Dewayne Lynch, Andrew Oliver and Arthur James Freeman were each charged with defrauding and conspiring to defraud Home Depot, United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates announced Friday.
“These defendants are charged with participating in a scheme to defraud Home Depot over a period of several years, in ten states that span as far north as Kentucky and North Carolina, all the way south to Florida and west to Texas,” she said in a press release.
Beginning in January 2011, Hatcher, Lynch and Oliver selected merchandise for purchase at Home Depot stores in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, Yates said. The men then covered the higher priced UPC labels on the items with labels from lower-priced merchandise, according to the release. The defendants allegedly purchased the items at the lower price and removed the lower-priced UPC label to reveal the original, higher-priced UPC label.
Without a receipt, the trio returned the fraudulently purchased merchandise to Home Depot for refund credit cards in the amount of the actual and higher retail price of the merchandise, authorities said.
Yates said Hatcher, Lynch and Oliver sold the refund credit cards to Arthur Freeman in exchange for less cash than the face value of the refund credit cards. Freeman then allegedly used the refund credit cards to purchase merchandise from Home Depot, which he used to stock two Bargain Wholesale stores he owns and operates in Atlanta.
Hatcher III, 31, Lynch, 29, and Freeman, 53, all of Atlanta, have been arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Justin S. Anand. Oliver, 61, of Stone Mountain, is still at large.
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