NYC Feds Bag Bill Collection Outfit For Allegedly Running Racket That Ripped Off $31M+ From Thousands Across U.S.

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (New York City):

• Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced [] the unsealing of an indictment charging TRAVELL THOMAS, the co-owner, chief executive officer, and president of a Buffalo, New York-based debt collection company (the “Company”), MAURICE SESSUM, a co-owner and chief operating officer of the Company, [and others] with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a nationwide debt collection scheme that took in more than $31 million from thousands of victims across the United States.
  
  As alleged, the defendants tried to trick and coerce victims into making payments to the Company by making false threats and telling a host of lies, including that the Company was a law office and that warrants would be issued for the victims’ arrests if they failed to repay debts. Each of the individual defendants was arrested this morning and will be presented later today in federal court in Buffalo.
  
  Also unsealed [] were the guilty pleas of four Company employees – MARK LAVIN JOHN SALATINO, JESSICA MANN, and JENNIFER SHERK – for their participation in the fraudulent scheme. LAVIN, SALATINO, MANN, and SHERK each pled guilty pursuant to an information before U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla.
  
  
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  According to the allegations contained in the Indictment unsealed [] in Manhattan federal court[1]:
  
  Between 2010 and February 2015, the defendants routinely attempted to trick and coerce thousands of victims throughout the United States into paying millions of dollars in consumer debts through a variety of false statements and false threats. The defendants, using a variety of aliases, falsely told victims, among other things, that: (1) the Company was affiliated with local government and law enforcement agencies, including the “county” and the district attorney’s office; (2) the consumers had committed criminal acts, such as “wire fraud” or “check fraud,” and if they did not pay the debt immediately, warrants or other process would be issued, at which point they would be arrested or haled into court; (3) the victims would have their driver’s licenses suspended if they did not pay their debts immediately; (4) the Company was a law firm or mediation firm and that the Company’s employees were working with lawyers, a law firm, mediators, or arbitrators; and (5) a civil lawsuit would be filed, or was pending, against the victims for failing to pay their debts.
  
  Employees of the Company at times prepared and sent correspondence to victims that made it falsely appear that the Company was affiliated with the government or courts. The defendants also routinely used legal-sounding terminology to invent legitimate-sounding but bogus explanations for the supposed criminal or legal action that had been or would be initiated against the victims for failure to repay purported debts, including that the victim had “breached a contractual agreement,” committed “theft of goods and services,” and engaged in “malicious intent to defraud a financial institution.” The defendants used these quasi-legal terms to frighten and coerce victims into paying actual or purported debts.
  
  As a further part of the scheme, the defendants lied to victims by falsely inflating the balances of the debts so that they could collect more money from the victims than the victims actually owed, a practice known within the Company as “juicing” balances.

For more, see Manhattan U.S. Attorney Charges Fifteen Defendants In $31 Million Fraudulent And Coercive Debt (Believed to Be the Largest Debt Collection Scheme Ever Prosecuted).