A former Clayton County police officer has been sentenced to federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.
Andre Jackson, 56, of Fayetteville, was sentenced to three years and five months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and 120 hours of community service. Jackson was also ordered to pay $1,011,989.87 in restitution.
“It is reprehensible that a police officer would engage in behavior that violates the law,” acting U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine said in an emailed statement. “Jackson’s actions showed he did not have respect for the very thing he swore to uphold.”
According to prosecutors, Jackson and his co-conspirators recruited more than 10 people with good credit, including some of his police co-workers, to apply for loans to purchase luxury vehicles. Jackson and the other suspects said they planned to sublease the vehicles to people with poor credit. He also told the “straw purchasers” that one of the co-conspirators owned a car-leasing business, which would be responsible for servicing the vehicles, obtaining and paying for insurance on the vehicles, and paying the monthly loan payments.
Jackson and his co-conspirators promised to pay each straw purchaser as much as $5,000 for every loan they obtained, according to federal investigators. The scam lasted from approximately January 2015 through January 2017.
Jackson and his co-conspirators caused the straw purchasers to submit loan applications that contained false and fraudulent information concerning their income and employment. When the sales transactions were completed, Jackson and his cohorts took possession of the vehicles and then subleased the vehicles to third parties and did not make the loan payments as required.
Jackson was convicted in June after he pleaded guilty, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
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