A Lawrenceville man pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and odometer tampering in Virginia, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Paul Robinson, 37, altered and replaced odometers in more than 100 used cars to “reflect a false, lower mileage” as owner of Affordable Auto Body Repair in Chesapeake, Virginia, according to a Justice Department release. After replacing the odometers, Robinson would obtain falsified car titles from former Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles clerk, Steven Bazemore, the release said. Robinson would then sell the vehicles to customers with the fraudulent documents.
Bazemore pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in the scheme in September 2016, and was sentenced to home confinement. He was also ordered to pay restitution to the vehicles’ purchasers. Robinson will be sentenced on June 8.
“No consumer makes such a significant purchase lightly and we have to be able to trust that a dealer is not selling one car and actually supplying a vastly inferior automobile paired with falsified title documents,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad Readler of the Justice Department’s Civil Division in the release.
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